How a financial controller buys a seat in the room
$370,780top of the range in New York · middle $166,570 / yr
AI augments this role
Financial Controllers in the United States earn a median of $166,570 a year. Pay starts near $94,310. Pay reaches $370,780 at the top of the range in New York, the best-paying state for this work among those with at least 500 people in the job.
Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025 (Financial Managers, SOC 11-3031). Last checked 9 September 2026.
Entry level
$94,310
Top of the range · New York
$370,780
Education
Bachelor's degree in Accounting
Wages — U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025 (Financial Managers). Top of the range is the highest state-level figure among states with at least 500 people in the job. AI-impact rating is PayCrunch's editorial assessment. Updated September 2026.
🆕 New & Trending AI Tools for Financial ControllerReviewed September 2026
We track new AI-tool launches every week and refresh this list — here’s what’s gaining traction for Financial Controller work right now.
NumericNEWPaid / see site
AI-driven month-end close, reconciliation, and reporting.
How a Financial Controller uses it: automate reconciliations and close the books faster
HebbiaNEWEnterprise / see site
AI that reads and analyzes large financial documents and filings.
How a Financial Controller uses it: pull answers out of contracts, filings, and reports in minutes
NotebookLMNEWFree / $7.99 mo
Google tool that answers questions grounded only in the documents you give it — with citations.
How a Financial Controller uses it: load your own manuals, policies, or PDFs and ask questions that stay accurate to the source
MindBridgeEnterprise / see site
AI that scans transactions for anomalies, errors, and fraud risk.
How a Financial Controller uses it: flag risky or unusual entries across the whole ledger, not just a sample
Vic.aiEnterprise / see site
Autonomous accounts-payable and invoice processing.
How a Financial Controller uses it: let AI code and process invoices with minimal manual entry
RampFree core / paid
Finance platform with AI that automates expenses and spend controls.
How a Financial Controller uses it: auto-categorize spend and catch policy issues in real time
Power BI Copilot$10+ mo
Microsoft analytics with AI that builds dashboards and explains trends.
How a Financial Controller uses it: ask questions of financial data and get charts and forecasts back
ChatGPTFree / $20 mo
The most-used AI assistant — writing, analysis, research, and images from a plain-language chat.
How a Financial Controller uses it: draft emails and documents, summarize long files, and get instant answers to on-the-job questions
ClaudeFree / $20 mo
AI assistant known for careful writing, long-document analysis, and coding.
How a Financial Controller uses it: analyze big reports or spreadsheets and turn messy notes into clean, finished writing
Close week, on purpose
A financial controller's signature week is the close. The period ends, the subledgers stop moving, and the team has a short list of days to turn activity into numbers the company will stand behind. You set the calendar before the month ends: who reconciles cash, who ties out revenue, who reviews payroll accruals, who has the right to post a journal entry after the soft close. You walk the open points each morning. A stuck reconciliation is a conversation, not a surprise on day five. You decide which variances need a story and which ones are noise. You sign, or you refuse to sign, when a schedule still has a plug you cannot explain.
The close is a production process with a principle under it. The numbers have to be complete, they have to tie, and they have to be ready for someone outside the team to follow. That means cutoffs you enforce, accounts you assign to a named person, and a review that is real. A controller who "helps" by quietly fixing entries at midnight without telling the senior accountant trains the team to stay sloppy. A controller who asks why the entry exists, and who then lets the accountant correct it, builds a close that survives vacation and turnover. The work is repetitive on purpose. Repetition is how a company gets a profit and loss statement, a balance sheet, and a cash flow statement that belong to the same month.
A treasurer who lives in banking relationships and liquidity, and a branch manager who lives in a retail lobby, hold different chairs. The controller's chair is the one that produces the numbers. You may talk to the bank because a covenant calculation needs a figure you own. You do not spend your week as the banker or as the person running a branch floor. When the close is late, the company feels it in the board pack, in the lender package, and in every operator who was promised a result on Thursday.
Audit support is its own season
External auditors arrive with a list. They want schedules that tie to the trial balance, memos that explain a judgment, and a person who can walk them through how a number was born. Audit support is the controller's second season, and it punishes the team that treated the close as a scramble. You assign each request to the accountant who actually did the work. You read the response before it goes out, because a sloppy schedule becomes a finding. You sit in the walkthrough and you let the staff speak when they are the ones who know the system. You step in when the question is about policy, about a significant estimate, or about something the company chose and must now defend.
Internal audit and lenders create similar seasons on a smaller scale. A covenant certificate needs the same discipline as a footnote. A due-diligence room, if the company is raising money or selling a piece of itself, needs a controller who can produce history without rewriting it. Your job in all of these rooms is support in the strict sense: the record, the explanation, and a team that is not guessing. You also listen. Auditors sometimes see a process risk the close calendar hid. A good controller writes that down and changes the next close, instead of treating every comment as an insult.
The management report
Once the books are closed, leaders want a management report, not a trial balance dropped into a slide. The report says what the month did, how it compared with the plan and with last year, where cash went, and which explanations are solid. You decide the handful of points that matter. A plant missed volume. A discount leaked. A hiring plan ran ahead of revenue. You attach backup for the person who will challenge you, and you keep the front of the report short enough that a CEO will actually read it. The controller is often the voice in the room when finance presents. You should be able to say "I do not know yet" and follow it with the day you will know.
The report is also where accounting judgment becomes visible. Revenue timing, reserves, capitalization, and one-time costs need a sentence a non-accountant can repeat. If you bury a change in estimate inside a favorable variance, you have written a report that will fail the next question. Write the change in the open. Tell the leadership team what it does to the year. Then live with the discussion. Controllers who are trusted get argued with. Controllers who surprise people get replaced. The management report is the artifact of that trust, month after month, including the months when the news is dull.
The team that produces the numbers
None of this is a solo performance. A controller leads the people who produce the numbers: staff accountants, senior accountants, payroll if it sits in finance, and often an assistant controller who can run a close when you are with the auditors. You hire for accuracy and for the ability to explain. You review work in a way that teaches. You set a close checklist the team helped write, so the list matches the real system rather than a fantasy process from your last company. You notice who is underwater in week one and you move work before the person breaks. You also notice who is ready for a harder schedule, and you give it to them with your name still on the review.
The management part of the title is the hard part for accountants who loved the technical work and hoped leadership would stay light. It will not stay light. You will mediate between a sales leader who wants revenue recognized now and an accountant who has read the contract. You will tell a founder that a number they like is not ready. You will build a bench so the company is not one resignation away from a late close. Systems sit in this job too: the ledger, the close tool, the way a subsidiary reports in. You do not have to be the person who configures every field. You do have to know whether the team trusts the system or keeps a shadow workbook that will betray you at audit.
The CPA, and the board that grants it
The credential companies expect in this chair is the Certified Public Accountant license. A state board of accountancy grants it. The exam most candidates sit is the Uniform CPA Examination, with the American Institute of CPAs and the National Association of State Boards of Accountancy, NASBA, in the machinery around that exam and the boards. The license proves you met that state's requirements to practice as a CPA: the education the board requires, the exam, the experience a licensed accountant supervised, and the ethics obligations the board enforces. It is a license, which means it can be current or it can lapse, and employers will check.
People prepare through an accounting degree, through the experience a board will count, and through study aimed at the exam the board uses. States differ on the details, so the honest instruction is to read the board that would license you, not a generic checklist from a forum. Quoting one hour total as if it were national would mislead you. Some controllers also hold the Certified Management Accountant credential from the Institute of Management Accountants, which speaks to managerial finance more than to the license to sign attest work. Useful, and still secondary in most controller searches. The CPA is the mark that unlocks the interview. The close you have actually run is what wins it.
How companies hire a controller
A CFO, a founder, or a search firm hires this role when the company has outgrown a bookkeeper-plus-outside-accountant arrangement, or when the last controller left and the close wobbled. They look for a CPA, for a close you ran rather than merely attended, for audit experience from the company side or the firm side, and for a team you have supervised. Industry matters some. A software company's revenue arrangements and a manufacturer's inventory are different technical worlds. You can cross them. You should say which one you know cold. They will test judgment. Expect a messy revenue question, a cash-flow question, and a people question about an accountant who misses deadlines and is beloved anyway.
The path into the chair usually runs through public accounting or through a company's own accounting ranks. Senior auditor to accounting manager to assistant controller to controller is a common road. Senior accountant to accounting manager to controller is another, especially in smaller companies where the controller still touches the statements directly. Some people come from internal audit. Few arrive from a sales job with a sudden interest in reconciliations. If you are an assistant controller, ask to own a full close cycle in the CFO's absence, and keep the management report you wrote. That packet is the portfolio. If you are a manager in a large department, ask for the subsidiary or the process that has a real close, not only a slice of accounts payable.
Later careers move toward a larger company, a multi-entity group, or a CFO seat. Some controllers stay controllers because they like the craft of the statements more than the broader executive job. Either choice is respectable. What ages badly is a controller who stops reading the work and only attends meetings. The team can tell. The auditors can tell. Stay close enough to the numbers that a surprise still has your fingerprints on the review.
May 2025 pay, and an offer that matches the chair
The wage figures are Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025, for Financial Managers. That occupation is wider than this chair. Read the dollars with the controller's work in mind: the close, the audit support, the management report, and the team that produces the numbers. The entry figure is $94,310. The national median is $166,570. The high end of the published range in New York is $370,780, in the states the Bureau could measure when it published a high end. New York's median is a different statistic. It is $219,880. From entry to the national median is $72,260. From the national median to the New York high end is $204,210. From the national median to New York's median is $53,310.
Other medians, each a middle: Massachusetts $206,760, New Jersey $199,110, the District of Columbia $188,880, and Virginia $185,220. The lowest published median is Puerto Rico, at $90,660. The gap between New York's median and Puerto Rico's median is $129,220. Keep the kinds of figures straight when you talk. A state median is the middle of published pay in that place. The $370,780 figure is the high end of the published range in New York. Treating the high end as if it were New York's median will not survive a CFO who has seen the table.
A first controller offer, especially at a smaller company, can be set against the entry figure of $94,310 and the national median of $166,570. The $72,260 between them is the zone where scope decides the number. If you will own the close, the audit, the management report, and a team, and the offer sits on the entry figure, say that the national median is $166,570 and ask which parts of that scope the company is pricing at an entry rate. Bring the closes you have run and the headcount you have led. If the company is early and the base cannot reach the median, ask what else is written down: a review date, a bonus target stated in dollars, or a title path. "Controller" on a card with bookkeeper pay is a mismatch you should name.
Place is the next comparison, using medians only. New York's median of $219,880 sits $53,310 above the national median. That $53,310 is a grounded way to discuss a New York controller package. Massachusetts at $206,760, New Jersey at $199,110, the District of Columbia at $188,880, and Virginia at $185,220 are the same kind of middle for those places. Puerto Rico's median of $90,660, and the $129,220 spread from there to New York's median, shows how far two middles can sit apart. Quote the median for the place the job actually occupies. Do not borrow New York's median for a role that will close the books somewhere else.
The high end, $370,780, belongs in a narrow talk: a large, complex controllership already in New York, with a team and a report the board relies on, where your record matches that scope. Name the figure as the high end of the published range in New York, and keep New York's median of $219,880 in the same sentence so nobody confuses them. The distance from the national median to that high end is $204,210, which is too wide to wave around as a casual counteroffer. Most controllers will do better with one sturdy comparison. Entry to national median, $72,260, when the chair is new to you. National median to the relevant state median when the job sits in one of the places above. Then stop talking numbers and talk about the close calendar, the audit, and the team. Those are the duties the offer is buying.
The top of Financial Controller pay — and how to get there with AI
$370,780what Financial Controller pay reaches in New York
Highest state-level top-of-range annual wage for Financial Managers, among states with at least 500 people in the job. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025.
And the role it leads to — Chief Executives — reaches $772,840 in Oregon.
$94,310entry$166,570middle$370,780top end
What separates the top of this range from the middle is not a tidier ledger but whether the financial controller is the person who answers the regulator and stands up in front of the people whose money it is.
The transaction queue eats the week: invoice capture, receivables chasing, payroll runs, the same reconciliations every period. Document capture through ReadSoft, credit management software and ADP Workforce Now have shortened that queue considerably, and Power Automate closes the gaps between the systems. The work that the top of the range actually pays for sits elsewhere: preparing for and responding to regulatory inquiries, presenting product risks and fund performance to investors, and monitoring whether committed money is still inside its risk goals. The capacity gain is real. It only converts if you say out loud what you spent it on.
Your playbook, by where you are now
Just startingMeasure the queue before you shrink it
Count what each part of your queue processes in a month, and how many items a person touches more than once.
Put invoice capture through ReadSoft and stop rekeying anything a machine can already read.
Connect the receivables and credit management systems with Power Automate, so a status change stops requiring an email.
Record the hours you removed each month, dated and tied to the named process, because nobody will reconstruct that later for you.
What proves it: A dated ledger of processes automated and hours released, verifiable by whoever used to do them.
Realistic span: months one through eighteen
A few years inSpend the capacity where the risk sits
Take one regulatory filing or inquiry response end to end, including deciding what is disclosed and when.
Build the monitoring that shows whether individual investments are still inside their stated risk goals, and circulate it without being asked.
Ask Microsoft Copilot to summarise a change in tax law or reporting rules, then read the rule itself before you act on a word of it.
Volunteer for the research behind one valuation call, the detailed company or industry analysis nobody has room for.
Reconcile human resources data from ADP Workforce Now against the ledger yourself, since payroll is where surprises hide.
What proves it: A regulatory response filed under your name, and a risk monitoring pack in regular circulation.
Realistic span: years two through six
ExperiencedSay it to the investors yourself
Present fund performance, fee structures and product risks in person rather than preparing slides for somebody else to read.
Sit where the investment mix is chosen and be able to defend the operational numbers behind every option on the table.
Take the finance function of an acquisition or a new fund, which is how a remit widens without waiting for a vacancy.
Write the scope you want, using the capacity ledger as the argument, and hand it to the person who signs it.
The highest pay for this work sits in New York, and controllers who present their own numbers are the ones considered for chief executive roles.
What proves it: A written remit covering regulatory response and investor communication, not only reporting.
Realistic span: year seven and after
The next 90 days
Spend ninety days building a capacity ledger and one filing. The ledger is a single sheet: every recurring process in your queue, how many items it handles, how long it takes, and who touches it. Automate the two worst entries, then write down what you got back in hours per month, dated. The filing is the harder half. Ask for the next regulatory inquiry or return that comes through, and own the whole thing rather than assembling pieces for someone else to sign. When the review comes, you will have both a number and a piece of work that only a person with a seat at the table normally does.
Wage figures: BLS OEWS, May 2025. The playbook is PayCrunch editorial guidance, not a guarantee of pay or placement.
Every figure is the national median from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (OEWS) shown on that role’s own page.
Never used AI before? Start here (2 minutes).
Start inside your reporting stack. Turn on the AI in the tools that already hold your governed numbers — Datarails, Cube, Prophix, or your ERP's reporting AI — so consolidation and commentary run on data that stays controlled. Pick your slowest part of the reporting cycle and let the tool take a first pass this close.
For board narratives, forecasts, and analysis, use Claude or ChatGPT on enterprise plans (anonymized, never unreleased figures) to draft and pressure-test. You own every number and every forward-looking statement; AI accelerates the consolidation, the commentary, and the modeling.
The one rule, forever: Never paste unreleased results, confidential financials, or PII into a consumer AI tool — use enterprise plans or the AI built into your consolidation and FP&A platforms. Every AI-built consolidation, forecast, or board narrative is a draft you reconcile and verify before it reaches the board or investors; you own the accuracy of the numbers and every forward-looking statement made from them.
The plays — exact steps, exact prompts
Do these in order. Each one is copy-paste ready. You do not need to know anything about AI going in.
1
Automate multi-entity consolidation
Why this pays: Rolling up multiple entities, currencies, and intercompany eliminations is the financial controller's heaviest recurring lift, and doing it in spreadsheets is slow and fragile. Purpose-built consolidation with AI-assisted mapping cuts the cycle dramatically and reduces error — freeing you from the mechanics to focus on what the consolidated numbers mean, which is the top-of-band work.
CubeProphixSage Intacct
1
Move consolidation into a dedicated tool (Cube, Prophix, or your ERP) so entity roll-ups, currency translation, and intercompany eliminations run on rules instead of fragile spreadsheet links.
2
Use AI to stress-test the consolidation logic before you rely on it.
Copy-paste this prompt
Act as a consolidation accountant. We consolidate [4] entities across [USD and EUR] with intercompany transactions. Here is our approach: [describe the mapping, elimination, and translation steps]. List where this process is most likely to produce errors — currency translation, intercompany mismatches, mapping gaps, timing — and the specific check or reconciliation to add at each step to catch them before reporting.
Reconcile the consolidated output to the entity trial balances every period — never trust a roll-up you have not tied out.
3
Reconcile the consolidated result to source entities and document the tie-out for audit.
What you'll haveA fast, reliable consolidation that ties out every period — the reporting engine that frees a financial controller for higher-value work.
2
Build board and investor reporting packs
Why this pays: The board and investor reporting pack is the financial controller's most visible product, and a clear, insightful one builds the credibility that gets you a seat at the strategy table. AI drafts the narrative and assembles the visuals from your numbers, so you deliver a polished, story-driven pack in a fraction of the time — presence that lifts the role toward the top of the band.
DatarailsMicrosoft Power BIGamma
1
Build the recurring pack in Power BI or Datarails so charts and KPIs refresh from actuals, then use Gamma to turn the numbers into a clean board deck structure.
2
Have AI draft the board narrative from your results.
Copy-paste this prompt
Act as a financial controller preparing a board pack. Here are this quarter's consolidated results vs plan and prior year: [paste anonymized figures]. Write the financial section narrative for a board audience: the headline story, performance vs plan with the real drivers, the balance sheet and cash position, the key risks, and what we are asking the board to weigh in on. Confident, concise, and honest about the misses.
Never put unreleased results into a consumer tool — use an enterprise plan and anonymize. Verify every figure in the final pack ties to the ledger.
3
Tie every number in the pack back to the consolidation, and make the narrative your own before it goes to the board.
What you'll haveA polished, insight-driven board pack produced fast — the executive presence that earns a financial controller a strategy seat and top-of-band comp.
3
Model cash flow and run scenarios
Why this pays: Cash is what a business actually runs on, and a controller who can forecast it and model scenarios becomes indispensable in planning and downturns. AI accelerates the modeling and the sensitivity analysis, so you can answer what if in minutes — the forward-looking capability that turns a reporting role into a strategic finance partnership.
CubeDatarailsMicrosoft Copilot (Excel)
1
Build a driver-based cash-flow model in Cube, Datarails, or Excel so a change in an assumption flows through to the cash position automatically.
2
Use AI to design the scenarios and pressure-test the model.
Copy-paste this prompt
Act as a strategic finance partner. Here is our cash-flow model and its key assumptions: [describe drivers — revenue, collections timing, headcount, capex]. Design three scenarios (base, downside, upside): the specific assumption changes for each, the impact on runway and covenant headroom, and the early-warning metrics I should watch. Flag which assumptions the outcome is most sensitive to.
Sensitivities are only as good as the model — verify the driver logic and confirm the assumptions with the business owners.
What you'll haveCredible cash forecasts and instant scenario answers — the forward-looking partnership that moves a financial controller toward the top of the band.
4
Write variance and margin analysis narratives
Why this pays: Leadership does not want a variance table — it wants to know why and what to do. AI turns actuals-vs-plan data into a clear narrative of drivers, timing, and margin trends, so you deliver insight, not just figures. Being the person who explains the business, not just reports it, is the value-add that grows the role beyond the ledger.
Microsoft Copilot (Excel)ClaudeVena
1
Assemble actuals vs plan by segment with margin bridges, then use AI to draft the explanation leadership will actually read.
2
Prompt AI for a driver-based narrative you then verify.
Copy-paste this prompt
Act as an FP&A partner. Here are our results by product line with gross margin vs plan: [paste anonymized data]. Write a concise analysis: the biggest margin movements, whether each is volume, price, mix, or cost, the likely root cause, and the one question I should ask each business owner. Separate what the data shows from what is a hypothesis to confirm.
The drivers are hypotheses until confirmed with the business — do not present AI's guess at causation as fact.
What you'll haveReporting that explains margins and drivers, not just tallies them — the insight that turns a financial controller into a trusted business partner.
5
Improve working capital and finance automation
Why this pays: Faster collections, tighter payables, and automated finance workflows free up cash and cut the manual load on the team. AI-enabled AR/AP tools predict payment timing and automate routine work, so the controller delivers a working-capital improvement leadership can see on the cash line — a concrete, defensible win that supports top-of-band comp.
TesorioRampBill.com
1
Use AR automation (Tesorio) to predict payment timing and prioritize collections, and Ramp or Bill.com to automate and control payables and expenses.
2
Use AI to find the working-capital opportunities in your data.
Copy-paste this prompt
Act as a working capital analyst. Here is our AR aging and DSO trend, and our AP terms: [paste anonymized data]. Identify the biggest opportunities to improve cash conversion — slow-paying segments, discount capture, payment-term renegotiation, collections process gaps — quantify the potential cash freed, and give a prioritized action plan with the risk of each move.
Weigh customer and vendor relationships before acting — a collections push that wins cash but loses a client is not a win.
What you'll haveMeasurably freed-up cash and a leaner finance workflow — the working-capital win that shows on the cash line and supports top-of-band pay.
6
Streamline the close and reporting controls
Why this pays: Board-ready reporting depends on a fast, controlled close underneath it. Tightening the reporting close and its controls — with AI orchestrating tasks and flagging anomalies — means the numbers are reliable and on time, which is the prerequisite for everything else a financial controller is trusted to do.
FloQastNetSuiteClaude
1
Orchestrate the reporting close in FloQast or your ERP with clear owners and dependencies, and turn on anomaly detection so surprises surface before the pack goes out.
2
Use AI to find where the reporting close loses days.
Copy-paste this prompt
Act as an accounting operations expert. Here is our close-to-report timeline: [paste anonymized steps and durations]. Identify the critical path to a finalized board pack, the bottlenecks, which steps can be automated or moved earlier (continuous close), and a plan to shorten the cycle by [3] days without weakening controls. Flag any change that affects segregation of duties.
Protect controls over speed — confirm every change preserves review and segregation of duties before adopting it.
What you'll haveA faster, reliable close feeding board-ready numbers on time — the disciplined foundation that lets a financial controller operate at the top of the band.
Your 12-month sequence to the top of the range
How the plays above stack into a path from median pay toward the $370,780 tier.
Month 1
Turn on AI inside your governed reporting stack — Datarails, Cube, Prophix, or your ERP — and let it take a first pass at your slowest reporting step.
Months 1-2
Move consolidation into a dedicated tool, stress-test the logic with AI, and reconcile every roll-up to source.
Months 2-3
Rebuild the board pack with refreshable visuals and an AI-drafted narrative you tie out and own.
Months 3-4
Stand up a driver-based cash-flow model and use AI to run base, downside, and upside scenarios.
Months 4-6
Automate AR/AP for a working-capital win and tighten the reporting close with AI orchestration.
Months 6-12
Become the board-facing, forecasting partner leadership leans on — the step that moves a financial controller toward $370,780.
Next steps for a Financial Controller
Some links below are affiliate or partner links. PayCrunch may earn a commission if you enroll or subscribe through them, at no extra cost to you. Wage figures on this page still come from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, not from these programs.
Financial Controller work is specific enough that a stamped 'check out these courses' block would be noise. BLS files this work as Financial Managers (SOC 11-3031). O*NET Job Zone 4 is typical: a bachelor's degree, so the honest next credential is a professional certificate or bachelor's-level coursework — not a random catalog dump.
The occupation's listed knowledge area is Economics and Accounting, which is what the course searches below actually query.
Financial Controllers in this dataset list Alteryx software among the tools in use, so a program that names that stack is a better fit than a survey course.
Coursera search for economics and accounting — a professional certificate or bachelor's-level coursework that lines up with management, not a generic professional-development aisle.
FlexJobs screens remote, hybrid, freelance, and flexible listings so you are not wading through unverified ads. This is a job-board search for Financial Controller work, not a claim that they list a counted SOC 11-3031 inventory.
Write a Financial Controller resume, or one aimed at Chief Executives, instead of a blank template. Resume Now is a resume builder; we are not claiming a counted template set for this SOC.
A Financial Controller resume that names the actual tasks on this page, or the step-up title Chief Executives, beats a blank template when you apply.
What Financial Controllers earn by state
These are the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ own figures for Financial Managers, state by state — not a cost-of-living adjustment applied to the national number. Only states employing at least 500 people in the occupation are shown, because a state median drawn from a handful of workers is noise rather than a signal.
New York
$219,880
highest of them · +32% vs the national median
Puerto Rico
$90,660
lowest of the 52 states and territories that qualify · -46% vs the national median
The same job pays $129,220 more a year at the median in New York than in Puerto Rico — 143% higher. That gap is what the Bureau measured, before any question of what it costs to live in either place. New York also carries the top of this job’s range, $370,780 — the figure quoted at the head of this page.
Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025, SOC 11-3031. 52 states and territories clear the 500-employee reporting floor for this occupation; those below it are left out rather than shown with a wide error band.
Free data. Use any of it.
PayCrunch publishes verified, BLS-sourced salary + AI-playbook data on 1,000+ professions — free, no signup.
No — but it is reshaping the job. AI can consolidate entities, draft a board narrative, and run scenarios, but it cannot own the accuracy of the numbers, make the judgment calls on forecasts, or stand behind a forward-looking statement to the board — that accountability is the controller's. What it does is automate the consolidation and reporting mechanics, which frees the financial controller to be the board-facing, forecasting partner the top of the band pays for.
How is a financial controller different from a controller here?
They overlap, and titles vary by company — but the leverage points differ. A controller's playbook centers on the internal close, reconciliations, technical accounting, and controls. A financial controller's centers on consolidation, board and investor reporting, cash-flow forecasting, and partnering with FP&A on the forward story. Both use AI to automate the mechanics; the financial controller's top-of-band path leans more toward the board-facing, forward-looking work.
Is it safe to use AI for board reporting and forecasts?
With the right setup, yes. Use the AI in your consolidation and FP&A platforms where data stays controlled, or enterprise plans with data-retention controls, and never put unreleased results into a consumer chatbot. Treat every AI-built consolidation, forecast, or narrative as a draft you tie out to the ledger and verify. AI drafts the story; you certify the numbers and own every forward-looking statement.
Can AI really do consolidation and cash-flow modeling?
It accelerates them meaningfully — mapping entities, drafting elimination logic, building driver-based models, and running scenarios far faster than by hand. But it does not replace your reconciliation and judgment: you must tie the consolidated output to source entities and confirm the model's assumptions with the business. Used that way, AI turns a multi-day roll-up and a static model into a fast, flexible reporting engine.
How does using AI actually raise a financial controller's pay?
By buying back time and redirecting it forward. When AI compresses consolidation, reporting, and modeling, the financial controllers who reach $370,780 use the reclaimed time to become the board-facing, forecasting partner leadership steers by — clearer reporting, credible scenarios, working-capital wins, and a story the board trusts. Running a fast reporting engine and adding forward-looking judgment on top is exactly what commands the top of the band.
Methodology & sources
Salary (median, 10th, top of the range) — U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, OEWS.
By state — the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ own state medians, limited to states employing at least 500 people in the occupation. No cost-of-living arithmetic is applied to a wage anywhere on this page.
The plays — PayCrunch's own step-by-step guidance using publicly available AI tools. Tool names/URLs are real and current as of August 2026; prompts written to work as-is. Verify any professional output before relying on it.