A comptroller is an official who supervises expenditures. Comptrollers include both royal-household officials and public comptrollers who audit government accounts and sometimes certify expenditures. A well-known comptroller in the United States is that of the government office of the Comptroller of the Currency.

A comptroller is also a controller, one of the chief financial officers in a corporation charged with managing the cash flows of the organization.

In the US government, the Comptroller General is the director of the Government Accountability Office (GAO), an agency founded in 1921 to ensure the accountability of the federal government.

The title of comptroller is also used in British Politics - the Comptroller of the Household is a senior Whip, a senior member of the Royal Household, though his duties in this regard are purely nominal. The Comptroller of the Lord Chamberlain's Office, however, is a full-time member of the Royal Household. His duties are concerned with the arrangement of ceremonial affairs rather than financial affairs.

The term comptroller (with French etymology) is often seen as an archaic term, but it is still a relatively common spelling of the job description. It is generally pronounced with a silent p, making it a homophone of the word controller. In the US however, it is common to pronounce the p.

See also

• Finance
• Accountancy
• Comptroller of the Household
• Money

External links

• US office of the Comptroller of the Currency

Accountancy