Comptroller
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.
*
Finance*
Accountancy*
Comptroller of the Household*
Money*
US office of the Comptroller of the Currency
