comptroller

Official title for a person who keeps or audits accounts, used mainly for government offices, or in connection with the royal household, when it refers to a kind of steward or treasurer. Thus the comptroller-general is the head of the National Debt Office, the comptroller and auditor-general the head of the National Audit Office. In business, comptroller is an alternative term for a financial director or the financial head of a group of companies. The term is more popular in the USA than in the UK.

A more correct spelling is ‘controller’, from the French contrerolle and the Medieval Latin contrarotulus, ‘a counter-roll or copy of a document used to check the original’. In this form it is applied to the controller of the Navy and to the head of the Stationery Office in Britain, and in the USA to the controller of the Treasury and the controller of the currency, the latter being one who administers the law relating to national banks.