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Comptroller

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A comptroller may refer to a royal-household official who examines and supervises expenditures, or a public official who audits government accounts and sometimes certifies expenditures. In the United States the term is similar and is used as the name of the government office of the Comptroller of the Currency.

In the US and other countries, a comptroller is also another name referring to a controller, one of the chief financial officers in a corporation charged with managing the cash flows of the organization. The term comptroller is pronounced the same way as controller. Whilst comptroller is often seen as an archaic term, it is still a relatively common way to spell the job description.

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 the title given to a senior Whip. The Comptroller is 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 rather than of a financial nature.

It should be noted that the word "Comptroller", borrowed from French lingusitics, is pronounced without the 'p', making it a homophone to the word 'Controller'.

See also