Home Customer stories Corner Office (CFO) and financial controls

Case study

How The Corner Office (CFO) provide hardcoded financial controls for every client

We look at how a North American outsourced CFO firm uses ApprovalMax to encode client controls that pressure, fraud, and urgent emails can't override.

The Corner Office (CFO) was founded in Regina, Saskatchewan in 2013. The firm works primarily with mid-market construction and nonprofit companies. Their standard client package - QuickBooks Online Advanced, Dext, ApprovalMax, Plooto, and Syft Analytics - is consistent across the portfolio. Every team member works across all five tools daily.

Employees

QuickBooks Online

Accounting Platform

Accountancy

Industry

Saskatchewan, Canada

Location

Before ApprovalMax, effective approval processes at The Corner Office CFO’s client organizations were either missing or too weak to be effective. Invoices were reviewed in batches before a payment run. Sign-offs happened verbally or by email. There was no structure, no audit trail, and no way to prove that the right person had seen the right thing before money left the account.

For a firm acting as an outsourced CFO function, that lack of structure created a direct liability: no defensible record when questions arose.

Wire fraud was the sharper risk.

“We’ve had clients come to us after money was taken. Someone gets an urgent email request, large sums are wired, and the money is lost. Clients have come to us right after to get controls in place.”

The solution: ApprovalMax as financial infrastructure

The Corner Office (CFO) adopted ApprovalMax in 2021. The integration with QuickBooks Online Advanced and Dext worked from day one. But Trina Clairmont is clear that the value isn’t primarily technical.

"We don't treat internal controls as a compliance checkbox. We treat them as a core part of our financial infrastructure design."

When The Corner Office (CFO) implements ApprovalMax for a client, they are translating that client’s governance requirements into enforced workflows. They can’t be bypassed.

"We're essentially encoding their controls so they can't be overwritten by an urgent email request, or a moment of pressure."

Multi-tier workflows enforce segregation of duties: the person who enters a bill is not the person who approves it. For nonprofits, where board-level accountability is a governance requirement rather than a preference, ApprovalMax is standard on every engagement.

"Approvers only have access to ApprovalMax. There's no risk of them accessing information they don't need to see."

Approvers never need access to the core accounting software. Board members - often volunteers with no financial background - review and approve entirely within ApprovalMax.

For a firm operating as an outsourced CFO function, the audit trail in ApprovalMax isn’t a nice-to-have. It’s how they protect themselves and their clients. At year-end, when clients need to demonstrate that proper approvals were in place - to auditors, boards, or funders - the record is already there. It’s built automatically as a by-product of the normal process.

"The full audit trail is something we heavily rely on as an outsourced CFO team. It gives us the ability to review exactly who reviewed and approved what and when."

It also works as a deterrent.

"If any internal fraud situation arises, you just can't break through ApprovalMax controls. It gives our clients confidence that their financial controls are working even when no one is watching."

The results

QuickBooks Online Advanced doesn’t enforce department-level budgets natively. ApprovalMax fills that gap, routing spend to the budget owner responsible for it. Overspend is identified before it happens,. There’s no retrospective conversation about why the budget was blown.

The Corner Office (CFO) processes around 3,500 documents through ApprovalMax every quarter. The time that was previously spent on chasing approvals can now be spent on value-added advisory work. Setup is fast once the workflow is mapped - under an hour - to connect to Dext, set up the rules, invite users, and train the team.

“For our team, it’s the time savings - they’re significant. We spend less time chasing approvals and reconciling who authorized what, which gives us more time to focus on the high value advisory work. Business owners are more engaged in their financials because approvals land directly in front of them.”

But it extends to more than just reclaimed hours.

“ApprovalMax will save you time,” Trina concludes, “but more importantly, it will protect you from a fraud incident that could cost hundreds of thousands of dollars and your reputation. It really is a key tool to keep your business safe.”

Hardcoded financial controls

Approval workflows are encoded directly into each of The Corner Office (CFO) client's financial infrastructure, enforcing segregation of duties and making it impossible for urgent email requests, internal pressure, or fraud attempts to bypass the right sign-offs.

Fraud protection and audit-ready trails

Every approval is captured automatically, giving The Corner Office (CFO) and their clients a defensible record of who reviewed and approved what, and when. The same trail that satisfies auditors, boards, and funders at year-end also acts as a deterrent against internal fraud.

Time redirected to advisory work

Processing around 3,500 documents per quarter, the team spends far less time chasing approvals and reconciling who authorised what - freeing them up to focus on the high-value advisory work clients actually hire an outsourced CFO for.

Approval Automation

Streamline your approval processes with automated workflows.

Budget checking

Get a real-time overview of budgets during approvals.

Bill-to-PO matching

Easily match bills to purchase orders for accurate record-keeping.

Audit trails

Track all approval activity at any time for greater transparency and compliance.

Integration with any OCR

Pair ApprovalMax with any OCR tool to save time and reduce errors.

Never miss a thing

Approve from anywhere

What is Money Out?

The solution: ApprovalMax as financial infrastructure

The results