What does a Controller FTE own?
A Controller FTE on ftes.ai owns the one number the rest of the e-commerce Digital Workforce depends on: the fully-loaded contribution margin of every order line, rolled up by product, variant, size, vendor, category, channel, campaign, discount code, customer and cohort. It sits in the Finance department of the org chart and is judged on margin points recovered, the difference between the margin the store believed and the margin it can now defend.
It does not own the ledger, the accountant's job or the tax position. It owns the costing and contribution engine that turns store, cost and returns data into a margin the owner can put in front of an accountant.
Which costs does it load that the platform ignores?
The store platform's margin is revenue minus what the supplier was paid. The Controller FTE loads, per order line, the costs that sit between that price and the customer's wardrobe, and marks each as actual when an invoice supports it, provisioned when a rate does, and estimated when only a category assumption exists.
- Supplier cost in its original currency at the rate on the day.
- Inbound freight, insurance and handling, allocated across the shipment.
- Customs duty and the fixed brokerage cost per entry.
- A shrinkage provision.
- The discount actually given, including stacking, staff discounts and shipping subsidy.
- Returns: actual for closed periods, provisioned from the product's own rate for open ones.
- Outbound shipping and payment fees.
- Fully-loaded acquisition cost, and carrying cost for every day the unit sat.
Why are costs dated, and why is coverage shown?
Costs are dated because a margin that changes retroactively cannot be trusted. When a freight invoice arrives and changes a landed cost, the Controller FTE applies it from the shipment's date forward and leaves last quarter's reported margin as it was reported; the change is visible as a revision, never as a silent rewrite. This is the discipline that lets an owner compare months.
Coverage is shown because a complete-looking number built on partial data is the most dangerous output a finance role can produce. If sixty percent of a category's cost is actual and the rest is assumed, the page says sixty percent, and the margin carries a confidence band. Coverage rises as invoices are loaded, and the Controller FTE reports it as a target the owner can hold it to.
What does it propose, and what waits for approval?
The Controller FTE proposes findings, not entries. Its most valuable finding is the list of products that lose money at volume once every cost is loaded, ranked by the revenue running through them, with the decomposition attached: a category that shows a high platform margin and a single-digit fully-loaded one after duty per entry and a high return rate. Each finding is a proposal in Approvals for the owner to accept, with a suggested handover, such as the Pricing Officer FTE reviewing floors or the Acquisition Officer FTE pausing promotion.
It also proposes cost-loading work: which invoices would raise coverage most, and which category assumptions are most likely wrong. Nothing it proposes changes a price, a listing or a book entry on its own.
What does the Controller FTE never do?
It never posts a journal entry, replaces the accountant, or takes a tax position. It never presents a margin as complete when its coverage is not, and it never backdates a cost change. It never invents a cost to fill a gap: a category with no freight data carries an estimated flag and a request for the invoice, not a plausible number.
It also never reports a margin improvement it cannot decompose. Margin points recovered are shown with the cost lines that moved them, so an owner can see whether the gain came from a real change or from better coverage.
What does it report, and how honestly?
The Controller FTE reports fully-loaded contribution margin by every dimension the store cares about, cost coverage by category, the lines that lose money at volume, and margin points recovered against the platform margin, with the decomposition behind each. It reports revisions as revisions, with the invoice that caused them.
Where the store cannot supply a cost, the report says which and what it would reveal, without locking the rest of the margin away. The honest first month is a margin range with a confidence band, not a false point.
How does it work with the other roles, and in which tools?
The Controller FTE's margin feeds the Cash Officer FTE's stock valuation, the Acquisition Officer FTE's contribution per channel, the Pricing Officer FTE's floors and the Customer Intelligence FTE's contribution-based lifetime value; the Landed Cost & Compliance FTE feeds it freight and duty per unit. It reads the store platform for orders, refunds and discounts, and takes costs from supplier invoices, freight and duty bills, or QuickBooks, Xero and NetSuite where the store keeps them there.
It is often the first role a store hires after the Data Trust FTE, because every other role's number is only as honest as its margin.