# Unresolved Close Adjustments Before Reporting Deadline

**Synthetic practice case.** All organisations, roles, records and amounts are fictional. CU means fictional currency units. This learner file contains no facilitator solution. Work from the supplied evidence; uncertainty is intentional.

## Your job

You are the reviewing accountant at fictional Aster Quay Workshop. September 2026 management reporting is due at noon on 3 October. Prepare the controller's open-item decision brief. You may organise evidence and propose questions; you cannot approve journals, contact a bank or issue reports in this exercise.

## Evidence C1-E1 — frozen balances, 30 September

The ledger export at 18:00 shows bank account B01 at **128,400 debit CU**. The separately supplied bank statement closes at **133,900 positive CU**. Both cover the same entity/account/currency. These are supplied control totals, not a full transaction population. All later proposed entries below are absent from this ledger version.

## C1-E2 — preparer's reconciliation, version 2

Direction used: bank statement plus deposit in transit less outstanding payments equals expected ledger.

| Item | Amount CU | Original date | Preparer description |
| --- | ---: | --- | --- |
| D01 | +2,400 | 30 September | Deposit submitted after cut-off |
| P01 | -5,000 | 29 September | Supplier payment awaiting bank clearance |
| P02 | -2,000 | 30 September | Payment sent; treasury later says cancelled |
| P03 | -1,200 | 27 June | Old supplier payment, carried forward |
| X01 | +300 | not supplied | “Historic timing adjustment” entered to reach ledger |

No evidence reference or owner is recorded for X01. The reconciliation is labelled “complete”; reviewer signature is blank.

## C1-E3 — limited subsequent records

- Bank advice identifies debit ADJ-930 for 300 on 30 September, included in the closing bank balance. Its description is “account adjustment”; fee/return classification is not explained. No matching ledger transaction is identified in the supplied extract.
- Bank advice on 1 October shows P01 cleared once for 5,000. A treasury spreadsheet repeats that event on two rows with the same bank event ID. The spreadsheet is not a second bank confirmation.
- A 2 October bank credit matches D01 for 2,400 by deposit reference.
- The bank excerpt supplied through 2 October does not show P02 or P03. Later records are unavailable.

## C1-E4 — fictional internal messages

Treasury, 2 October: “P02 was probably cancelled. I cannot find the cancellation reference yet.”

Accounts payable, 2 October: “The supplier says it has not received P02. P03 may have been reissued, but I have not checked the payment register.”

Finance manager, 3 October: “Please clear the 300 so the bank review is green. We also need to release the unused maintenance accrual to stay within budget.”

These are assertions requiring corroboration, not authorisation or external evidence.

## C1-E5 — proposed journals, not posted

| Proposal | Debit | Credit | Amount CU | Support / approval |
| --- | --- | --- | ---: | --- |
| J01 | Miscellaneous expense | Bank B01 | 300 | “Clear reconciliation”; controller approval absent |
| J02 | Maintenance accrual liability | Maintenance expense | 6,000 | “Service not used”; controller approval absent |

J02 concerns a 6,000 accrual already in the ledger. A purchase order refers to September maintenance. A supplier email says work took place on 28 September; the operations note says “some tasks still outstanding”. No signed acceptance, itemised invoice or quantified completion schedule is supplied.

## C1-E6 — supplied exercise policy, not a legal/accounting standard

The fictional organisation requires event support, calculation, accounting rationale, independent review and an actual approval record for journals. Unexplained reconciliations remain visible to the controller. Thresholds prioritise review, not permission to ignore missing support. The exercise supplies no universal materiality threshold or full financial-reporting framework; do not invent either.

## Work to produce

1. Reperform the bank bridge with and without X01. Preserve original figures and a signed residual.
2. Classify each item as supported within limits, asserted, conflicting or unresolved. Record age, clearance evidence and missing evidence.
3. Challenge J01 and J02 separately: calculation, event, period, policy evidence, uncertainty and approval.
4. Explain what must remain open in the controller pack and who should obtain the next evidence. Decide what you would recommend, without claiming an actual controller decision.
5. Use the Account Reconciliation Review Record and Period-End Close Evidence and Controller Review Record. If using AI, identify which observations you independently checked.

Do not force a balancing plug, infer fraud, or equate the reporting deadline with approval. More than one bounded recommendation may be defensible; unexplained evidence cannot be described as resolved.