Field notes
Posting to the wrong cost center: how it starts and how to spot it
Approval and posting are related but not identical. An invoice can be correctly authorized and still land on the wrong cost center because the coder reused last month’s string.
Shared facilities invoices are frequent offenders: utilities, cleaning, and security billed once and split by estimate. If the estimate file is outdated, every posting inherits the error until someone notices a department’s margins drift.
A compact posting accuracy checklist for reviewers: compare the approved coding block to the GL export line; confirm tax codes match the vendor’s invoice footer; test whether project codes still exist in the chart; and flag round percentages that never change across months.
Correcting journals should cite the original voucher. Controllers in Kaohsiung who keep that discipline spend less time reconstructing history when external auditors ask later.
If your team only has time for one recurring check, pick the top twenty vendors by spend and trace one invoice each month. Concentration beats random sampling for catching structural coding habits.