Field notes · 18 February 2026
Building a discrepancy register your auditor will reuse
Severity, source citation, and a remediation owner turn a pile of exceptions into something controllers can action.
A discrepancy register fails when it is only a list of wrong numbers. Controllers need severity, auditors need source citations, and billing clerks need a single owner for each fix.
Our registers use a stable set of columns:
- Subscriber ID and plan name
- Period and invoice reference
- Expected amount (with clause citation)
- Billed amount
- Difference and direction (over / under)
- Severity (material / watch / informational)
- Recommended correction
- Owner and target date
Severity is agreed at intake against a dollar threshold, so the register does not drown everyone in cents. Informational items still appear — they often reveal process habits worth changing — but they do not block sign-off.
When statutory auditors reuse the file, they care that expected amounts are recalculated from documents, not copied from management’s hope. Cite the PDF page or clause number. Future you will thank present you when the same question returns next year.