Building Thresholds for Manual Journals

A single £50,000 journal may deserve attention. Twenty £4,000 journals from the same preparer on the same Friday afternoon may deserve more. Absolute thresholds alone reward fragmentation.

We favour layered rules: amount relative to account history, frequency relative to preparer norms, and timing relative to the close calendar. A posting that fails two layers earns review time; a posting that fails one layer stays in a watch list.

Thresholds should also expire. What looked unusual during a system migration may be ordinary six months later. Review the rule set after each major process change, not only once a year.

Document who can override a threshold and why. Overrides without a paper trail become the next audit finding.