Today I finally concluded my first foray into forensic accounting. We were tracking our buffer stock of diesel fuel for our 16 cars. Somehow, in the last 6 months, we have significantly eaten into our buffer.
That was my starting point. After that, it was up to me to find my way. I looked at fueling sheets documenting the day's fueling, logs of fillings of individual cars, organized by tank and date (we have two underground fuel storage tanks), computerized records of tank stock, and finally print outs of accounts that paid for fuel.
After the long and winding trail, and with collaboration from the coordination team in the capital, we successfully accounted for our entire buffer stock and located the departure from the projected norm.
Whew. And it was an innocent change in policy for March, concerning cost sharing between two projects, that threw us for a loop. No leaks, increased consumptions or lost records. Cool.
I feel like a detective. Insert dramatic montage of me pouring over records. How boring...
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