internal-controls-library

name

internal-controls-library

description

Library of internal controls embedded in finance / accounting workflows. Segregation of duties, maker-checker, approval thresholds, supplier and payroll master-data controls, petty cash and cash drawer controls, inventory master-data controls, tax / rate table controls, audit-log review, exception monitoring, fraud / error indicators. Use whenever designing or reviewing access control, approval, audit trail, fraud detection, or internal-control attestation in a finance / accounting context.

Internal Controls Library

Overview

Internal controls are embedded in workflows, not written only as policy text. Each control has: trigger, owner, mechanism, evidence, review cadence, exception handling, and audit-log linkage.

Required first reads

• doctrine/accounting-finance-doctrine.md
• doctrine/references/ledger-invariants.md
• doctrine/references/role-conditioned-shell.md
• doctrine/references/required-patterns.md
• doctrine/references/forbidden-patterns.md

Core controls

Segregation of duties (SoD)

Maker, checker, approver, accountant, controller, auditor, administrator. Same person cannot end-to-end:

• Create a supplier and approve a payment to that supplier.
• Post a journal and approve it.
• Modify payroll master and approve a payroll run.
• Reopen a locked period and post into it.
• Edit a tax rate and produce a tax return that uses it.

The role registry enforces the conflicts.

Maker-checker

Applies to: payments, refunds, credit notes, manual journals, opening balances, tax settings, supplier master changes, payroll master changes, period reopen, allocation rules.

Maker creates → status awaiting-approval → checker reviews → status approved → posting service commits → status posted.

Approval thresholds

Configured per entity, per action, per role. E.g.:

• Cashier refund ≤ UGX 50,000 self-approved.
• Manager refund ≤ UGX 500,000 manager-approved.
• Accountant refund ≤ UGX 5,000,000 accountant + controller.
• Above threshold: controller + CFO.

Thresholds carry verification-current state (rates change; verify at adoption).

Supplier master-data controls

• Adding a supplier requires Accountant + Controller approval.
• Changing supplier bank or mobile-money details requires re-approval and a confirmation by independent contact.
• Master-data change history retained.
• Duplicate detection on add (name / TIN / bank account).

Payroll master-data controls

• New employee setup: HR + Payroll + Accountant.
• Salary change: HR + Payroll + Accountant; reviewed by Controller monthly.
• Recipient (bank / mobile-money) change: confirmation by employee plus HR.
• Termination: HR + Payroll; final-pay reviewed.

Petty cash controls

• Imprest amount fixed per location.
• Reconciliation cadence: weekly minimum.
• Replenishment via approved expense report.
• Cash count by independent role periodically.

Cash drawer controls

• Cash drawer opened by cashier (recorded).
• Close drawer: counted vs computed; variance flagged.
• Variance > threshold escalates to manager.
• Drawer cannot be closed silently with variance.

Inventory master-data controls

• New SKU / item: Inventory Manager + Accountant.
• UOM change: Inventory Manager + Accountant + Controller (because of historic cost effect).
• Valuation method per item-class fixed by entity policy.
• Obsolescence / write-off: Inventory Manager + Accountant.
• Standard cost change: Inventory Manager + Controller; effective dated; legacy unaffected.

Tax / rate table controls

• Tax rate add or change: Tax Reviewer + Controller.
• Source-register entry required.
• Effective period must be specified.
• Recheck date set per live-rate-verification-protocol.md.

Audit-log review

• Daily review by Controller of high-risk actions (refunds above threshold, reversals, period reopens, master-data changes).
• Monthly review by Internal Audit of full audit-log sample.
• Exceptions raised within 24 hours of detection.

Exception monitoring

Continuous monitoring of:

• Duplicate suppliers (matching TIN, bank, mobile, name).
• Round-sum payments above threshold.
• Unexplained variances above threshold.
• Unmatched deposits ageing.
• Stale clearing items ageing.
• Backdated postings into open periods.
• Repeated reversals by the same actor.
• Period reopens.
• Supplier bank-detail changes followed by payment within 24 hours.
• Payroll changes followed by salary uplift within 24 hours.
• Tax-rate changes by non-Tax-Reviewer roles.

Fraud / error indicator dashboards

• Indicator list above, each with threshold and owner.
• Weekly review at branch level by manager.
• Monthly review at entity level by Controller.
• Quarterly review at group level by CFO / Internal Audit.

Control evidence

Each control has:

• Trigger description.
• Owner role.
• Mechanism (configuration, code path, scheduled review).
• Evidence type (audit log, report, sign-off).
• Cadence.
• Exception handling.

A control register is part of the management pack at year-end.

Control-preserving Kaizen

Use the control register as the improvement baseline. For each proposed simplification, record the current control objective, trigger, owner, mechanism, evidence, cadence, exception route, SoD roles, failure mode, and residual risk. Prefer low-cost changes that remove waiting, duplication, re-keying, or unclear handoffs while preserving maker-checker, independent approval, period locks, audit-log completeness, and reviewer access.

No experiment may combine incompatible roles merely to reduce cycle time. Re-test both the happy path and the rejection/override path, verify that the audit log identifies actor, timestamp, old/new value, and approval, and obtain an independent controller or internal-audit review before standardising. If the change affects role assignment or environment promotion, retain the administrator boundary and dual approval.

Role-of-the-administrator boundary

The Administrator role can:

• Create users.
• Assign roles.
• Configure environments.
• Manage integrations.

The Administrator cannot:

• Approve a payment.
• Approve a journal reversal.
• Reopen a period.
• Edit a tax rate.
• Approve master-data changes.

Where an administrator action affects accounting (role assignment giving accounting power, environment promotion), Controller approval is required and the audit log records both signatures.

Forbidden patterns

• Single user with all roles (blocker).
• Administrator with implicit accounting approval (blocker).
• Master-data changes without history (blocker).
• Audit-log review skipped for more than 7 consecutive days (major).
• Manual journals without maker-checker on amounts > 0 (blocker).
• Period reopen without dual approval (blocker).

Acceptance evidence

• Control register with cadence and evidence.
• Configuration screenshots / exports.
• Audit-log sample review.
• Exception-monitoring dashboard.
• Sign-off log of monthly and quarterly reviews.

Files

• SKILL.md.
• references/sod-conflict-matrix.md.
• references/exception-indicators.md.
• examples/payment-approval-flow.md.
• examples/uganda-worked-example.md.

Last reviewed: 2026-05-12. Next review due: 2026-11-12.

Prerequisites

• Load doctrine/accounting-finance-doctrine.md before applying this skill.
• Load governance/finance-accounting-quality-gate.md when the output is a release, client artefact, SRS, SDS, proposal, business plan, or implementation plan.
• Use doctrine/source-register/ for final statutory, tax, payroll, FX, EFRIS, eTIMS, or authority-template values.

Inputs

Artifact	Produced by	Required?	Validation
Finance context map	finance-module-audit	Required	Entity, framework, jurisdiction, modules, users, and deployment context are named.
Doctrine baseline	Doctrine owner	Required	Doctrine version and reporting framework are stated.
Source-register snapshot	tax-statutory-source-register-and-country-packs	Required for final statutory output	Entries are verified-current or reviewer-approved verified-with-caveat.
Ledger/posting context	ledger-posting-engine-core	Required when postings are affected	Posting boundary, CoA mappings, control accounts, dimensions, and period state are known.

Outputs

Artifact	Consumed by	Acceptance evidence
Skill-specific decision record	Implementer, reviewer, quality gate	Scope, assumptions, chosen treatment, rejected alternatives, and caveats are recorded.
Implementation or workflow contract	Software, SRS, SDS, proposal, or business-plan engine	Contract names inputs, outputs, controls, evidence, and failure conditions.
Acceptance evidence	Finance quality gate	Tests, fixtures, examples, source links, reviewer sign-off, or evidence-pack references are present.
Plain-language explanation	Client, owner, manager, operator	Business meaning is stated before technical accounting treatment where client-facing.

Decision Rules

• Prefer IFRS for SMEs for typical SME entities unless full IFRS, local law, donor requirements, or client policy requires otherwise.
• Treat every money-touching workflow as ledger, control, reconciliation, evidence, and reporting scope.
• Do not finalize statutory values without source-register support and reviewer status.
• Use business-language output for operators and accountant-language output for ledger, reporting, and audit users.
• Escalate uncertain framework, tax, or statutory interpretations to the required reviewer role instead of presenting them as final.

Acceptance Evidence

• Inputs and outputs above are present or explicitly marked not applicable.
• Relevant quality-gate blockers have been checked and no blocker remains unresolved.
• Examples or fixtures cover at least one happy path and one failure or caveat path for this skill's domain.
• Reviewer role, review date, and open caveats are recorded for release-grade artefacts.

Anti-Patterns

• Treating draft planning assumptions as final statutory or accounting facts.
• Hiding tax, payroll, FX, or authority-template caveats in prose instead of source-register state.
• Producing technically correct accounting output without a plain-language layer for non-accountant users.
• Closing a remediation or implementation item without observable evidence.

Required References

• doctrine/accounting-finance-doctrine.md.
• governance/finance-accounting-quality-gate.md.
• docs/reference-manifest.md for declared reference states.
• Domain-specific references listed earlier in this skill.
• Read doctrine/references/uganda-ngo-financial-management-patterns.md when the engagement is Ugandan.

Examples

• Include at least one normal workflow example for this skill's domain.
• Include at least one exception, rejection, reversal, stale-source, or reviewer-caveat example where the domain can fail.

Review Metadata

Last reviewed: 2026-05-15. Next review due: 2026-11-15.