Field Notes
When the stamp date is not the posting date
A recurring cut-off miss in Bangkok AP offices — and how to test for it before the statutory auditor does.
Many AP clerks stamp an invoice on the day it arrives, then post it days later when matching is complete. That habit is sensible for workload — and dangerous for cut-off if the stamp is treated as the recognition date.
During sampling, compare three dates: document date on the tax invoice, goods receipt or service confirmation date, and GL posting date. If your close checklist only looks at the stamp, you will miss shipments that arrived in December and hit the ledger in January.
A practical control is a short “boundary pack”: every invoice posted in the first ten days of the new period with a prior-period document date gets a second pair of eyes. That pack is often enough to catch the loudest cut-off errors before external fieldwork begins.