The spreadsheet that told on the CFO

Finally got a client to admit the numbers were cooked not because of some clever fraud, but because of a rounding error that cascaded into a line item nobody double-checked. Built a small audit trail out of pivot tables and a lot of patience. The relief on their face when I showed them it wasn't malice, just sloppiness, was the good part. Anyway, I'm the one who has to explain to the partner why I spent a week on something that could've been caught in an afternoon.