The spreadsheet that finally caught the lie

Spent three hours yesterday chasing a discrepancy in a client’s expense reports — not the usual 'overcharged coffee' nonsense, but something deeper. The numbers were clean, almost too clean. Then I noticed the same date appearing in two different departments with identical rounding patterns. That’s when it clicked: someone had copied and pasted from a template. Not fraud, exactly — just lazy. But the kind of laziness that makes me want to scream into a pillow. Still, I’ll sleep better knowing it was caught. Small victories, right?