Findings and checks

What a finding is

A finding is a figure in a company's books that is missing, does not add up, or is presented wrongly. Every close runs a fixed set of integrity checks after the exports are posted and before the months are locked. A failed check raises a finding with a severity, a subject (an account, a statement line, a month or a run of months) and a sentence that states the figures.

Findings never stop a close. A close with findings still locks the months it reported; the findings decide only the state those months lock with. See How findings set the close state.

Findings, questions, solvency indicators and variances

The checks produce three kinds of result; variances, a fourth kind of number on the company page, are often mistaken for one.

Haruno also drafts questions for a company's management from the month's figures and findings, for you to edit and send. They are not check results either: see Questions for management.

The checks run with the same rules during every close, when you press Re-run checks on the company's Findings & questions tab, and whenever the company page reads the books. They run on your computer, send nothing and use no usage allowance.

What runs on a Balance Sheet and a Profit and Loss alone

A company that sends only these two reports still gets:

• unmapped_active_account and unmapped_empty_account (an account on no statement line), and orphan_lines (a line no account feeds).
• bs_tieout, month by month, and ni_crosscheck when the Balance Sheet has a Net Income or Current Year Earnings row.
• missed_accrual, once five months of profit and loss are on file, and the prepaid question, once two are.
• unused_exemption, and evidence_integrity on Haruno's own copies of your files.
• The solvency indicators other than runway. The current ratio needs current and non-current subtotals.

Every other check needs one of the files named above, and presentation_tieout needs the check row only a practice's reporting-package workbook brings; without one, the Tie gap tile and the Portfolio's Tie-out column read a dash and the note not tested: the balance sheet has no check row, instead of ties. A month the books hold no reconciliation for locks as not reconciled when no high or medium finding is open, because no schedule was tested. See Companies without a workbook.

Severities

Every finding is high, medium or low. High and medium findings are open: the Portfolio counts them, and they keep a company from reading clean and a month from locking as fully reconciled. Low findings are listed, and the Findings & questions tab's count line and the close result include them, but they never count as open.

Only unmapped_empty_account, and schedule_drift in one case, fire at low. Each check's severity is listed in The checks.

A company has no open findings when it has no high or medium findings. The Portfolio's cards and the company list read no open findings, and the table's Findings column reads clean. With only low findings it reads the same, while its Overview Findings card lists them under low severity only.

Where findings appear, and what each count means

The surfaces count differently: a close result can read 3 findings while the Portfolio reads no open findings. When two numbers disagree, the Findings & questions tab has the full list.

Messages on the Findings & questions tab

Each surface is described in The Portfolio and company pages and The Portfolio report; the reports in The statement package and The investor report.

Sharing the list with a company

The Findings & questions tab has no export. To give a company's bookkeeper the list, send the statement package: its Issued with unresolved findings section lists the open high and medium findings, without their sentences. The Portfolio report covers every company, so it is not the file to send to one company. To send questions rather than findings, use Copy or Share… in Questions for management.

How findings set the close state

When a close locks its months, it records the high and medium findings open at that moment against every month it locks: a non-empty list reads reported with exception, an empty one fully reconciled, or not reconciled for a month the books hold no reconciliation for. Low findings, questions and solvency indicators are never recorded. See Close states.

• Findings carry no month, so a first close that locks 41 months marks all 41 with the same list.
• A fix does not change a locked month's state: the header chip keeps what was open at the lock, while the Findings & questions tab shows the books now. To record the fix, reopen the month with a reason and close again.
• An exception in any month's reconciliation workbook is reported at every close until corrected, so later months lock as reported with exception too.
• The state records what was unresolved, not what was tested. Read it with the Recon exceptions tile and the files the company sent.

The statement package follows the books as they stand, so after you fix a finding and close without reopening, the package can leave it out while its months still read reported with exception. See The state is a snapshot.

Resolving a finding

Nothing marks a finding as dismissed. It goes away only when its cause does: corrected files and a new close, a mapping change, or an exemption for the two checks that take one. The app never maps an account or records an exemption on its own, and Haruno's assistant explains and proposes; you record answers, close and reopen with the app's controls, and the assistant changes a mapping only if you ask it to.

Resolve from the Findings & questions tab

1. Open the company's Findings & questions tab, or click the Findings heading on the Overview.
2. Right after a close, the rows already carry Resolve… where the app can record a fix, and questions their answer buttons. If a row has none, for example after you relaunch Haruno, press Re-run checks: it reads the books as they stand, closes and locks nothing, and adds Resolve… to rows whose fix the app can record.
3. Read the row: severity, subject, a short title in small type, and the sentence with the figures.
4. If the row has Resolve…, press it. The Record answer sheet previews the change before anything is written.

   For example: Preview only — nothing written. 1 edit would be made.

5. Press Record answer, or Cancel. If the mapping already holds that answer, nothing is written.
6. Press Close again to close this company at once, without the pre-flight, or Done to close later.

   Until you close, Re-run checks drops a row you resolved with an exemption, but it still lists an account you pointed at a statement line, because a mapping reaches the books at the close. Close again closes the company with the fix in place, but a locked month keeps the findings it was locked with; see How findings set the close state.

No other finding has Resolve…: fix the cause as The checks says, add the corrected files (Adding files later) and close again. unmapped_active_account is in the table above, but Resolve… asks you to pick the statement line, because where an account belongs is your choice; see A new account appears in QuickBooks.

When a fix meets a locked month

A corrected file or mapping change that would move a figure in a locked month is not applied: the close writes nothing for that company, names the months and lists the first five figures that would change. Press Correct… on that card to record a small correction in a later month or to reopen the months (a mapping change can only be reopened), or reopen them in the Months sheet (click the close-state chip), giving a reason in your own words (a placeholder such as tbd is refused), then close again. A figure that moved after a reopening is reported as a restatement. See Locked months in the pre-flight and Correct a reported month.

Exemptions

An exemption accepts an exception to one check and is recorded in the mapping. Among findings, only recon_coverage (where is this balance reconciled?) and orphan_lines (why is this line empty?) take one. Nothing else can be accepted: a known $200 schedule difference stays recon_exceptions until the schedule or books are corrected. An account exemption names an exact account name or number, or an all-digit prefix (10 covers every 10xx account); a partial name matches nothing. See Exemptions.

Asking Haruno about a finding

Explain this finding on the tab, and Ask Haruno on the Overview Findings card, put a question about the finding, with the company, the subject and the sentence, into the chat box, and the chat opens beside the page. Nothing is sent until you press send. Haruno reads the books to answer; it will not record an answer or close or reopen a month, and it changes a mapping only if you ask it to. See Ask from a company page and What is sent.

Worked example: one finding stays

Cobalt Systems has three high findings. 1450 Deposits Receivable holds $6,600 that no line claims, so the check row is off by $6,600 in all 41 months; and the schedule for 1440 Advance to Suppliers differs from the ledger by $200. (Cobalt's check row comes from its reporting-package workbook; a company set up from QuickBooks exports would not raise presentation_tieout.)

1. Give 1450 Deposits Receivable the line Other assets. Cobalt's package sets lines in its own mapping column, so the corrected package is added; for a company set up from QuickBooks exports, use Resolve… on the finding to pick the line (press Re-run checks first if the row has none).
2. The balance sits in all 41 locked months, so reopen them with the reason: 1450 Deposits Receivable was missing from the balance sheet; now presented as Other assets per CFO review.
3. Press Close month…. The check row goes to zero, and recon_exceptions is the only one of the three left.

No mapping or exemption clears a real disagreement between two of the company's documents, so the months lock as reported with exception. The point is not a list at zero; it is that what remains is worth a phone call, and the ledger says so.

The checks

Haruno runs 31 checks: 29 on the books and two on the company's solvency. Look a finding up by the title printed in small type under it, with the table at the end of this section; the Months sheet and the statement package print the check's name instead. Findings are listed in the order the checks run; read each sentence first, since it states the figures.

Statements tie-out

Do the statements add up and agree with the company's other reports? A failure means a quotable figure is wrong.

Coverage, mapping and evidence

Does every balance land on a line, and every line get fed? These failures look fine on a printed page.

Reconciliation

These read a company's reconciliations, from a workbook or QuickBooks reconciliation reports, against the ledger, and stay silent without any. See Reconciliation statuses below.

Policy and cut-off

These test schedules against the policy you stated and, for a company synced from QuickBooks, against its ledger lines, and look for costs booked in the wrong month. They never propose a life, a threshold or an entry.

The schedule_drift cases are in Depreciation, amortization and policy checks. The low one is a prepaid movement comparison skipped because a contract starts service in the prior month or later; a threshold or tolerance that is not a positive number is itself a medium finding. Haruno asks for a capitalization threshold only when the workbook has a register or prepaid schedule, and does not yet ask for useful lives or a drift tolerance. Only straight-line depreciation is computed.

Revenue and receivables

These tie deferred revenue and receivables, which a balance sheet states only as closing figures, to their detail.

An A/P aging, Summary or Detail, is tied the same way. More: Deferred revenue and Receivables.

Cash flow

One check looks for borrowing presented as operating cash, the misclassification that matters most to runway; three more test an imported statement of cash flows against itself and the books.

For cash_flow_classification, the sentence gives operating cash flow as presented and corrected, whether the burn is understated (a draw) or overstated (a repayment), and warns if its sign changes. The Solvency card's runway uses the corrected figure. The cash account prefix case needs no statement of cash flows: its sentence names the prefix and the accounts on each side, and Which accounts count as cash in the Metrics reference says what it withholds and how to clear it.

Budget and operating

The budget checks fire when the budget cannot be compared, never because spending ran over. The operating checks tie department splits and customer counts to their sources.

The budget window is the fiscal year of the latest profit-and-loss month, up to that month. See Budget vs actual.

Solvency

These read the company, not its books; see Solvency indicators.

Questions, not findings

Some patterns deserve a look but are not defects, so Haruno asks instead. A question has no severity, is never counted as a finding and never makes a month reported with exception. It appears on the Questions card of the Findings & questions tab, with gray chips naming it and, for a treatment, spread or capitalize.

Both look at costs only, and skip an invoice already on a prepaid schedule or in the register, and a vendor that bills about that much every month. With one month of profit and loss, no month's-share question is asked. The treatment question needs a Transaction List by Vendor.

Answering a question

1. On the Findings & questions tab, press Re-run checks if the Questions card is missing or its rows have no answer buttons.
2. Read the question and look at the invoice.
3. If the account is lumpy by nature, press the row's answer button: Lumpy by nature — stop asking on a prepaid question, or Expense it — lumpy by nature, not deferred on a treatment question.
4. The Record answer sheet previews the change. Press Record answer.

The answer covers the whole account, not one invoice. If the cost should be spread or capitalized, that is an entry in the company's books and a line on its prepaid schedule or register: Haruno has no button that moves a figure. Once the invoice is there, it is not asked about again.

The Not asked card

Answered questions move to the Not asked card, grayed, with an Answered by line naming the mapping entry that keeps them quiet, because spending changes and an answer can stop being true. To be asked again, press Ask this again — drop the exemption and record the answer.

Asking Haruno about a question

Explain asks what the question wants you to check. Propose a treatment asks which treatment Haruno would record, over what period and with what effect on the month, and ends with I record the answer in the app — propose it, do not write it. Nothing is sent until you send it.

Why questions and not findings

A treatment is the company accountant's judgment about what was bought: the amount is a fact, the purchase a guess from a memo. Against a real export, the prepaid pattern was right about half the time. As a finding it would be wrong every other month, and a reader who checks a false finding once stops checking the rest. The question's sentence says so: Do not report this as a finding — it is not one until somebody has looked at the invoice.

Questions for management

A card at the top of a company's Findings & questions tab, Questions for management, holds the questions you could put to the company's management about the month. Haruno drafts them from the month's figures and findings; you edit and answer them and send them your own way. Nothing here is sent to anyone. It is separate from the checks' Questions card above.

Haruno picks up to seven things worth asking about (solvency, adverse headline figures, receivables outgrowing revenue, budget and spending lines far off, findings about the company's own records, any other high finding) and words one question for each. The month is the newest finished one, the month the investor report is for: a month synced before it ended waits until a Sync after it has ended.

Drafting them

When a close ends, Haruno drafts the questions in the background for each company the close covered, one at a time, if the month has something worth asking, has no questions yet and was not drafted before. Press Draft questions (Draft again, once there are questions) to draft them yourself. The card says where the draft is, with Cancel while it runs and Try Again if it fails.

Drafting needs you to be signed in with an active plan and allowance left, and it uses your usage allowance, unlike the close and the checks. Every figure in a drafted question is checked against the books: a question that quotes a figure the books do not hold, states a conclusion instead of asking or is about nothing in the month's figures is left out, and the card says how many and why. Drafts never appear in History.

Working with them

Each question has Edit, Record Answer… and a More menu with Move Up, Move Down and Set Aside, and an arrow link to the finding or panel it came from. A note says when the figures behind a question have changed since it was drafted. Questions you set aside wait under Set aside (N), with Restore. Draft again replaces only the questions you have not touched.

A question nobody answered or set aside stays after the next close, under “Still open from August 2026”, and Haruno does not ask about its topic again. On the Portfolio, a gray chip on the company's card, “N open questions for management”, counts the questions still open. In the Table layout, the same words show in gray under the company's name.

Copy and Share… put the questions on the clipboard or in the share sheet as numbered text, each answer under its question as “Answer: …”, then the carried questions under “Still open from ‹Month›”. Haruno for Windows has Copy but no Share….

Reconciliation statuses

Each schedule in the reconciliation workbook, and each QuickBooks reconciliation report, gets one status per close month, from its total against its Per GL figure (or the ledger balance where the tab states none), to the cent. Materiality never softens a status: a $200 difference is an exception. The full rules are in Statuses.

A schedule whose Per GL is not the ledger balance is recon_gl_mismatch at high, even when it ties to that Per GL.

Solvency indicators

The Solvency and going concern card, first on a company's Overview, asks whether the company can meet what it owes. Its four indicators (current ratio, total equity, deferred revenue against total assets, runway from operations) can fire on books with no findings: something to say, not to fix. The card does not read covenants, debt maturities or subsequent events. A negative equity indicator names what sits in Opening Balance Equity, if anything: moving it to owner's equity or retained earnings leaves equity where it is, so check the opening balances entered in QuickBooks. Thresholds and formulas: Solvency and going concern.

When indicators cluster

Two or more indicators, at least one high, form a cluster, reported as going_concern at high. The card then opens with an amber paragraph citing ASC 205-40, the header chip reads going-concern indicators, and the Portfolio's Going-concern indicators tile names the company.

Draft the disclosure

Each indicator row has Draft the disclosure, which puts this request into the chat box with the indicator's figures filled in:

In the books of <company>, <indicator>: <what it means> Draft the paragraph I would put in front of an investor, stating the indicators and management's plans, and tell me what you would need from the company to support it.

Nothing is sent until you send it. Indicators never set a close state; they travel with the statements instead: the investor report keeps the solvency panel, because a report without it would be accurate and misleading at the same time.

Limits and edge cases

The checks test the arithmetic and consistency of what the company sent. They are not an audit, and a clean result is not an opinion on the books.

• ni_crosscheck says nothing for a month when the books lack months of its fiscal year to date; read it against the company's own year.
• Finding titles and sentences follow the app language and the company's currency format. The sentences on the Questions card stay in English, and the Portfolio report prints each finding's sentence in English, with raw amounts: read 6600.0 as $6,600.00 and -4600.05 as −$4,600.05.
• A few sentences on the Questions card end with an instruction written for a command line, which Haruno does not have. Use Lumpy by nature — stop asking for a lumpy account.

Messages you may meet while closing are in Troubleshooting.