Quarter-End Reconciliation Finds Payroll Drift
Work through a quarter-end payroll reconciliation without hiding exceptions.
Payroll pressure On April 3, Mei compares Q1 Form 941 wages to payroll registers and finds a $14,600 difference. The CFO asks if it is "rounding." Mei sees two voided checks and a taxable fringe upload. Each choice changes compliance evidence, employee trust, or cash risk. Framework IRS Publication 15 Form 941/W-2 reconciliation plus COSO monitoring Quarter-end payroll reconciliation connects payroll activity to tax reporting. IRS reporting expects wages and taxes to agree across payroll registers, deposits, quarterly returns, and eventually W-2s. The mechanism is exception analysis: split the variance into known categories, prove each category with source records, correct…
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