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Your assignment
Role: Reporting manager responsible for Cedar Trail's Year 5 close and controller recommendation
Deliverable: Controlled source manifest, issue map, evidence requests, research memos, revision trail, proposed entries, Excel and Python schedules, adjusted statements, selected disclosures, direct and indirect cash flows, digital tie-out, analytics, sensitivity, executive explanation, and release matrix.
Evidence basis: fictional
Evaluation criteria
- packet and evidence (13%): Freezes the source packet, identifies missing evidence, and maintains an actionable request and change log.
- research and judgment (13%): Connects issue, facts, current authority, alternatives, conclusion state, and unresolved boundaries.
- entries and revision (13%): Produces balanced, nonduplicative, traceable entries and preserves superseded proposals and reasons.
- models and schedules (13%): Excel and readable Python agree, expose provenance and assumptions, and pass applicable checks.
- statements and disclosures (13%): Adjusted statements articulate and selected quantitative and narrative disclosures tie to controlled schedules.
- cash digital and analytics (13%): Direct and indirect cash flows agree, ending cash ties, digital fact identities are controlled, and analytics state limitations.
- executive communication (13%): Distinguishes verified amounts, estimates, alternatives, and unresolved facts in a concise decision explanation.
- release defense (13%): Applies all release assertions, identifies stop conditions, and defends the exact recommended package under challenge.
Your role and decision
It is Monday morning. Cedar Trail's controller expects a Year 5 release recommendation Friday. You inherit an unadjusted trial balance and a folder of workpapers assembled by several people. Your decision is not merely which entries to post. It is whether the exact statement, note, cash-flow, and digital package is supportable.
Source packet
Freeze the packet before analysis. It contains these fictional exhibits:
- Exhibit A — Trial balance and account map. One mapping is obsolete.
- Exhibit B — Bank activity, restricted cash, and debt confirmations. The draft cash statement uses a smaller population.
- Exhibit C — Receivable aging, write-offs, and subsequent collections. The allowance model excludes one pool.
- Exhibit D — Inventory count, shipping records, consignment, and purchase cutoff. Three year-end movements conflict.
- Exhibit E — Fixed-asset register, impairment indicators, and disposal support. One placed-in-service date is unsupported.
- Exhibit F — Intangible, software, and acquisition files. Valuation is supplied; one ownership schedule is stale.
- Exhibit G — Liability, legal, debt, covenant, and subsequent-event file. The legal response arrived after the first memo.
- Exhibit H — Lease population and amendment log. One executed amendment is initially absent.
- Exhibit I — Current/deferred tax and uncertain-position schedules. The tax rate is supplied; one reversal period changes.
- Exhibit J — Equity register, awards, and basic/diluted EPS. Treasury shares use transaction dates.
- Exhibit K — Pension/OPEB reports and employer ledger. Contribution and expense are confused in the draft entry.
- Exhibit L — Accounting-change and prior-error analysis. The initial proposal mixes rollover and iron-curtain views.
- Exhibit M — Derivative, currency, acquisition, consolidation, and XBRL file. Extension conclusions have different evidence states.
- Exhibit N — Draft statements, disclosures, direct/indirect cash flows, analytics, and executive deck. Several totals tie for the wrong reason.
The packet supplies materiality conventions, values, rates, simple consolidation scope, and specialist conclusions where the quantitative model requires them. It does not supply a favorable answer for every issue.
Required work
Monday — intake and issue map
Preserve the original packet, build the manifest, identify missing evidence, and rank issue dependencies. Submit the first evidence requests before making unsupported assumptions.
The weekday frame belongs to this case's stated Friday controller deadline. It is a simulation constraint, not a universal close methodology or a template for other cumulative work.
Tuesday — research and proposals
Prepare concise issue memos and the first proposed-adjustment register. Mark each conclusion verified, estimate-dependent, alternative, or unresolved. Retain the initial version.
Wednesday — revision and schedules
Process the staged evidence update. Revise the memos and entries visibly. Build supporting schedules in formatted Excel and dependency-free readable Python. Reconcile both formats.
Thursday — reporting package
Prepare the adjusted statements, selected notes, direct and indirect cash-flow reconciliation, cash-population rollforward, digital-fact tie-out, ratios, and bounded sensitivity. Tie every output to the ledger and issue file.
Friday — executive decision and defense
Issue a release, conditional-release, or hold recommendation. Distinguish verified amounts, estimates, alternatives, and unresolved facts. Defend any selected amount or conclusion from source evidence through the final package.
Constraints
Use the case's US GAAP period and explicit standards clock. All entities and amounts are fictional. Do not provide audit assurance, legal or tax advice, independent valuation, or an unsupplied VIE conclusion. A missing material fact cannot be replaced with an assumption chosen to make the statements balance.
Evaluation
The rubric values integration and revision. A changed answer supported by new evidence can earn full credit. A polished final number with no reproducible path cannot.