One royalty audit took me back through years of statements, including early calculations that lived in spreadsheets, so I started with the first statement and worked forward through every sales report and the terms behind it. I checked each period before moving to the next.
A royalty rate had been applied incorrectly and carried forward into later statements. Once I found the original error, I could follow it through the later periods instead of treating each statement as a separate problem.
Finding it was only part of the work. I had to trace the difference back, explain what happened and show how the balance needed to change. The contract and the supporting records gave me a way to explain the correction, including why the earlier figures had looked consistent when they were using the same starting point.
That mattered to both sides. The work gave the artist and the label an explanation they could follow, with enough of the calculation available to ask questions about how I'd arrived at it.
The regular reporting continued alongside the audit. Making room for both meant keeping track of where I'd reached in the history and what still needed checking, so I could return to an unresolved period without losing the thread.
When somebody asks about a correction later, I want the working to show what changed and what still needs an answer.
Tell me what you're working on.