TraCarta / The Recovery / Governance
Recovery · Governance

A recovery program an audit committee can defend.

The same engagement that finds the ITC produces the documentation chain that defends it. Controls are named, ownership is assigned, and the evidence underneath is on the firm's record before scrutiny ever arrives.

Posture Documentation package & architectural review artefacts · not a certification programme.
The four control families

Four families. Four named owners. One cleared chain.

Every recovery engagement runs four control families in parallel. Each one has a specific owner inside the firm, produces a specific kind of evidence, and is designed to close a specific failure mode that recovery programmes fall into without it.

01
Family Capture controls What the firm holds and how it confirms each invoice is genuine, in form, and from a registered person.
Covers Tax-invoice pull from carrier portals and the GST e-invoice portal; format validation against Rule 46 / Rule 48; deduplication; routing to the right return cycle.
Owned by The engine team, with the tax desk on the exception queue for invoices that fail validation.
Evidence Per-invoice capture log with source, timestamp, validation result. Stored against the engagement record for the retention window.
Guards against Silent leakage, invoices that should have been claimed but never reached a tax-aware system in the first place.
02
Family Reconciliation controls How captured invoices are matched to GSTR-2B and how unmatched lines are classified, reviewed, and resolved.
Covers Rule 36(4) match cycle against GSTR-2B reflection; classification of unmatched lines into gap typologies; ageing of unresolved reconciliation lines; escalation thresholds.
Owned by The engine team for the match; the tax desk for ambiguous lines that need a position taken rather than a rule applied.
Evidence Reconciliation register, per cycle, with each line classified and routed. Aged lines visible in the engagement record.
Guards against Aspirational claims, credit taken without an underlying invoice on the portal, or against an invoice that hasn't reflected in 2B yet.
03
Family Sign-off controls Who at the firm clears a position, on what basis, and what assumptions travel with each position.
Covers Partner-level sign-off on every position the firm issues; standard opinion form with assumptions named at the front; explicit acknowledgement of the counter-position a tax authority might run.
Owned by The partner on the engagement, one named person stands behind every opinion. No managing-associate proxy.
Evidence Cleared position documented in the engagement file, sitting in the engagement record with the position paper and research note that preceded it.
Guards against Diffuse accountability, "the firm took the position" without a partner whose name is against it.
04
Family Audit-trail controls The chain of records behind every claim, retained long enough to be pulled cleanly under scrutiny.
Covers Per-claim record linking the source invoice, the reconciliation result, the cleared position, the posting record, and any reply drafted during scrutiny. Retention window of five years on the firm's side.
Owned by The engine team, the audit-trail layer is architecturally part of the engine, not a manual reconstruction.
Evidence Sub-60-second retrieval target on any claim in the retention window. The engagement record produces the dossier; it isn't built from scratch when a notice arrives.
Guards against Late-stage reconstruction, rebuilding the supporting chain for a credit eighteen months after it was claimed, under pressure.
Each family closes a specific failure mode that recovery programmes fall into without it. The four together are the operational standard the firm holds itself to on every engagement, not a certification claim, just the working posture.
families · 04 · on record
The evidence trail

What the audit committee actually holds in its hand.

The controls above produce a specific set of artefacts that the firm hands over, not abstractly, but as named documents an audit committee or internal auditor can pull off the shelf. The list below is what a typical engagement leaves behind on the client side.

Artefact
What it contains
Who clears
Retention
ENG-####.pdf Engagement record
The header file for the engagement. Scope, period, mandate terms, partner on the engagement, and the index pointing to every other artefact below.
Partner, tax desk ·
client signatory · both
5 yrs
REC-####.pdf Reconciliation register
Per-cycle reconciliation of captured invoices against GSTR-2B. Every line classified; unmatched lines aged and resolved. One register per cycle, on the engagement record.
Engine team ·
tax desk · partner-reviewed
5 yrs
TX-####.pdf Cleared position
The firm's position on a specific question. Primary authority cited, assumptions named, counter-position acknowledged, partner sign-off at the foot. One per material position taken.
Partner, tax desk ·
named · on the record
5 yrs
POST-####.log Posting record
Per-credit posting into the client's ERP via AlignIQ. The journal entry, the four stapled supporting documents, and the confirmation that the posting cleared the client's approval workflow.
Engine team ·
client approver · both
5 yrs
REV-####.pdf Annual review note
End-of-year governance review. Controls walked through, exceptions summarised, recommended changes for the following year. Sits alongside the audit committee's papers.
Partner, tax desk ·
client tax lead · both
5 yrs
The commitment
Every artefact above is delivered or made available by default on every recovery engagement. The audit committee does not have to ask for them; they exist as a standard package the firm hands over.
Year on year

The governance cycle is annual, not one-time.

Recovery programmes that work in year one and drift in year three are the failure mode this section is built to prevent. The firm runs a quarterly governance heartbeat and an annual close, on each engagement, every year, for as long as the mandate runs.

Cycle open · Q1 Cycle close · Q4 +
Q1
Cycle open

Re-walk the controls.

Walk each control family, confirm owners are still in place, check for legislative changes that should be reflected in the reconciliation rules.

Q2
Mid-cycle

Aged-line review.

Reconciliation lines older than the threshold are walked through with the tax desk; positions taken or written off cleanly with reason recorded.

Q3
Mid-cycle

Position refresh.

Standing opinions on recurring travel-tax questions are re-tested against any new notifications, circulars, or rulings that bear on them.

Q4
Pre-close

Evidence sweep.

Audit-trail completeness pass on every credit claimed in the year; gaps closed before the cycle closes, not after.

Y+
Annual close

Annual review note.

Partner-led review of the year's controls, exceptions, and recommendations, delivered to the client's tax lead and audit committee.

Year one is the easy year, everyone is paying attention. Year three is where governance posture quietly slips and programmes lose defensibility. The quarterly cadence is the line the firm holds against that drift.
cadence · quarterly · cleared
For the audit committee, and the people who answer to it

The diagnostic walks the same controls.

The eight-week diagnostic produces a redacted version of every artefact above, engagement record, draft reconciliation, sample cleared position. Enough to take to the audit committee before any mandate is signed.

Read about the diagnostic Back to The Recovery