Correcting a deal’s standing details
Some details on a deal are captured when it is booked and never move money by themselves. Its classification, its dates, and the reference your front office knows it by are all in that group.
When one of them is wrong, you correct it in place. You do not cancel and rebook.
Three separate corrections
| What is wrong | The correction |
|---|---|
| The deal is filed under the wrong kind | Change classifications |
| A date was captured wrong at booking | Change deal dates |
| The reference does not match your front-office system | Change the external reference |
Each is a separate operation, because each carries a different risk. Keeping them apart means a reference typo can never quietly move an accrual start date.
Your organisation names these operations, so the labels on your screen may differ from the names above. A deal’s external reference in particular is usually relabelled to whatever your front office calls it.
Changing the classification
The classification says what kind of deal this is. Reporting, and the accounting treatment your organisation has configured for that kind, both follow from it.
Changing it after money has moved changes which bucket the existing balances report under. It reposts nothing. If a deal was booked under the wrong kind and has already accrued, correct the classification and then check the reported position — those are two different questions.
Changing the dates
A deal carries three dates, and they answer different questions.
| Date | What it means |
|---|---|
| Start date | When the deal begins |
| End date | When it matures |
| Accrual start date | The first day interest is earned |
The accrual start date is not always the start date. A deal can begin on a Friday and start earning on the Monday, and correcting one does not correct the other.
If you move the accrual start date, interest is recalculated from the corrected date, so expect the balance to move — see value dating.
If you move the end date, the deal matures on the new date, and any maturity instruction standing against it applies then instead — see maturity instructions. The repayment schedule is constrained by these dates, so a shortened deal can leave instalments that no longer fit — see the repayment schedule.
Changing the external reference
The external reference is the number your front office or treasury system knows this deal by. It carries no meaning inside this system beyond letting a person find the same deal in both places.
Correct it when the two systems disagree. Nothing recalculates.
Who can make these corrections
A second person approves each of these before it takes effect. The person who requests the correction cannot also approve it — see countersign.
That approval is the control on this whole group. None of these corrections is undone by simply doing it again: once an accrual start date has moved and interest has been recalculated, moving it back is a second correction with its own trail.