Reconciling conflicting record counts across systems

Problem

Three systems produced three different totals for the same population of records, and no single number could be defended to leadership. Each system was internally consistent; the totals diverged anyway, and every briefing that cited one invited a challenge from someone holding another.

Approach

Each discrepancy was traced to its origin rather than averaged away. The divergences came down to source-system field constraints and draft-status handling that differed from the assumptions embedded in reporting. Canonical measure definitions were established, and the reconciliation was documented end to end so the number could be defended rather than merely reported.

Technologies

• Salesforce
• Amazon Redshift
• Power BI
• DAX
• Python

Outcome

A single reconciled figure with documented lineage, and measure definitions that hold at audit. Disagreements about the number became disagreements about definitions, which the documentation resolves.