Two dates, one file, and a request to make them match
You are closing out a project file when you notice that the completion date in the shared tracker is 14 March, but the signed client acceptance note is dated 19 March. A senior colleague says the tracker date is what the monthly report already used, and asks you to "align" the acceptance note by re-dating it to 14 March so the two match. The report has already gone to the funder. You did not create either record. Your organisation's records policy says corrections must be made by adding a dated note that identifies the person making the change, while the original entry stays visible. The colleague is not your line manager but is leading the project. The funder's review is in three days.
1. The colleague asks you to re-date the acceptance note. What do you say and do?
Read the worked answer
The request is to alter a signed third-party document so that it agrees with an internal summary. Those are different things: the tracker is our summary, the acceptance note is the client's evidence. Changing the evidence to fit the summary inverts which one is authoritative.
Response in the moment: decline clearly but without moralising - "I'm not going to change the date on a signed client note. Let me show you what we can do instead." A flat refusal with no alternative turns a records problem into an interpersonal one.
The legitimate alternative: leave both documents untouched, then add a dated reconciliation note to the file explaining that the tracker recorded project completion on 14 March, the client signed acceptance on 19 March, and that the earlier report to the funder used the tracker date. That note is truthful, it is permitted by the policy, and it is far less damaging to discover than an altered signature date.
Why the three-day review does not change this: pressure of time is the reason the error is awkward, not a reason to convert a dating inconsistency into an integrity issue. A disclosed discrepancy is a conversation; an altered document is a finding.
2. You do not know which date is factually correct. How do you establish that, and what do you do while you are still uncertain?
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Uncertainty about the facts does not create licence to pick the convenient answer. Work the evidence trail:
- The client's own correspondence around 14–19 March: when did they actually accept, and does their email say "accepted" or "will review"?
- The tracker's change history, which usually shows who edited the date field and when, and whether it was ever edited after the report was produced.
- Any delivery, handover or sign-off records dated in that window, which can corroborate one date.
While uncertain: record the discrepancy, not a resolution. A dated note saying "tracker shows 14 March, signed acceptance is 19 March, discrepancy under investigation, owner and expected date" is accurate and protects everyone. Do not amend the tracker to 19 March yet either - that would simply reverse the same error.
The distinction that matters: the organisation needs to know whether its completion reporting was five days optimistic, which is a process issue, or whether a date was entered carelessly, which is a training issue. Preserve both versions and let the evidence determine which, rather than deciding first and arranging the record afterwards.
3. The colleague says they will raise your refusal with your line manager as obstruction. What is your position?
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If the conduct is defensible on the record, escalation is not a threat to be managed - it is a normal route to resolution, and it is better that the disagreement is visible than that it is settled quietly.
What I do: write my own short note to my line manager before the colleague's account arrives, not as a pre-emptive strike but as a factual record: what I found, what I was asked to do, what I declined, what I proposed instead, and the current state of the file. Times and documents only.
What I do not do: trade confidentiality, speculate about the colleague's motives, or imply that raising the matter was improper. The colleague has a right to escalate.
Position to state plainly: "I am not blocking the correction. I am refusing to alter a signed client document and offering the reconciliation note instead. If I am directed to alter the document, I will ask for that direction in writing." Asking for the instruction in writing is not defiance - it is the mechanism that makes a bad instruction visible to the people who should see it. If the direction does arrive in writing, the right step is to follow the documented correction route and record that a different route was directed and declined.