Plug (accounting)

A plug, also known as reconciling amount, is an unsupported adjustment to an accounting record or general ledger. Ideally, bookkeeping should account for all numbers during reconciliation, i.e. when comparing two sets of accounting records to make sure they are in agreement. However, discrepancies, i.e. unintentional accounting errors can occur, for example due to data entry, or an adding or a rounding error. An organization may use a plug for an immaterial amount, because it may not be cost effective to search through numerous pages of transactions to find the error. The acceptability of a plug depends upon the amount: a plug must be immaterial in order to be justified.