On the eighth day, Salma opened the door to North Flour Factory’s accounts room after Zawadi signed that the meeting would address only the lines permitted by the side clause. The room had two screens, a cabinet of invoices, and a printer that made a sound every few minutes. Salma sat in front of the factory system. Beside her sat the factory accountant, Mrs. Joyce, with a yellow file. Mr. Kato, the independent accountant, sat on Zawadi’s side with his computer.
“We will do something simple,” Salma said. “We will check four deduction codes and finish.”
“Simple is not the same as quick,” Zawadi replied. “We finish when every line has a source.”
Salma clicked the screen. A table appeared between them with the invoice, delivery date, net weight, moisture deduction, and amount entered into the settlement. Beneath each line was a credit-note number. Zawadi saw that the factory table had been prepared more carefully than the copies they had received, but a neat arrangement did not make it automatically correct.
Mrs. Joyce pointed to the first line. “The load dated the fourth was reduced because its moisture exceeded the contract level.”
Mr. Kato requested the quality report. Salma opened the digital file, then produced a stamped copy. The sample date matched the time the load was received. The truck number matched the Mavuno Link ticket. Zawadi had no reason to challenge it.
“We accept this deduction,” she said. “Record it as a valid moisture deduction.”
Salma gave her a small, surprised look. “You have changed from saying we cut the claim without basis.”
“We found the basis. That is the difference.”
The second line concerned the three hundred kilograms that were missing. Mrs. Joyce showed them the factory scale ticket. Zawadi’s copy showed nineteen point six tonnes; the factory copy showed nineteen point three. Mr. Kato compared it with a weighbridge photograph sent by the operator. The photograph carried a nearby time, but the printer number could not be seen.
“Did this deduction enter the settlement?” Zawadi asked.
Salma opened the payment worksheet. In the final column, the weight credit note appeared as a deduction. Beside it, the settlement amount had been reduced again under “delivery variance.”
“We want to know whether these are two charges,” Mr. Kato said.
“They are two different codes,” Mrs. Joyce replied. “One is weight; the other is delivery variance.”
“What is their source?”
Mrs. Joyce pointed to one invoice. Its number was KUN-884. Zawadi asked Amina, who was following the meeting by phone, to find a copy of that invoice and Hassan’s table. Amina sent a photograph a few minutes later. KUN-884 had already been deducted by three hundred kilograms in the settlement table.
Zawadi turned to Salma. “This shows that the weight deduction entered the discount. Why is there another variance?”
“My accountant may have entered another code because the system had not received the weight note at the time,” Salma said.
“Then we need to see whether the second code covers another service.”
Mr. Kato typed on his laptop: deduction A, source ticket, valid; deduction B, source invoice unknown. He was not saying the factory had stolen. He was forcing the table to separate what had been measured from what had been repeated.
The third line concerned the ML-204 delivery, the mixed-up number. Salma showed the system register and said Mavuno Link had delivered the load in a truck registered as ML-240. Zawadi produced the Mamba Haulage ticket and truck-hire letter. That was when Mrs. Joyce admitted that their company had received the load, but the plate entry had been changed after the gate operator wrote the number of the vehicle that entered.
“A truck-number discrepancy cannot be a weight deduction,” Zawadi said. “If you have a plate difference, you may request proof of the load. You cannot deduct it twice without a source.”
Salma looked at her. “Are you asking us to abandon everything in the settlement?”
“I am asking that every item have its own name. Our register error may affect proof of the load. We will accept that as our operational error. But it does not make invoice KUN-884 weigh twice.”
Mrs. Joyce opened another credit note. “There is a handling deduction.”
“Handling for what?” Mr. Kato asked.
“The cost of cleaning part of the load.”
“Where is the cleaning report?”
Mrs. Joyce searched the system. Salma entered a password and opened the quality folder. There was one photograph of a torn sack, but it had no date or delivery number. Zawadi saw that the photograph did not belong to their trucks’ load; the sack carried another company’s mark.
“We are not denying that handling may occur,” she said. “We want the source connecting this photograph to our invoice.”
Salma hesitated. “That will require tracing.”
“Then record it as unsupported for now.”
The room went quiet. For the first time Salma did not protect every number with a declaration of finality. She asked Mrs. Joyce to separate valid deductions from those waiting for evidence. Zawadi accepted the moisture deduction and the reduced-weight deduction where the original ticket proved them, but rejected the handling deduction without a date.
Mr. Kato returned to invoice KUN-884. He placed the factory copy beside the settlement table. In one table, the amount had been deducted as a weight variance. In the other, the same invoice sat beneath a credit note called a delivery adjustment. The amounts were not exactly the same, but the source invoice was one.
“Salma,” Zawadi said, “here we see the settlement discount and a credit note using the same invoice.”
“Perhaps the system created the credit note before the settlement.”
“Then did the settlement know about the credit note?”
“I cannot answer without the batch history.”
“Request that history.”
Salma looked at Joyce. “Bring out the payment batch from that day.”
Mrs. Joyce opened the record. On the screen, the batch contained four entries. One had been entered at four in the morning, another at seven, and the last after the settlement agreement was signed. The amount deducted in the final batch carried the KUN-884 invoice description.
Amina sent a message: “On Hassan’s copy, KUN-884 appears once as a weight deduction. In the factory file it appears twice.”
Zawadi put the phone down. She had not recovered the entire debt they claimed. But she had found something stronger: a line the factory had to explain without using the words full and final.
“We can correct the table without reopening the entire claim,” Salma said.
“That is what we want.”
“And you will continue to accept the settlement?”
“We will continue to accept the verified amount. An agreement cannot be a curtain hiding repeated deductions.”
Mr. Kato finished his page with three words: valid, pending, duplicate. Zawadi signed beside valid and pending, and refused to sign beside duplicate. Salma accepted that the review of that section was not finished.
When they left the room, Mrs. Joyce went back to the printer to collect a copy of the payment batch. When she brought it to them, Zawadi saw the same number printed on two deduction lines. Mr. Kato tapped it with his pen and said, “Two separate deductions carry the same source invoice number.”
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