A plug, also known as reconciling amount, is an unsupported adjustment to an accounting record or general ledger.
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 most basic definition of a plug may be "a placeholder number which is used in an overall cost or budget estimate until a more accurate figure can be obtained".
[2] Plugging has been described as "the use of false numbers in financial ledgers that forces balances, and effectively masks accounting errors and control deficiencies".
[3] Dependence on plugging has been described as "indicative of a dysfunctional finance and accounting system".