The Brookover Review Bulletin

From the Editor

Building Something From Scratch

There is a strange moment that comes with building something from scratch.

At first, there are no readers. No metrics. No contributors. No indication that anyone outside your immediate circle will care about what you're creating.

There is simply an idea — and the decision of whether you're willing to put it into the world.

When I started The Brookover Review, I believed there was room for something different in the federal financial management community: a place where practitioners could talk openly about the problems we encounter, challenge conventional thinking, and share lessons that don't always fit neatly into a policy manual, technical guide, or project deliverable.

Believing that privately is easy.

Publishing it under your own name is different.

Once you press Publish, people can agree with you, challenge you, or tell you where you're wrong. If you're going to put your thinking into the professional community, you have to become comfortable with all three.

That requires confidence, but it also requires humility.

You need enough confidence to believe your experience has something worth contributing — and enough humility to listen when another practitioner sees the issue differently.

Then You Have to Keep Going

Starting is one thing. Continuing when almost nobody is watching is another.

There is no guarantee an article will find an audience or that someone will return to read the next one. Early on, there isn't enough external validation to sustain the effort by itself.

You have to believe in what you're building before the numbers give you a reason to.

So you write another article. You refine the site. You promote the work. You listen to feedback. You look at what people are reading. You make adjustments.

And then you do it again.

Consistency is where an idea starts becoming something real.

August was the first month where I could really see some of that work beginning to compound.

More people discovered The Brookover Review. More readers came back. Our LinkedIn following expanded considerably. The subjects became increasingly technical.

Rob, our first Contributing Editor since July, kept the perspective other than my own going — this month with a deep look at internal controls that readers responded to immediately.

One contributor may sound like a small milestone. For something being built from scratch, I don't think it is.

Someone else continuing to put their professional thinking into something you created is a different kind of validation than a page view or a follower.

The Brookover Review is still new. There is one contributor, not ten. The audience is still developing, and there is a tremendous amount left to build.

But a few months ago, it was an idea.

Growth & Readership

August 2026 at a Glance

"Aug vs. July" compares activity generated during each period. For LinkedIn, 119 followers were added during August compared with the 70 followers accumulated through July. The total follower base grew from 70 at July month-end to 189 at August month-end — a 170% increase.

August brought 167 new users, up 21% from July, while returning users increased 60%, from 15 to 24.

Since launch, The Brookover Review has reached 534 new users and generated approximately 2,100 website views.

Not every measure increased. Website views declined 4.1%, and views per active user decreased from approximately 3.80 to 2.95.

Those numbers belong here too.

If I'm going to document the growth of The Brookover Review, I want to show the trajectory as it actually happens — not only the numbers moving in the direction I want.

Cover Story

The General Ledger Can Balance and Still Be Wrong

What Readers Were Reading

August Readership by Article

Rob's Your Completeness Controls Are Probably Failing You followed with 37 views, while The Most Misunderstood Transaction generated 31 views despite being published on August 24.

Looking Ahead

September Preview

September will focus on completing two technical conversations already underway.

Completeness. Accuracy. Validity.

Rob's internal-control series will complete its examination of the three transaction-processing objectives identified in the GAO Green Book: Completeness. Accuracy. Validity.

The series began by asking whether controls labeled as "completeness" controls actually establish that the underlying population is complete.

September will carry that discussion through accuracy and validity, including an often-overlooked component of accuracy: transactions and events must be not only properly recorded, but timely recorded.

The Most Misunderstood Transaction

September will also see the completion of The Most Misunderstood Transaction: Are You Posting It Correctly?, our series examining adjustments to prior-year obligations.

Part I began with undelivered orders. The remaining installments will follow prior-year adjustments through delivered but unpaid and delivered and paid transactions.

Along the way, the series will examine the relationship between USSGL posting logic, recoveries of budgetary authority, expired appropriations, apportionment, and funds control.

The objective isn't simply to identify which USSGL account to use. It's to understand why the adjustment exists and what financial story the posting is supposed to preserve.

By the end of September, the goal is to have two complete technical resources: one examining how we design transaction-level controls, and another examining how we account for adjustments to prior-year obligations.

A Closing Thought

Belief Comes Before Validation

There is one final lesson these first few months have reinforced for me.

You don't receive validation before you begin.

There will be people who don't understand what you're trying to build. Some will question whether it's worth the time. Some won't see the opportunity you see. Some may simply believe it won't work.

That's okay.

Not everyone has to believe in your idea. But you do.

There is also an important distinction between criticism and disbelief.

Listen when people challenge your thinking. Learn when someone knows something you don't. Change course when the evidence tells you you're wrong.

But don't abandon something you believe in simply because someone else can't see it yet.

A few months ago, none of this existed as anything more than an idea. Today, there are 534 new users, 50 returning users, more than 2,100 views, 189 LinkedIn followers, and another practitioner contributing to the conversation.

Those aren't enormous numbers.

They don't need to be.

They're evidence that something exists today that didn't exist a few months ago.

That's what building something from scratch has meant to me so far.

And that's what August represented for The Brookover Review.

Stay Connected

Join the Community

If you have an experience, lesson, or perspective that could help strengthen the profession, we'd welcome the opportunity to hear from you.

• Subscribe at BrookoverReview.com to receive new articles and future editions of the Bulletin.
• Follow the Brookover Review on LinkedIn for publication announcements and commentary.
• Share articles with colleagues who are committed to advancing federal financial management.

Thank you for being part of this growing community. I look forward to continuing the conversation in September.