ORA-2026-0101

Pattern

Multi-source receipt ingest (email, Gmail staging, desktop inbox, vendor portals) produces duplicate records for the same invoice. Dedup correctly marks one as canonical and tombstones the others with billing_disposition: non-billable and a billing_note pointing to the canonical version.

The data layer is correct. The problem is at the surface layer: any query surface (reconciliation decision UX, approval queue, reporting dashboard, ad-hoc investigation) that queries receipts without filtering or annotating duplicate placeholders will surface ghost records as anomalies. Operators then chase phantom problems.

Evidence

• Permar TLP Construction Invoice #895 ($14,925): canonical receipt eab0b786 is billable, cost-coded 4010, pushed to BT as bill 118957055, allocated to PERMAR-1809. Duplicate placeholder e8646753 is non-billable. A reconciliation decision surface built from a query that hit the placeholder produced 3 false anomalies (phantom receipt, cost code gap, billability concern) — all dissolved once the canonical was identified.
• 5 of 7 non-billable Permar receipts are correctly retired duplicates totaling $57,579 in phantom exposure.
• System-wide: 108 of 865 receipts (12.5%) are non-billable. Unknown fraction are dedup ghosts vs. genuine non-billables. The rate itself may be misleading.

Resolution

Filter or annotate at the surface layer, not the data layer. The ghosts are correct in heartwood-db (they prevent double-counting). Every query surface must either: 1. Filter: WHERE billing_disposition != 'non-billable' OR billing_note NOT LIKE 'Duplicate placeholder%' 2. Annotate: show the ghost with a clear "retired duplicate — see canonical" marker and link

Relation

• ORA-2026-0094 (legibility joints — honest vs dishonest maps): ghost receipts are honest in the DB (they're correctly tombstoned) but dishonest on surfaces (they appear as live problems)
• ORA-2026-0062 (world model fidelity): the world model is faithful in the DB but unfaithful on surfaces that don't filter ghosts