Inventory Errors
Lesson:
Sometimes there are errors when it comes to inventory management.
Often, it's just an accident. Some bit of inventory might have been forgotten in a different warehouse or while in transit.
Maybe there's so much of it that managers just made estimates of what they had.
If only it were that easy. Did you know that some people will intentionally misstate their inventory levels to make their companies look better or worse than they really are?
That's called fraud.
Usually people commit fraud to make their businesses look more efficient than they are. They do this by making it reducing the amount of inventory that they claim to have used to make the profit they did in that quarter.
Linda Gonzalez, owner of Harvey Co., is worried that her reported inventory levels might be wrong, so she hired some expensive auditors to find out what really happened.
- At the end of the period, the firm incorrectly increased its inventory measure by $80
What does this mean for the cost of goods sold (COGS) and net income values?
Answer:
- The cost of goods sold is understated
- The net income is overstated
Explanation:
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When the ending inventory levels are artificially high, that means that the firm will have used less inventory than is shown by the books.
When firms hide their costs, their costs look artificially low, and their net income (profits) look artificially high.