From March 8, my forensic accounting needle in a haystack comes from a travel website that left some expenses out of its initial earnings report. The company does not explain why these costs were not included in the original, unaudited results. Investors who rely on the initial reported results before analyzing the audited financials risk making decisions based on misleading data. Investors need to focus on “The Real Earnings Season”, when audited 10-Ks are filed, to faithfully evaluate corporate performance. The analyst team used this data to make 1,165 forensic accounting adjustments with a dollar value of $552 billion.

Source: Forbes March 13, 2019 13:18 UTC