What can managers learn from Tesco's accounting debacle?

Corporate financial reports have grown in length and complexity, leaving some managers baffled. Annabelle Williams reports.

The debacle over Tesco's mis-stated company accounts in September once again shone a light on corporate accounting procedures. The supermarket giant initially revealed it had overstated its first half profits by £250m after a whistleblower alerted new CEO, Dave Lewis, to an anomaly in the way payments from suppliers were recorded.  Accountants from Deloitte were drafted in, and Tesco later admitted first half profits had been inflated by £263m. Deloitte found financial results had been overstated in prior accounting periods too, through a practice of pulling forward or deferring supplier...