假账丑闻 1: #从存货做文章 – #空手套白狼 [Typical Accounting Scandals: Inventory - Phar-Mor]

世霸动力（SERBADK,5279,主板能源组）的审计报告，一直犹抱琵琶半遮脸，让投资者们每日活在期待与惊恐中。

随着万众期待的特别独立评估报告公布后，总算确认了2020财政年存在14亿3800万令吉账目疑云。

对于世霸动力（SERBADK）账目疑云，我不愿置评。

不过，我相信很多非金融背景的那个朋友们一定会纳闷，究竟一般的人是怎样做假账的吧？

通过做假账骗大众的钱的方法很多，其中一种就是#从存货做文章，例如：

👉 找不做 Stocktake 的 Audit Firm；又或者是

👉 找会告诉你，他 Stocktake 哪家店，那些东西的 Audit Firm，让你提前做充分准备

今天就来看这个发生在美国俄亥俄州 （Ohio）的故事，看人家如何空手套白狼

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存货项目因其种类繁多并且具有流动性强、计价方法多样的特点，所以存货高估构成资产计价舞弊的主要部分。

Phar-Mor 公司在美国的存货欺诈是典型的。

Phar-Mor 公司是一家位于美国俄亥俄州的连锁药店。Phar-Mor的扩张速度明显快于其竞争对手，在不到十年的时间里从一家药店发展到全国近300家分店。

然而，这种宏大的规模是建立在通过伪造存货资产编造虚假收益的基础上的，而Phar-Mor 公司的欺诈行为最终导致了破产。

Phar-Mor 公司的创始人莫努斯是一个雄心勃勃的人。

为了将他的小店推广到全国各地，他采用了以大幅折扣的方式销售产品的策略。莫努斯用笔在业绩不佳和未经审计的药店报表中加入不存在的库存和净利。这种极端的虚报行为使他能够在一年内骗取足够的资金来收购八家药店。

莫努斯在十年间策划并编造了至少5亿美元的虚构净利。

Phar-Mor 公司的财务总监对该公司以低于成本的价格销售商品的做法提出质疑，但莫努斯声称，如果公司扩张得足够大，就能抵消所有的成本。也因此，Phar-Mor 公司多年来保持着两套记录，一套用于外部审计，另一套用于反映实际情况。

Phar-Mor 公司的财务奇才捏造情况，首先将任何损失存入一个所谓的 "水桶账户"，然后通过夸大库存将该账户中的资金转移到该公司的数百家会员药店。他们伪造采购发票，制作虚构的分录，在提高库存的同时降低销售成本，记录采购而不同时记录负债，并多计或重复计算库存。

财务部门之所以能够掩盖库存赤字，是因为注册会计师只检查了300家药店中4家的库存，并会提前几个月通知 Phar-Mor 公司，他们将调查哪些药店。管理人员随后将实物库存放入这四家药店，并将虚增的部分分配给其余296家药店。如果没有会计欺诈，Phar-Mor 公司将被迫关门。

审计人员为他们的粗心大意付出了高昂的代价。这次审计失败导致了对该会计师事务所的3亿美元的法律判决。而且，最终，法尔摩公司被判处监禁。财务总监被判处33个月的监禁，而莫纳斯则被判处5年监禁。

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Typical Fraud Cases and Characteristics of US Listed Companies： Inventory - Phar-Mor

Inventory overstatement forms a major part of asset valuation fraud because of the variety of inventory items and their liquidity and variety of valuation methods. The use of inventory fraud by Phar-Mor in the USA is typical. Phar-Mor is a chain of pharmacies located in Ohio, USA. Farmer's growth has far outpaced its peers, with Phar-Mor's growing from a single pharmacy to over 300 pharmacies nationwide in a decade of development. But all this glory was built on the creation of false profits through the falsification of inventory assets, and Phar-Mor's fraudulent practices eventually led to bankruptcy.

Phar-Mor's founder, Monus, was an ambitious man. In order to expand his small shop nationwide, he implemented a strategy of selling merchandise by offering large percentage discounts. Monus took unprofitable and unaudited pharmacy statements and added non-existent stock and profits to them with a pen. This exaggerated falsification allowed him to cheat his way to enough money to acquire eight pharmacies in a year.

Over the course of a decade, Monus orchestrated and cooked up at least $500 million in false profits. Phar-Mor's finance director questioned the expansion by selling goods below cost, but Monus insisted that if the company grew big enough it could cover it all up. So, for many years, Phar-Mor kept two sets of books, one for external audits and one to reflect the real situation.

The financial magicians at Phar-Mor's were able to falsify the situation by first putting all the losses in a so-called "bucket account" and then redistributing the amount in that account to the company's hundreds of member pharmacies by inflating the inventory. They falsify purchase invoices, create false journal entries that increase inventory and reduce the cost of goods sold, recognise purchases without recognising liabilities at the same time, and overcount or double the amount of inventory.

The finance department was able to conceal the inventory shortage because the certified public accountants only monitored the inventory of four of the 300 pharmacies, and they informed Phar-Mor several months in advance which pharmacies they would inspect. Managers then piled those four pharmacies full of physical inventory and allocated those inflated portions to the remaining 296 pharmacies. Without the accounting fraud, Phar-Mor's would have effectively gone out of business.

The auditors paid a heavy price for their lack of care. This audit failure cost the accountancy firm US$300 million in civil proceedings. And inevitably, for Phar-Mor, a prison sentence. The finance director was sentenced to 33 months in prison and Monus himself to five years in jail.