Macy’s somehow didn’t know that one of its employees was off on the bookkeeping by $154 million

Macy’s recently revealed that one of its employees managed to hide a staggering $154 million in business expenses over the span of three years. This colossal blunder has understandably left the company with a lot of explaining to do—and the unnamed employee likely won’t be making any Employee of the Month plaques anytime soon.

According to Macy’s, the employee’s actions were so severe that the company had to delay its quarterly earnings report. It turns out, this individual was responsible for a series of accounting mistakes, specifically manipulating records to hide delivery expenses for small packages. Essentially, they messed up the books to the point where Macy’s, a billion-dollar retailer, couldn’t finalize its financial results as planned.

While the exact reasons behind the employee’s actions remain unclear, Macy’s took immediate action and launched an independent forensic investigation to dig deeper into the situation. The results pointed to erroneous accounting entries, although we’re still left wondering why someone would go to such lengths to hide these expenses.

In the grand scheme of things, the $154 million in hidden costs might seem like a drop in the bucket for a company like Macy’s. With revenue reaching around $23.86 billion last year, this slip-up is just a small fraction of their overall expenses, which were reported at $4.36 billion in their most recent quarter. Still, it’s not a small amount by any means, and this error has delayed the company’s earnings report until December 11.

For those of us keeping track of this financial drama, it comes at a rough time for Macy’s. The department store chain has been struggling financially over the past few years, including reporting a 2.4% drop in sales for the third quarter of 2023. Additionally, the company announced plans to close 150 stores over the next three years, reducing their store count by half since before the pandemic.

On social media, many people expressed disbelief that such a massive accounting error could go unnoticed for so long. One person joked, “How was this not found until it reached $154 million?” Another quipped about the employee’s “small accounting error,” while a shopper humorously noted, “One article of clothing from there costs $154 million.”

While Macy’s has not revealed the identity of the employee behind the mistake, we can only imagine what a dramatic reveal it might be. Who knows—maybe they’ll even make an appearance in balloon form at the next Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, though we’ve seen stranger things happen at that event.