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54. The inventory clearing account represented inventory that had been received by Anicom, but not yet billed to Anicom by the vendor. As a result of Anicom's December 1997 billing system conversion, the inventory clearing account became out-of-balance with the subsidiary perpetual inventory record when the balance from the inventory clearing account on the old billing system's general ledger was transferred to the new billing system's general ledger but not to the new subsidiary perpetual inventory records. This resulted in the inventory clearing account carrying a credit balance that exceeded the subsidiary perpetual inventory records by over $6 million. This credit balance represented inventory for which Anicom had not been billed at the date of the transfer. In the months following the transfer, unit of measure errors in the new billing system's inventory module and operator keypunch errors further increased the out-of-balance condition and misstated the carrying value of inventory and cost of sales.
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