>The only thing I can think of is overstating the tax by a few bucks, is there anything else?

Overstating sales by 1 day in 8 months = about a 1/2% artificial increase?

Hard to see where that can be used for unethical purposes. For instance, fake growth (or less loss) for bankers or investors. Or better credit terms. The number is probably too small to have an impact there.

The biggest reason to fix it is to have clean books. Should this come up in an audit, you'd need to do the work anyway. If the booking method continues, you are only compounding the problem.

I've had to sit in on quite a few audit sessions (not being a bookkeeper, but a detail-oriented troubleshooter). Having multiple errors in repetition makes tracking down other problems more difficult.

Properly tracking those gift certificate sales will also help show how they contribute to overall sales. What is the % bought over the initial gift amount? Does this merit increased efforts to sell gift cards? (Usually, yes.)

I know the dollar return will be small...maybe you spend $100 in time to recoup $50 in overpaid taxes. But, you'll know that you're keeping a tight ship.

Can't tell you how many hours I've spent tracking down annoying $0.01 balance on account and getting one-sided entries to clean up aging reports.

Necessary evils.

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