Marybeth Jones is the controller at Patterson Supply Company, a publicly traded distributor of floral supplies. It is the end of the third quarter and Marybeth is working under a deadline to get the quarterly financial statements prepared before the board of directors meeting at 2 P.M. The board of directors approves the quarterly financial statements before they are sent to the provincial securities commission.
Unfortunately, Marybeth has a bit of a problem. The debit and credit columns of the general ledger trial balance do not balance. She is certain that this is a simple mistake that someone made in recording a journal entry, but she just does not have time to look for the mistake. To make the deadline, Marybeth decides to force the trial balance into balance by adding the $200,000 that she is out-of-balance to the Inventory account. Since inventory is the company’s largest asset, Marybeth justified her actions by thinking that this would not make a difference to anyone looking at the financial statements. She wished she had more time to look for the mistake, but the clock is ticking away.
Requirement
Is there any evidence of unethical behavior in this case? Explain your answer.