Maria, the Vice President of Accounting, and Chris, the Director of Sales, meet with you in your

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Question:

Maria, the Vice President of Accounting, and Chris, the Director of Sales, meet with you in your office. Maria begins the meeting. "Our quarterly earnings report is due by the end of the week, and the numbers don't look good. We're going to miss our earnings estimates, and this is going to have a huge impact on the value of our stock." Chris pipes up. "I've told Maria that there's a simple solution. We just landed a huge contract with a new customer that's worth over $2 million. This is a sure thing, but the customer is out of the country and can't sign the contract until late next week. Why don't we just record those sales in this quarter? That way, we'll make our earnings estimate." Maria is upset. "That's fraud." Chris appears unconcerned. "It's not fraud. We've got the contract. What's the difference if we record the sales in this quarter or next quarter?"

As CEO, what should you do?