Hard and fast standards would just re-incentivize gaming the system on the operations side. Accounting is very, very difficult. The best answers often include subjective decision making.<p>Consider; your project managers claim to be done with 80% of a project. You&#x27;ve billed and been paid for 50%. One lone ranger claims the project is only 30% done. At completion, the project will require a an expensive piece of hardware from you to launch. You have three of these pieces of hardware in stock; the first two you bought cost $50k. The last one cost $150k. The market value is $100k, and the customer will pay $100k at launch.<p>There is no one answer as to how to book this. You have three choices for the inventory booking (FIFO, LIFO, AVCO) -- the first one will at launch book you a net profit of $50k, the second a loss of $50k, and the last one a profit $17k or so. And, you may decide to book the expense of the hardware now, depending on the contract, so it might look like an expense until you actually launch.<p>If you are accrual basis, you have at least two ways to book your current revenue; 80% or 30%. Depending on your internal personnel costs, that may yield a profit or a loss. Of course, if some of the project time has been spent on things that could yield benefit to the company later, you may move some of it over to an R&amp;D budget,...<p>The decisions go on. They are neither trivial nor are they unlinked from reality -- answering the questions like &#x27;did we make money on this project?&#x27; and &#x27;how much should we sell the hardware for?&#x27; are basic questions that yield &#x27;it depends&#x27; type answers.<p>So, yes, people lie on balance sheets, all the time. But, truth is often hard to achieve for even a very solid financial officer and good management team.