Finance and Financial Management Commons^™

Adjusting The Inventory Account When Companies Use Lifo: Explanation And Application To Distribution And Chemical Industries, James F. Sander, Susan Hughes

James F. Sander

It is widely understood that a disadvantage of LIFO is that it assigns the oldest inventory costs to the inventory account, which, when prices are changing, can result in an inventory value that is useless as a measure of current value. FIFO, however, avoids this disadvantage by assigning the most current costs to inventory. The purpose of this article is to explain a simple adjustment that restates LIFO inventory to the more current cost based FIFO value and analyze effects of this adjustment. We begin by demonstrating the LIFO adjustment and explaining its effect on one company. This is followed …