Ford EV business loses $1.3 billion in Q1 2024

[whynot]

Originally Posted by Dr Smith

...it's how you do your accounting...

Everybody fiddles when it comes to internal costs.

Going back 40 years ago (when I was a young tradie in the field), we had a clerk in the office who would keep track off all of our job numbers and the cost centres we were were booking to.

A capital project was finished under budget??? The word would come down from the supervisors to book to "this" job number for the next few weeks. Subsequently, less bookings to the local cost centre. Result, we are running under budget because we do a darn good job.

Opps, an upgrade project was running over budget??? No problems, lay off against this sundries job number.

And so it went.

I am not sure of how Ford tracks its internal costs these days ... but there is a practice with some US companies for a percentage of staff to be almost "free agents" who go around looking for internal work to "help with", and then book their time to. They are really like profit leaches. And one is always on the lookout to make sure they are not booking time to your cost centre.

Always, always, take internal profit numbers with a bag or two of salt.