re: Help with riddle - How Much Money Did The Store Lose?

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We don’t have enough info on the mark up of what he bought with the $70.

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Irrelevant. They would have sold it for $70, so they are out $70.

And since markup wasn't stated in the problem, it has to be considered outside the realm of the problem.

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Resident accountant here…

$70 worth of product, $30 worth of cash.

Now I’ll go read the thread and see what everyone else came up with.

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No, as others have said - the later sale has nothing to do with it. He stole $100. Period. Coming back and buying a $70 item (or any $ item) has no bearing on it. The $100 and $30 change is just a red herring to make you think it's related.

Do we have to somehow show that he used the same bill with the same serial #? Would that make a difference? NO!

He bought $70 of stuff, period. He could have used $70 in cash and no change, he could have put it on his credit card, he could have used a DIFFERENT $100 bill!

Either way, again, the cash register will show $100 short that was stolen. Later, the $70 item sale all matches - no shortage in the cash register. It is a separate transaction.

Yes, $70 + $30 = $100, but it doesn't matter.

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$100 cash was stolen. That is it

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The till is short $30. Minus 100 plus 70.

Since the inventory item was stolen, the POS doesn’t know to expect $70 more in sales.

Let’s say the guy had two $100 bills on him (one stolen from the store and one his own).

If he buys the goods with the $100 that he already had no one would be saying the business was out extra money.

So it doesn’t suddenly make the store out extra money simply because he used a (stolen) $100.

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why or why not do we factor COGS into the answer?

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Were y’all asked to figure out a specific amount (like in your subject) or to answer the question/concept about how to calculate amount like whether to factor in COGS or not?

I am not seeing how you could figure out a specific COGS based on info given.

Also was it specifically called a riddle or is that just what you are calling it here?

When I think of a riddle there is usually some kind of play or distraction based on the specific words used like:

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Mississippi has four S's and four I's. Can you spell that without using S or I?

Answer: T-H-A-T

Riddle: There’s a one-story house where everything is yellow. The walls are yellow. The doors are yellow. All the furniture is yellow. The house has yellow beds and yellow couches. What color are the stairs?

Answer: There are no stairs—it’s a one-story house!

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Let’s say store has $200 in register. If they sell $70 of goods, then they have $270 in the register and are down the cost of the goods.

Now if $100 of the $200 is stolen, they have $100 in the register. If that $100 is then used to buy $70 of goods, they have they have $170 in the register after giving $30 in change. And are down the cost of the goods (just like above).

They have lost $100.

100-(price of goods sold-cost of goods sold)= your answer

All depends on how much the store paid for the item(s) stolen.

In fact, the thief may have been doing the company a favor by “buying” an item depending on manufacturer’s retail incentives to the seller.

That $70 item retailed, no matter how ill gotten, could have theoretically pushed the retailer over a volume incentive threshold and could mean thousands of extra dollars in discounts on other wholesale goods and year end awards.

If there are any young career or college people reading this- business is not as straight up transactional as people think.

The sooner you quit being tactical and become strategic to look at the overall view and health of the company, instead of “someone stole something from us” is the sooner they let you run the place.

The whole point if this exercise was to teach the team here that things aren’t always what they seem.

These are great ways to see how people react in different arenas- they are also super low risk on deciding how promotable people are. Remember- at work, you are always on an interview.

Signed,
<- A guy who they let run the place and owns the place now.

The simple answer is $100.

If the answer is supposed to have a twist, you could say that the store lost $30 in actual cash money and lost goods valued at $70.