Somerfield reforms turnover definition
Food retailer Somerfield has changed its definition of turnover prompting an increase of £15.4m in its interim figures released on yesterday.
Somerfield?s turnover, which would have been £2.4bn under the old system, totalled £2.5bn for the half-year to November 2001.
Finance director Martin Gatto told Accountancy Age Somerfield changed the way it stated its turnover in several ways. He said: ?Somerfield stores used to account for turnover by including the ?free element’ from a multi-value offers in sales figures. The free item was taken out of turnover this year.?
Kwik Save store turnover figures will now include sales made by their retail partners running the produce and butchery counters, as a separate item.?We are adding this in because we’re now taking the sales and it’s becoming material,? he added.
Gatto explained this year customers, having an option of where to pay, preferred to pay at the checkout till instead of the actual counter.
In the last year, the group has outsourced most of its the produce operations to retail partners, who pay a percentage of their turnover as rental.According to Gatto, the change in accounting would have no effect on the bottom line.