Danville Bottlers is a wholesale beverage company. Danville uses the FIFO inventory method to determine the cost of its ending inventory. Ending inventory quantities are determined by a physical count. For the fiscal year-end June 30, 2016, ending inventory was originally determined to be $3,265,000. However, on July 17, 2016, John Howard, the company's controller, discovered an error in the ending inventory count. He determined that the correct ending inventory amount should be $2,600,000.

Danville is a privately owned corporation with significant financing provided by a local bank. The bank requires annual audited financial statements as a condition of the loan. By July 17, the auditors had completed their review of the financial statements which are scheduled to be issued on July 25. They did not discover the inventory error.

John's first reaction was to communicate his finding to the auditors and to revise the financial statements before they are issued. However, he knows that his and his fellow workers' profit-sharing plans are based on annual pretax earnings and that if he revises the statements, everyone's profit-sharing bonus will be significantly reduced.

Answer the 7 steps in complete sentences

Step 1. Determine the facts of the situation who, what, where, when and how.

Step 2. Identify the ethical issue and the stakeholders (shareholders, creditors, management, employees, and the community).

Step 3. Identify the values related to the situation.

Step 4. Specify an alternative course of action.

Step 5. Evaluate the course of action specified in Step 4 in terms of their consistency with the values identified in Step 3. This step may or may not lead to a suggested course of action.

Step 6. Identify the consequences of each possible course of action. If Step 5 does not provide a course of action, assess the consequences of each possible course of action for all of the stakeholders involved.

Step 7. Make your decision and take any indicated action.