I discovered on Friday that I hade a mistake on a form at work that I completed a few months ago. I was trying to work out why one of our customer invoices for a promotion they ran for us was so much higher than the pot of money we had accrued to cover this (basically, for every unit of our product they sold at the promotional price, we agreed to pay them a certain amount of money - we forecast how many units we expected them to sell, multiplied it by the agreed amount, and accrued that money to pay the invoices against). When I did some digging, I realised that I had put the wrong pence per unit amount on the form - I had taken the amount in the wrong column on a spreadsheet because I forgot that, unlike our other promotions, this one has a permanent off invoice discount as well as the promotion funding - I put the off invoice discount in the box.
This has resulted in just under £130,000 more being invoiced than would have been if I had put the correct trigger on the form. The moment I realised what had happened, I reported it to the account manager, apologised profusely and explained what had happened, then offered to contact the customer and pretty much beg them to honour the usual trigger as it was clearly a mistake. The account manager has said to hold off til Monday, he is going to speak to the buyer as our relationship is good with the customer at the minute. I asked if I should let my line manager know, but he told me to wait until Monday and see what the customer says first. I pulled all of the sakes and invoice data on Friday so we could calculate the amount exactly, and I’ve sent this plus copy invoices etc to the account manager.
I have spent the whole weekend thinking about this, feeling sick and terrified I’m going to lose my job, I have worked here for 22 years, I’ve been in my current role for 13 years and am seen as an expert in what I do - but ultimately I’m very low in the business and easily replaceable.
The business is a multi billion pound, global business. So whilst it’s a massive, massive sum of money, it’s practically chump change to them. I’ve saved the business more than this over the years through my record keeping as I’m able to challenge audit claims and prove we don’t owe money that otherwise would be difficult to prove and we’d have had to pay them. But memories are short, and what I saved them elsewhere isn’t going to help me here.
Does anyone know if they can sack me for this? It was a genuine mistake. I’ve owned up the moment I realised what happened (and I am fairly certain if I’d kept quiet no-one would have realised, but I couldn’t do that, I’m not a person who would hide the truth to save their own skin). I am hopeful we can get the customer to repay it. But I’m wondering if this is the sort of thing someone can be sacked for regardless of whether or not it is recovered? I’m spiralling.
Please be kind. This isn’t AIBU - I know I’ve fucked up. I don’t think anyone can be harsher on me than I already am. I’m posting for some empathy and a genuine view on whether people think it is a sackable offence or not. Thank you.