Days before Macy's is set to take center stage for its annual Thanksgiving Day Parade, the department store chain this week revealed a years-long accounting debacle unlikely to inspire gratitude among shoppers and shareholders.

The employee "intentionally made erroneous accounting accrual entries" to hide millions of dollars, Macy's said. The error forced the company to delay reporting its third-quarter results.

The retailer’s surprise announcement that one employee concealed a fortune leaves a lot of unanswered questions.

Macy's on Monday delayed its third-quarter results after finding that an employee hid as much as $154 million in expenses over years, instead issuing preliminary sales figures that fell short of Wall Street expectations.

Macy’s says it’s delaying the release of its fiscal third-quarter earnings results after it discovered an up to $154 million accounting-related issue.

The retailer delayed its third-quarter earnings report after it said an employee hid up to $154 million in delivery expenses over several years, prompting an investigation.

For years, Macy’s Inc.’s touted its ability to boost profits by cutting delivery costs and trimming other expenses on calls with Wall Street analysts. Then on Monday, the department store chain surprised investors by revealing that those very costs had become the source of an internal investigation into what the company has described as a multimillion-dollar employee plot to manipulate the metrics.