Companies Fixing More Errors by Revisions Than Restatements

Qualcomm Inc., Iron Mountain Inc. and Papa John’s International Inc. each discovered accounting errors that rippled across multiple years worth of reported financial statements.

All three companies decided that the misstatements, which in Qualcomm’s case represented a $154 million royalty revenue error, weren’t substantial enough to warrant a full, sweeping redo of past financial statements. Instead, they tucked language into routine filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission to fix what the companies described as immaterial errors.

Companies have increasingly corrected accounting mistakes through revisions as the volume of restatements plummeted over the past decade. The informal corrections allow ...