Idiom
cook the books
Meaning
To manipulate accounting information, especially illegally.
Meaning adapted from Wiktionary, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Examples
“The manager went to jail for cooking the books.”
“He loses his job if he tries to cook the books.”
“The auditors discovered that the company had been cooking the books for years to hide their massive debts.”
“The small business owner decided to cook the books because he was afraid of paying too much in taxes at the end of the year.”
“The charity lost its license after an anonymous whistleblower told the police that the treasurer was cooking the books to pay for his luxury vacations.”
“After the investigation revealed that the executive had been cooking the books to inflate stock prices, the board of directors demanded his immediate resignation.”
Examples
simple
“The manager went to jail for cooking the books.”
“He loses his job if he tries to cook the books.”
contextual
“The auditors discovered that the company had been cooking the books for years to hide their massive debts.”
“The small business owner decided to cook the books because he was afraid of paying too much in taxes at the end of the year.”
“The charity lost its license after an anonymous whistleblower told the police that the treasurer was cooking the books to pay for his luxury vacations.”
complex
“After the investigation revealed that the executive had been cooking the books to inflate stock prices, the board of directors demanded his immediate resignation.”
Origin
First appearing in the mid-17th century, the phrase employs the culinary metaphor of heat and preparation to describe the alteration of financial records. Just as a cook may change, alter, or improve raw ingredients to suit a particular palate, a creative accountant may modify a ledger to the specific benefit of the person managing the figures. The accounts are, in this sense, processed until they are no longer in their raw, factual state.
Key words
Related idioms
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