CA yesterday restated its revenue from fiscal 2000 and 2001 and declared its internal accounting probe closed. The restatements decrease fiscal 2000 revenue by $2m to $6.092bn, and increase fiscal 2001 revenue by $558m to $4.748bn.

The restatements stem from the 35-day month practice, in which accountants and salespeople would keep the books open beyond the end of the fiscal quarter until they had acquired enough revenue to meet Wall Street estimates.

While CA’s audit committee found that during the two fiscal years $2.2bn of revenue was recorded incorrectly as a result of this practice, the restatements are relatively small because the revenue all came from genuine contracts.

Having been named CFO earlier this month, Compaq alum Jeff Clarke has now also been named COO. Board member Ken Cron said he would take the CEO’s seat, vacated last week by Sanjay Kumar, until a permanent replacement can be found.

Completion of the audit committee investigation is welcome news to everyone at CA and brings us that much closer to putting this difficult chapter behind us, said Lewis Ranieri, who took over CA’s chairmanship from Kumar last week.

Ranieri also revealed that senior VP of worldwide sales Stephen Richards, a 16-year CA veteran, has resigned and will be replaced by Greg Corgan, who currently heads the Americas sales division at the company.

Richards is, according to Reuters, one of the unnamed executives referred to in the complaints against the four former CA executives who have so far pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit accounting fraud.

Ranieri lauded the exhaustive nature and comprehensive scope of the audit committee probe, which cost $30m to execute, saying that thousands of contracts and 1.5 million documents were analyzed, under the supervision of outside consultants.

Those individuals who refused to cooperate were asked to resign, Ranieri said. The firm fired three men, including CFO Ira Zar, in October, and at least another ten accountants and lawyers more recently.

Monday’s actions by no means close the book on the CA accounting scandal. While accounting since fiscal 2000 is not in question, the company is making moves to clean house even further, led by Clarke.

Clarke said he will hire a chief accounting officer and a chief compliance officer, and will exercise a no tolerance policy on anybody who breaks accounting controls. Ranieri said CA will become the model of sound financial controls, discipline and integrity.

CA’s new interim CEO was its lead independent director from mid-2002, when CA overhauled its board to improve investor confidence. Cron said he hopes the board can find a permanent CEO quickly, but it’s better to find the right person than to do a rush-job.

This article is based on material originally published by ComputerWire