Computer Associates says it'll be a week or two late with the final results of the fiscal year that ended on March 31 and, oh, yes, after thousands of hours checking it's still finding things wrong with its books so now it'll be amending its Q2 and Q3 filings - which weren't supposed to be impacted by its nasty habit of slipping money into the wrong quarter - to defer, oh, roughly $9 million in revenues to later periods. It said the revision was due to an adjustment in the way it calculates subscription renewal revenues.

The final results were due May 12.

Since they won't be available, the company posted preliminary results Thursday morning and blamed the fact that it had to restate its financials for its 2000 and 2001 fiscal years, when things were out of whack by $2.2 billion, for the delay.

Seems it was shorthanded - see all its senior financial guys have been indicted - and didn't have the manpower to tend to both the 2000-2001 restatements last month and the 2004 fiscal year.

It said it expects Q4 revenues of around $850 million, which would be towards the low end of its guidance of between $845 million and $865 million, and revenues for the year of roughly $3.28 billion, which is short of its $3.29 billion-$3.31 billion guidance figures.

It expects a GAAP loss per share of four to six cents for the year though it should be up six or seven cents in the quarter and with its sale of its ACCPAC subsidiary CA should be able to clear net income for the year of four to six cents a share, better than it had hoped.

It would mean a return, albeit narrow, to GAAP profitability for the first time since it stopped cooking the books and adopted a business accounting system in October of 2000.

CA was flush enough in Q4 that it's got $1.9 billion in the bank now which it had better save in case the government socks it with a huge fine to settle up.

At the end of March, the company was looking at over $4.2 billion in deferred subscription revenues.

CA's new chief operating officer and CFO until they find another guy Jeff Clarke, the ex-Compaq-turned-HP exec, dismissed the $9 million 2004 restatement has pretty much a rounding error.

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