Macy’s announced Monday that a single employee was responsible for so many accounting irregularities that the company was forced to delay its quarterly earnings report, which the retailer had planned to release Tuesday.

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 department store chain said it had found the erroneous accounting entries while preparing its results for the third quarter.