A Decade in Review: New Zealand's Experience with Resource Accounting and Budgeting

Ten years before the United Kingdom introduced RAB a similar regime had been introduced in New Zealand. What evidence is there, then, that the experience with RAB has lived up to the promises made of it? While the speed with which RAB was introduced in New Zealand may make it appear easy, there were a number of theoretical and practical accounting and auditing issues involved in pioneering these developments. This paper explains how these difficulties were overcome, the benefits achieved, the outstanding issues to be resolved, and some new directions currently being proposed.     

National Accounting, Government Budgeting and the Accounting Discipline

National accounting and government budgeting include two kinds of financial reporting that are not influenced by, but have an increasing influence on, the accounting discipline. The government budget has changed, over the last sixty years, from a financial statement that was recognisably part of the accounting discipline to one in which national accounting and government budgeting have the dominant influence. There were early attempts to reconcile national accounting and the discipline but these have largely disappeared. Although the three forms of accounting measure the same phenomena, each is different in fundamental ways, in terms of both relevance and reliability.     

Debating Accounting Principles and Policies: the Case of Goodwill, 1880-1921

Debate surrounding the publication of FRS 10 (ASB, 1997) in the UK displayed support for a variety of accounting policies for goodwill, advocated for a variety of practical and conceptual reasons. An analysis of papers written on goodwill between 1884 and 1921 explores whether this lack of unanimity is a recent phenomenon or not. The paper concludes that during this earlier period there were a number of areas of agreement regarding goodwill but, although a majority of authorities favoured a capitalise/amortise policy, there was a significant difference of opinion relating to its treatment once recorded in the accounts. Analysis also suggests that advocated policies were derived from a desire to promote and operationalise the principle of prudence.     

Accrual Accounting and Budgeting Systems Issues in Australian Governments

Much confusion has resulted from the adoption of two accrual accounting and budgeting systems by Australian governments — the Government Finance Statistics system and the Australian Accounting Standards system — as each reports vastly different results. Which set of results should be believed and approved by parliament? Further, termination of the former cash accounting system has deprived governments of important information. The systems are examined here, and use of an enhanced GFS system, which incorporates the cash system, is recommended.     

关于会计基本原则选择与会计核算原则排序的新思考

本文提出会计公正原则是会计信息使用者普遍接受或“一致同意”的原则,理应成为会计的基本原则,并尝试以这个基本原则为依据对现行会计制度中的会计核算原则排出一个先后顺序。从理论层面选择公正原则作为会计的基本原则并作为指导对会计核算原则排序来消除现有会计核算原则之间存在的重叠和冲突,从而使会计信息产生的过程和结果尽可能地公正。在利益多元化的社会,特别是在促进社会公正和构建和谐社会的今天,研究会计信息产生过程和结果的公正性无疑具有重要的理论价值和实践价值。     

Accrual Accounting and Budgeting Systems Issues in Australian Governments

Much confusion has resulted from the adoption of two accrual accounting and budgeting systems by Australian governments — the Government Finance Statistics system and the Australian Accounting Standards system — as each reports vastly different results. Which set of results should be believed and approved by parliament? Further, termination of the former cash accounting system has deprived governments of important information. The systems are examined here, and use of an enhanced GFS system, which incorporates the cash system, is recommended.     

Accounting, Truth and Communication: The Case of a Bank Failure

There have been many papers admonishing accounting researchers to abandon traditional approaches to research and to embrace a particular social theory or philosophy, such as those of Braverman, Foucault or Habermas. Few empirical studies, however followed this advice. This paper employs Habermas' theory of communicative action and, more specifically, his notion of the four validity claims implicit in any speech act in an empirical analysis of the financial reporting and auditing of the Canadian Commercial Bank. Any speech act involves a double structure of speech which combines the communication of propositional content with that of interpersonal relations. Consequently, any analysis of financial reporting and auditing must necessarily involve the double structure of speech and, therefore, the perspective of the four validity claims: comprehensibility, truth, truthfulness and rightness. This paper provides an analysis of financial reporting and auditing of the Canadian Commercial Bank. It shows that the four validity claims were violated. This analysis of one case is then used to make observations about public accounting in general.     

The Pivotal Role Of Accounting Concepts In The Development Of Public Sector Accounting Standards

Perhaps the most important decision made by the Public Sector Accounting Standards Board was taken soon after it was formed in 1983. That decision was to adopt a conceptual approach to the development of public-sector accounting standards. This paper explores the implications for the reform of public-sector financial reporting practices in Australia.     

The Conceptual Framework of Resource Accounting

This article explains the underlying principles of resource accounting in UK central government and some of the theoretical and practical complications involved in meeting the requirement that it should be based on company accounting. The author argues that the principles of resource accounting are very different from those underlying company accounting, and that accounting for the effects of changes in the general level of prices might be being stifled only because there is no parallel in company accounting. The implication is that competition will arise between resource accounting and company accounting for dominance.     

CIMA《全球管理会计原则》背景、内容及影响

全球最大的两个职业会计组织:英国皇家特许会计师公会和美国注册会计师协会联合在2014年11月正式发布《全球管理会计原则》,几乎同一时期,我国财政部也颁布了《关于全面推进管理会计体系建设的指导意见》。两部重要文件旨在建立管理会计的共同框架,推动管理会计应用的一致性,并帮助全球企业建立各自管理会计系统,更好地为企业的相关利益人服务。作为CIMA《全球管理会计原则》中文版的翻译者,我们希望在结合财政部《关于全面推进管理会计体系建设的指导意见》下,通过对CIMA《全球管理会计原则》的制订背景、内容、意义以及对我国管理会计体系建设的影响进行深入的讨论,旨在推动我国管理会计体系的建设和管理会计学科的发展。     

Developments: Resource Accounting in Ireland

The advocates of resource accounting see it as improving financial management and thereby improving the accountability of the organization, while critics see it as making the whole process of accounting more complicated than it should be. The Department of Public Enterprise in Ireland has published resource accounts for the past two years. While it has encountered many difficulties in making the accounts meaningful, the end result is a set of accounts comparable in standard to those of the private sector. This article explores the issues encountered by the Department and how it overcame these difficulties.     

The Impact of Accounting Principles on Profits: The US versus Japan

Weetman and Gray (1991) sought to add quantitative information to the extant qualitative literature on differences in profits reported under US GAAP with those in the Netherlands, Sweden and the UK. This paper introduces Japanese companies to such analysis and seeks to add to both the qualitative and quantitative literature on profit comparisons. In attempting to undertake such work, the paper serves to highlight the difficulties of trying to compare financial statements in Japan with those published in the US and as a consequence the problem of undertaking quantitative analysis. On the basis of a case study approach, there is some evidence that the profits of companies prepared in accordance with Japanese GAAP are considerably more prudent than if prepared in accordance with US GAAP for companies operating in the financial sector. Such differences may not be so pronounced in the non-financial sector.     

我国政府预算与会计引入权责发生制的思考

我国政府预算管理与政府会计引入权责发生制适应了市场经济体制下政府职能转变多方面的要求,有利于建立一个健全透明的政府预算和会计体系,进而达到实现公共资源优化配置、控制财政支出、有效评价政府绩效、防范财政风险和提高政府持续发展能力的目标。     

The Case for Cameral Accounting

Cameral accounting was developed as early as the 16th century onwards in order to contribute to increased control of public money. Such a control demand does not seem to be of minor importance at the threshold of a new millennium as it was several centuries ago, and therefore Ludwig Mülhaupt in the excerpt above states that 'Unfortunately there are very few researchers and practitioners who are interested in developing the cameral bookkeeping method, which is strongly to be regretted with a view to the importance of these questions.' Most of the literature dealing with cameral accounting is published in German, and it seems to be known only to a small extent beyond the German speaking countries. The purpose of this article is therefore to present this historically important accounting model to a larger audience, allowing us to draw upon the experiences of cameral accounting in our continuous attempts to control public money, including the current international debate about the introduction of commercial (accrual) accounting in the public sector.