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.     

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.     

Accrual Output-Based Budgeting Systems in Australia — A Great Leap Backwards?

The widespread and increasing adoption of accrual output-based budgeting (AOBB) systems has often been preceded by considerable rhetorical fanfare. However, little convincing evidence has been produced to support claims made in favour of this budgeting technique. This paper argues that idealised portrayals of AOBB systems are unlikely to reflect operational reality, and that there are grounds for concern that in some jurisdictions what is painted as a reform may in fact be a retrograde step.     

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。     

Accrual Output‐Based Budgeting Systems in Australia — A Great Leap Backwards?

The widespread and increasing adoption of accrual output-based budgeting (AOBB) systems has often been preceded by considerable rhetorical fanfare. However, little convincing evidence has been produced to support claims made in favour of this budgeting technique. This paper argues that idealised portrayals of AOBB systems are unlikely to reflect operational reality, and that there are grounds for concern that in some jurisdictions what is painted as a reform may in fact be a retrograde step.     

Application of Accrual Accounting in the Australian Public Sector – Rhetoric or Reality

This paper presents a contextual. historical analysis of recent accrual accounting developments in the Australian Public Sector (APS). It takes a critical stance in that it questions the accrual accounting developments on a number of grounds. The paper examines changes in public sector financial management and accountability in four distinct settings, being: accrual financial reporting, accrual management systems, whole of government reporting, and accrual based budgeting. The findings show that already in Australia accrual accounting has made significant encroachments into some areas of annual financial and budget reporting. This influx has meant that terms such as 'deficit', 'debt', 'liabilities', 'operating results', 'assets', etc. have begun to change in meaning, which it is argued has important implications for the current process of transformation of aspects of the APS.     

On the Stewardship and Valuation Implications of Accrual Accounting Systems

In this paper we explore the role of accruals in determining “earnings quality” from both a stewardship and a valuation perspective. We show that the valuation and stewardship qualities of accrual accounting are maximized by either an “aggressive” or a “conservative” accrual strategy. Furthermore, accrual strategy choices can be delegated to management as it does not benefit by implementing a strategy that is not in the best interests of the shareholders. We also investigate the implications of accrual strategies for standard empirical measures of “earnings quality”: regression coefficients and R²s from price‐earnings and market‐to‐book regressions. We show that such measures respond differently, and in some cases adversely, to the kind of strategies that make accounting constructs more correlated with the underlying economic activities of firms.     

Accrual accounting and Australian fiscal policy

Australian governments have recently moved from cash accounting to accrual accounting. Accrual accounting has been accompanied at the national government level by the introduction of a new key fiscal policy measure: the ‘fiscal balance’. This paper explains and evaluates this new fiscal measure. It concludes that, given the present fiscal policy of the Australian government, fiscal balance is a superior fiscal policy measure to the ‘cash’ budget balance measure which it replaced. However, from the alternative ‘golden rule’ policy standpoint, fiscal balance is not a meaningful fiscal policy measure — although its stock counterpart, net financial liabilities, certainly is.     

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.     

我国政府会计权责制改革初探

随着“新公共管理运动”的兴起,改革政府会计引入权责发生制逐渐成为世界上许多国家的共识.而我国经过30多年的改革开放,市场经济环境已经发生了巨大变化,尤其是政府职能的转换、公共财政体制的改革、政府绩效评价制度的建设等,均对反映政府经济活动的政府会计信息提出了更高的要求,实行政府会计改革、引入权责制的呼声也日益高涨.本文从...     

Developing an Accounting Information Systems Course in Australian Tertiary Institutions

The objectives of this exploratory study are: (1) to ascertain the views of Accounting Information Systems (AIS) practitioners and academics from tertiary institutions in Australia as to which topics should be included in an AIS course, and (2) to attempt to identify a common core of topics as the basis for the design of an AIS course. The study was based on an expert opinion survey covering all tertiary institutions and all the “Big Eight” chartered accounting firms in Australia. The results of our survey provide a useful basis for drawing up the contents of an AIS course, and a benchmark against which the appropriateness of the topics in an existing AIS course may be verified.     

权责发生制在企业会计核算中的应用状况及其分析

<正>企业单位以权责发生制为基础进行会计核算似乎是一个很简单的事实。大多数企业单位会计人员也都知道在会计核算时应该遵循这项基本会计原则,但现实中,根据我们的观察,权责发生制在企业会计核算中的应用状况却并不理想,大部分企业,尤其中小企业在会计核算过程中没有严格遵循权责发生制原则,有的甚至因此而严重影响到提供会计报表的质量。有些财务人员并不认为,没有按照权责发生制开展会计核算工作是一个严重问题。是什么原因导致企业在会计核算过程中偏离了权责发生制原则?本文拟就工作过程中的一些体会来谈谈此问题。     

Goodwill — An Example of Puzzle-Solving in Accounting

The nature of goodwill continues to be misunderstood by most accountants and confusion surrounding the measurement and reporting of goodwill persists. The rejection of official accounting standards on goodwill is a common occurrence. A dynamic open system perspective is used in this paper to re-examine the nature of goodwill. It is found that a meaningful economic interpretation can be developed for internally generated goodwill but not for 'purchased goodwill'. There is an inability to identify the stream of benefits specifically associated with goodwill arising on acquisition.     

Accrual Accounting,Informational Sufficiency,and Equity Valuation

This paper studies accrual accounting and equity valuation in the context of a firm that makes repeated and overlapping investments in productive capacity. The analysis identifies a particular accrual accounting (depreciation) rule that is termed replacement cost accounting because the book value of existing capacity assets is set equal to the value that such assets would have if a competitive market were to exist for used assets. It is shown that replacement cost accounting aggregates past investment decisions of the firm without a loss of value‐relevant information. The intrinsic value of the firm can then be expressed as a function of current accounting data and certain parameters of the firm’s operating environment. Further, it is shown that replacement cost accounting is essentially the only accounting rule with this informational sufficiency property.     

Options Plans — Some Australian Empirical Evidence

The use of options as a component of executive remuneration in large listed corporations in Australia grew materially between 1997 and 2002. This growth coincided with a significant degree of concentration of ownership of those options in the hands of a small cadre of board members and senior executives. We conclude that this phenomenon, to date essentially unexplored in the literature, has significant implications for the quality of governance outcomes in firms that use options in their incentive and remuneration systems .