engleski

Development of Governmental Accounting in Croatia

Cash accounting has been traditionally used across the public sector. Since the early 1990es governmental accounting has progressed as a part of an overall public sector management reform known as the New Public Management. The need for achieving greater budgeting transparency urged the implementation of market efficiency principles, good governance practice, and business-style accounting and reporting practices for governments. The IPSASB has so far issued 26 accrual-basis IPSASs reflecting an array of international trends and views concerning governmental accounting development. As many studies have focused mainly on governmental accounting reform in the developed countries, this paper contributes by highlighting changes in an EU accession country. The authors thus, besides providing a reflection on international developments in public sector (governmental) accounting, present a historical overview of Croatian governmental accounting development ; discuss new requirements concerning reporting on public expenditures and modernizing management and control processes in governmental organizations, and examine the changes in accounting in progress. Since its gaining of independence, a new public expenditures´ financing model was established in Croatia and accounting and financial reporting systems were changed. The governmental accounting reform started in 2001 and shortly after a modified accrual accounting as a gradual transition from cash to accruals was implemented. More importantly, several rather unique and theoretically and scientifically interesting practical solutions were implemented to assure pursuing public expenditures using cash and accrual basis simultaneously. This study implies that further governmental accounting information system development is needed to further allow Croatian government to be linked with wider international public sector reforms’ trends concerning public expenditures´ and resources´ usage comparison.

governmental accounting reform; budgetary system; financial reporting; Croatia

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