Government Accounting System Construction Research Based On Performance Management

In an overview of the reforms in accounting field which consisted of budget accounting, non-profit organization accounting and enterprise accounting, China has achieved great success in the area of non-profit organization accounting and enterprise accounting. In 2004, China's Ministry of Finance issued a "non-profit organization accounting system", led the way in establishing standards for non-profit organization in the international world. Then, in 2006, the Ministry of Finance has issued a new corporate accounting standards system, which realized the convergence with international financial reporting standards, and also has been obtained the wide recognition in the world. At present, whether the government administration department or experts and scholars in both domestic theorists and the practical field will turn their attention to government accounting. China's government accounting reforms ushered in the golden age. Based on a comprehensive critical reviewing on our current budget accounting system and deep research on the government accounting system, the author of this paper puts forward an idea of setting up government accounting system based on the purpose of performance managementConsidering the formulating background, its main purpose of China's current budget accounting system is to meet the needs of the government budget management. And now with the change of international and domestic economic environment, the function of our government is transferred from administration-type to the service-type, as a result, the traditional government administration has turned to the government performance management. Government performance management accounting is an important source of information, obviously, the original budget accounting system cannot meet the need, and it needs reform. How to build a new government accounting system must be analyzed from the point of the accountability of the government. The accountability of the government can be divided into compliance accountability, financial accountability and performance accountability by the type of.information users. China's current budget accounting system basically reflects the performance of our government compliance accountability. However, for the implementation of government performance management, the comprehensive disclosure of financial and performance accountability become more important. Thus, our government needs to establish its financial accounting and cost accounting system to reflect government's financial accountability and performance accountability. Therefore, the author believes that the core of China's government accounting reform is to build a performance oriented accounting system which takes the budget accounting, financial accounting and cost accounting as the main content.In the discussion of China's government accounting system construction process, western countries experience is worth learning. Foreign government accounting reform began in the 1980s. With the spread of new public management movement, countries all over the world began their government accounting reform. The reform can be divided into American model; British model and German model three categories. The American accounting model, in many ways independent of the budget; the British model of government accounting has been largely out of the traditional budget, all the activities including budget of the government are adopting the accrual basis; German model of government accounting actually can only be regarded as attachments to the budget system, the accounting is still on cash basis, administrative control is the government accounting's main goal. The government accounting reform of these countries really brought China lots of inspiration on how to set up its own government accounting system. First is about the way of reform, the actual situation of different countries determine their different reform methods. There are mainly two methods, which called "one-step" and "progressive" method. Both methods have advantages and disadvantages and different applies. China should choose carefully in this regard; Secondly, China should also learn from other countries in dealing and coordinating the relationship between budgets and government accounting; Finally, is about the implementation of the reform environment, we need to clearly recognize that the government accounting reform could only be successful when the related systems in the overall atmosphere of public management reform is well cooperated.In summing up the experience of government accounting reform in various countries, this paper will focus on problem of setting up the government accounting theory system, accounting system and report system. In the research of government accounting theory system, this paper will focuses on four aspects, which are the goal, the main body, the accounting basis and the accountant elements. Obviously, the four aspects mentioned above will change significantly to meet the needs of government performance management.Regarding the goal of the government accounting reform, this paper will focus on three problems, first is to whom we will provide our information, then what kind of accounting information we will provide, and at last what purpose we aim to provide the information. The user of accounting information present diversified characteristic from a perspective of their composition, and will cover a wider range;The user's needs is also extensive, their needs changed from the implementation of the budget in the past to other financial information such as the public service costs, performance management and financial sustainability and so on. Then considering the purpose of government accounting information, different users have different goals.Through the analysis of these issues, the author will divide the goals of government accounting into two kinds, which are basic goal and concrete goal. Basic goal is defined to reflect the public accountability of performance, and the concrete goal is defined from financial management and cost management two aspects. The author thinks that we should realize the accounting objectives by steps and not by leaps. First is to achieve the compliance goal, then is the realization of the financial accountability goal, and at last, get to a higher level to turn performance fiduciary responsibility goals into reality through efforts.When discussing about the main subject of our government accounting, in order to reflect the fulfillment of fiduciary duty, the author suggests that we could learn from western countries to adopt the concept of "double subject model", which refers to "organization subject" and "fund subject". The organization subject of government accounting can be divided into accounting subject and reporting subject two kinds. The accounting subject includes administrative institutions, public institutions (mainly refers to institutions receive the national budget), and government funds. The reporting subject includes governments at various levels and other units using public resources (mainly refers to the administrative unit and institutions that receiving budget funds). Considering the form of the subject, it can be divided into single and merger reporting subject two kinds. When define a merger subject, the key is to clarify its composing individual, and the reason of this classification. For the determination of the fund accounting subject, we can learn from the American government's rational core, for individual projects, we can adopt fund accounting and prepare financial reports.The choice of government accounting basis has been considered as the core issue of accounting reform around the world. This paper made a comprehensive analysis of the type of accounting-basis, and focus on the discussion of advantages and disadvantages related to cash basis and accrual basis. On this basis, the author believe that we should establish cash and accrual "dual track" accounting basis to adapt to the building of our new government accounting system. Specifically, the government budget accounting system which takes budget management as its goal should adopt cash basis, while the financial and cost accounting system which take financial cost management as its goal should adopt accrual basis.For the government accounting system that based on performance management, how to reasonably determine the accounting composition and elements is one of the very important and basic works. This paper compared the definition of the various accounting elements of international organizations, and come to the conclusion that our government should confirm the existing financial assets and non-financial assets as much as possible. Liabilities include explicit liabilities and also include implicit liabilities. For implicit liabilities, we should consider the cost of disclosure and the needs of performance evaluation, and use appropriate methods to disclose or confirm in or out of statement. As for net assets, we should pay attention to their rationality and symmetry with the liabilities to reflect the government's performance continuity objectively. According to the requirement of government new revenue categories, the revenue element should reflect the government's revenue sources, and expenditure element should reflect the government total expenditure including current cost non-pay costs.On the basis of constructing our government accounting theory system, this paper further explores how to build the government accounting system from the perspective of accounting practice. According to the various functions and the objectives of the government, the author divided the government accounting system into budget accounting, financial accounting and cost accounting three parts. The author puts forwards some bold ideas about accounting basis, accounting content, the main accounts and its corresponding accounting practice. Especially on problem of how to coordinating the budget accounting and financial accounting in the new government accounting system, the author suggests that we should use both budget and financial accounting method to solve the budget business. This is a feasible way to deal with the difficult problem in practice. In the discussion of government cost accounting, the author mainly focuses on the meaning of constructing cost accounting, the scope and method of cost accounting.As the final product of government accounting, government financial report determines whether it can provide strong data to support the government performance management. This paper analyzes the existing problem in our government financial report system, and further made specific design for the new system. The author believes that the government financial report system applies to dual reporting model, which means report from the aspect of the government organization and also from the fund aspect. Looking from the disclosure method of financial report, our government financial report is consisted of financial statement and other financial reports. The financial statement includes basic financial statement, notes to financial statements and its attachments. As to the specific content of financial statement, the author will further demonstrate in the form of list.In summary, based on the analysis of government accounting theories and some foreign accounting reform experience, the author discusses the issue of setting up a performance management oriented government accounting system from three aspects including government accounting theory system, accounting system and financial report system and hoping to provide helpful inspiration to China's accounting reform which is carried out in full swing.