João Baptista da Costa Carvalho

Governmental accounting in portugal: why accrual basis is a problem1

Until the end of 1997, governmental accounting in Portugal was characterised as essentially cash-based budgetary accounting, using singleentry as the bookkeeping method. The only compulsory accounting system was Budgetary Accounting. As many countries all over the world, nowadays Portugal is implementing a reform of the whole governmental accounting, which has as most important innovations the use of double-entry within a system compulsorily integrating accrual-based Financial and Cost Accounting along with Budgetary Accounting (still essentially cash-based). The main purpose of this paper is to describe and analyse the reform and current situation of governmental accounting in Portugal, especially discussing the accrual basis implementation. In particular, it shows that not only governmental accounting reform in Portugal has been going towards international harmonization, but also problems that have arisen are common to others faced by several countries. Perspectives of future evolution are also presented.

A DEMONSTRAÇÃO DOS RESULTADOS POR FUNÇÕES NO SECTOR PÚBLICO EM PORTUGAL

One of the most discussed issues in Brazil recently has been the substitution of the Statement of Origins and Applications of Funds for the Statement of Cash Flow. This substitution is included in the project to change Law no 6.404/76, known as the “Law for Public Companies”. Thus it seems necessary to discuss the Statement of Cash Flow, mainly its disclosure method: direct or indirect. The theory indicates that the Direct Method is simpler to understand than the Indirect Method. However, the Indirect Method is considered to be more informative because it reconciles earnings and cash. This paper analyses the opinions of academics, market analysts and accountants, and with the objective of identifying whether one of the disclosure methods is preferred. The results indicate that there is no specific