Governmental Accounting for Non-Accountants

* “Basic” level classes that fall within the accounting, auditing, and financial reporting topic assume that all participants have a fundamental understanding of double-entry accounting (e.g., debits and credits, normal account balances), elements of financial statements (e.g., assets, liabilities, revenues, and expenses), and broad categories of financial statements (e.g., position statements and operating statements). Participants who have current knowledge equivalent to those who have recently passed a college-level accounting class will meet these criteria.

Accounting and financial reporting form an essential component of the informational infrastructure that undergirds state and local government finance. Decisions are only as good as the information that supports them. This training provides an introduction designed to equip participants to better understand state and local government financial reports.

Those completing this seminar will be able to:

• Recognize the role of accounting and financial reporting in the governmental environment.
• Identify the “players” (financial statement users, preparers, auditors)
• Name the “rules of the game” (generally accepted accounting principles – GAAP)
• Identify what fund accounting is and how it works (fund categories and fund types)
• Discern what different funds measure and when they measure it (measurement focus and basis of accounting)
• Recognize the important elements of government-wide financial statements and their relationship to fund financial statements (how does the information differ and why?)
• Ascertain where to look for additional information to help understand the financial statements and how to use that information (annual comprehensive financial report)

Professionals in the state and local government sector with either no background or only a limited background in accounting and financial reporting.