Public Sector Accounting: Democratic control of public money by using administrative cameralistics

Our second paper is a further part of the series of articles in which Norvald Monsen has outlined a uniquely public sector approach to accounting and book keeping – cameral accounting. This was developed in German speaking counties and, until now, has remained largely unknown to English readers. Norvald provides an overview of the main tasks of traditional public sector accounting, followed by a detailed exposition of administrative cameralistics, focusing on the closing of the accounts and budgetary comparisons. A commentary section then explains how the four tasks of traditional public sector accounting are taken care of within cameral accounting. This is finally compared with both traditional commercial accounting and the new public sector accounting outlined in the International Public Sector Accounting Standards.

Public Sector Accounting Democratic Control of Public Money by Using Administrative Cameralistics

Norvald Monsen - Enterprise Cameralistics

Cameral accounting (CAM, see Monsen, 2008a) was developed for use in government organizations in the German speaking countries in continental Europe. It consists of two main versions, namely administrative cameralistics (ACAM, see Monsen, 2008b) and enter¬prise cameralistics (ECAM). The purpose of the latter version is to allow for reporting precisely the same type of information as the one reported within commercial accrual accounting. While the merchant’s double-entry bookkeeping method is used in com¬mercial accounting, a developed version of systematic single-entry bookkeeping is used in enterprise cameralistics. In this way, it is possible to continue to use cameral single-entry bookkeeping for all parts of a government organization, namely the single-entry bookkeeping method of administrative cameralistics (see Monsen, 2008b, for further details, including numerical examples) and the systematic single-entry bookkeeping method of enterprise cameralistics for government enterprises. The purpose of this paper is to explain the latter bookkeeping method to a non-German speaking audience.

Monsen - Enterprise Cameralistics

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