Premium
The State of Charity Accounting – Developments, Improvements and Continuing Problems
Author(s) -
Williams Stephen,
Palmer Paul
Publication year - 1998
Publication title -
financial accountability and management
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.661
H-Index - 44
eISSN - 1468-0408
pISSN - 0267-4424
DOI - 10.1111/1468-0408.00065
Subject(s) - accounting , audit , national accounts , state (computer science) , business , economics , political science , algorithm , computer science
This paper is based on a survey of charity accounts undertaken for the Office for National Statistics during the period 1995–1996, and reviews current charity accounting practices of some of these charities in 1994/5 prior to the inception of the new accounting regime from 1996. We look at the accounting practices identified by Bird and provide a comparison between the original Bird analysis in 1981 and current practices in 1994/5. We also consider smaller surveys undertaken in 1989 and 1990. The paper concludes that whilst there has been some progress – particularly among larger charities – since the Bird study there are still major accounting anomalies and examples of poor practice. The paper calls upon auditing firms to be less tolerant of inadequate sets of accounts and points to their pivotal role in improving charity accounting pratices.