Solutions for Regional & Local Government
Decentralization and devolution grant more authority and responsibilities to local and regional governments. As part of the decentralization process, new government structures with broader mandates are created to provide critical social services such as education, health, water supply or sanitation.
Sub-national governments need to manage more funds and more programs within the national budget. FreeBalance Government Resource Planning (GRP) solutions for sub-national governments can be integrated with any financial management system at the central government level and are available in client-server and web-based configurations.
The FreeBalance Accountability Suite simplifies financial management at the sub-national level by hiding the complexity of central government accounting. Local and regional governments only see the funds and programs that they manage.
FreeBalance Solution Highlights
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Multi-Tiered Government Synchronization (MTGS)
MTGS automatically tracks budget transfers, local revenue and donor funds and different accounting methods at the sub-national level (e.g. cash) versus central government (accrual). MTGS enables low-bandwidth operations at the sub-national level that do not need to be connected with central government all
the time.
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Streamlined Configuration
Templates provide easy configuration that can be replicated at each spending unit of government at the regional or local level.
- Simplified Chart of Accounts (COA)
The COA is simplified to reflect only accounts relevant to the specific
spending unit.
- Progressive Activation
Solutions can be gradually configured with more selected options as certain levels of capacity or devolution phases are reached.
- Reporting
Sophisticated reporting capabilities generate reports based on statutory, global or donor requirements, tracking expenditures by project, donor fund, or direct budgetary support.
Supported Standards
The FreeBalance Accountability Suite supports good fiscal practice and internationally recognized standards such as:
- United Nations Common Functions of Government (COFOG)
Functional classification to report government statistics to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the United Nations
- The IMF Government Finance Statistics (GFS)
Provides a comprehensive conceptual and accounting framework suitable for analyzing and evaluating fiscal policy and performance of the general government sector and broader public sector of any country
- The IMF Code of Good Practices on Fiscal Transparency
Method to assess government fiscal transparency with practical advice
for improvement
- Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP)
A collection of rules, procedures and conventions that define accepted accounting practices. This includes broad guidelines and detailed procedures applied to both the public and private sectors
- International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS)
International Accounting Standards Board, International private and public sector reporting standards
- International Public Sector Accounting Standards (IPSAS)
Cash and accrual reporting requirements for government and public sector organizations. Compliance with the IPSAS standards guarantees that the financial reporting of public bodies conveys what is termed a true and fair view of the financial situation. IPSAS take account of the characteristic features of the
public sector.
- Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC)
Governance outcome measurements supported in performance objectives
- Medium Term Expenditure Frameworks (MTEF)
Multiple year rational planning and budget formulation processes enabling the government to establish credible and transparent criteria for allocating public resources to strategic priorities while ensuring overall fiscal discipline
- The World Bank Treasury Reference Model
A development tool for fiscal managers and system developers, intended to help implement good practices in fiscal accounting and expenditure control
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