The quality of information provided for state financial statements has been improved. Illustrative photo

More conscious and responsible

A state financial statement is a consolidated report, used to reflect all information on assets, liabilities, and State capital nationwide or provincially at the end of the reporting period, and is an important tool to provide complete, timely, and accurate information on state finance and budget to serve the management, operation, and accountability of the Government, ministries, central and local agencies, and the inspection and supervision of the National Assembly, People's Councils at all levels, and the people.

Up to now, the State Treasury has made state financial reports for five years (2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022). Most recently, the State Treasury has proactively coordinated with units to implement tasks related to the synthesis and preparation of state budget settlement reports and state financial reports for 2022, which have been completed and approved by the 15th National Assembly at the 7th Session with a high rate of 94.25%.

The State Treasury assessed that the State Treasury units have grasped the process of receiving, reviewing, and checking financial information reports of agencies, units, and organizations and the process of synthesizing and preparing state financial reports. The units providing financial information have become more aware and responsible in sending reports to the State Treasury. Therefore, the quality of financial information provided by the provinces in the following year has been improved compared to previous years.

In Khanh Hoa, based on data collected from 493 units responsible for submitting financial information reports, Khanh Hoa State Treasury has analyzed, explained fully, clearly, and accurately the meaning of financial data on the provincial state financial report on the situation of assets, sources of state assets of provinces at the end of 2022; results of state financial activities in the year; cash flow report at the end of the fiscal year.

The State Treasury has proactively implemented jobs related to the synthesis of state financial reports in 2023 such as: issuing documents guiding the State Treasury of provinces and centrally run cities to deploy the preparation of state financial reports in 2023; supporting local State Treasury to review and receive reports providing financial information; develop a handbook to guide units to submit reports providing information to the State Treasury and guide provincial and municipal State Treasury to prepare provincial-level state financial reports.

In particular, Circular No. 24/2024/TT-BTC dated April 17, 2024, of the Ministry of Finance guiding the administrative accounting regime is expected to help standardize the information channel for preparing state financial reports. In addition, to date, the Ministry of Finance has three times to promulgate Vietnam’s public accounting standards. According to Mr. Vu Duc Chinh, Director of the Department of Accounting and Auditing Supervision (Ministry of Finance), the group of standards on state financial reporting with specific regulations on report presentation, forms, and information helps units to apply in practice, ensuring that accounting records are performed consistently and the financial reporting data of the unit is presented fully and appropriately, helping improve the quality of information provided for preparing state financial reports.

Need more attention and drastic direction

However, according to the State Treasury, the work of reporting on providing financial information, synthesizing, and preparing state financial reports still has some limitations such as some units are slower than the regulations. The analysis and explanation contents are not rich, and specific, and do not clarify the meaning of the reporting indicators, so they do not effectively support the financial and budgetary management and operation of competent authorities.

Information providers submit reports late, overdue, or incomplete reports as prescribed.

In addition, many reports do not ensure balance, reasonableness, or validity, do not analyze and explain major fluctuations in the reporting year compared to the previous year (especially fluctuations in assets); do not fully reflect information on infrastructure assets assigned for management...

Regarding this issue, according to Ms. Nguyen Thi Hoai, Director of the State Accounting Department, public sector units have many components and are of different scales, in many small-scale units have low-quality accounting staff, leading to "errors" in state financial reports. Along with that, checking the accuracy of financial reports also faces many difficulties due to limited human resources.

Therefore, units need to continue to strengthen coordination, and properly and sufficiently implement the provision of input databases. At the same time, competent authorities need to identify state financial reports as documents for directing and making decisions and resolutions on finance and budget to have strong attention and direction for affiliated units to implement instructions on accounting work, and provide accurate and timely financial information reports to the State Treasury.