Central government accounting is underutilised. The key lies in education and simplification
PRESS RELEASE ON CONFERENCE ON USE OF CENTRAL GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTING – 7 April 2026
In practice, central government accounting is used only to a limited extent and financial reporting could be simplified. This was stated by the Supreme Audit Office (SAO) and the Faculty of Finance and Accounting at the Prague University of Economics and Business (VŠE), the authors of a joint report which was presented today at an expert conference on the use of central government accounting. Furthermore, experts agreed that the key to improvement is education—both for those who prepare the financial statements and for their users. Additionally, greater use of central government accounting in public finance management was also deemed important.
The report shows that central government accounting is used only by a limited number of institutions, primarily for macroeconomic and statistical purposes. In other cases, the data is used rather arbitrarily or only for specific needs. The authors have also noted that some parts of the financial statements are difficult to understand for users and are, as such, rarely used in practice.
“The central government accounting forms a solid and robust information highway. So why stick to back roads?” said Luboš Rokos, Director of the SAO Financial Audit Department, when commenting on the underutilisation of central government accounting.
As was mentioned at the conference, plans for changes are already being prepared in this very area. Jiří Fojtík, Chief Director of the Financial Management and Audit Section at the Ministry of Finance stated that the obligation to prepare cash flow statements and statements of changes in equity has been abolished as of 2026. Further changes for other parts of the financial statements are also under preparation, aiming to increase their clarity and usability.
The representative of the Ministry of Finance further noted that in the future, it might be possible to consider changing the organisation of central government accounting. Currently, there are more than 17,000 accounting entities and one of possible future steps could be a larger centralisation, where a single office with sufficient expertise would provide accounting services for certain groups of entities.
Helena Houžvičková and Petr Musil, representatives of the Czech Statistical Office from the Macroeconomic Statistics Section, also spoke at the conference, praising the contribution of the SAO: “The work of the SAO significantly contributes to improving the quality and reliability of government EDP statistics1. We also greatly appreciate that financial audits of government institutions are conducted on an ongoing basis, which contributes to the quality of the provided data.”
The participants agreed in an opinion poll that education plays a key role in improving the use of central government accounting, both for those who prepare the financial statements and those who use them. Among the important topics in the area, they considered, for example, simplifying government reporting or utilising this information in the budgeting process.
Communication Department
Supreme Audit Office
1] EDP statistics (Excessive Deficit Procedure) present key indicators of public finances, specifically the deficit and debt of government institutions as a percentage of GDP, in accordance with EU methodology.