Governmental Accounting Made Easy – Video Course

Description

Governmental Accounting Made Easy: Understanding the Full Financial Statement Framework – Video Course includes 13 online video modules and a self-study manual including presentation slides for 13 hours of CPE credit.

Governmental financial statements can feel like an enormous jigsaw puzzle—MD&A, government-wide statements, fund statements, notes, RSI, supplementary schedules, GASB requirements, and multiple measurement focuses and bases of accounting.

For many professionals, especially those new to the field, these components appear disjointed and overwhelming. This course brings clarity to that complexity by breaking down each element of the governmental reporting model and showing how the entire financial statement package fits together.

Drawing from decades of governmental accounting and auditing experience, Charles Hall, CPA walks participants through the logic, structure, and purpose behind each reporting layer. You will learn how fund types, accounting bases, and GASB principles shape the information that ultimately appears in a government’s financial report. Whether you prepare statements, audit them, or review them for oversight or decision-making purposes, understanding how the pieces interlock is essential to professional competence.

The course places strong emphasis on the mechanics and presentation of governmental financial statements, including assets, liabilities, deferred inflows/outflows, net position, fund balance classifications, disclosures, and required supplementary information. As you progress, you will see how each component contributes to a transparent financial picture that is useful for making decisions. The goal is not merely memorizing terminology, but understanding how governmental accounting works as a cohesive reporting system.

Ideal for government auditors, public accountants, financial statement reviewers, and oversight professionals, this course provides a practical pathway to confidence in governmental financial reporting. By the end, you will be able to interpret, evaluate, and communicate financial statement information with clarity—no longer puzzled by the pieces, but equipped to see the full picture.

Course objectives include:

• Differentiate governmental entities from non-governmental entities in order to determine whether GASB or FASB accounting standards apply
• Identify key GASB resources in order to locate and understand governmental accounting standards relevant to a given reporting issue
• Distinguish between full accrual and modified accrual bases of accounting and identify which governmental fund types apply each basis
• Differentiate between the economic resources measurement focus and the current financial resources measurement focus
• Identify which types of governmental reporting levels and funds use the economic resources measurement focus and which use the current financial resources measurement focus
• Identify the major levels and components of governmental financial statements in order to understand how financial information is organized and presented
• Identify the major financial statement titles used at the government-wide, governmental fund, proprietary fund, and fiduciary fund levels
• Distinguish how governmental financial statement titles differ from commercial (for-profit) financial statement titles
• Explain the governmental accounting definition of an asset, including the roles of resource, present service capacity, and control
• Differentiate between tangible and intangible governmental assets, including the right-to-use lease asset, and describe why both qualify as assets under GASB concepts
• Explain the governmental accounting definition of a liability
• Distinguish between deferred outflows of resources and deferred inflows of resources
• Distinguish between unearned revenues and deferred inflows of resources in governmental funds
• Classify reported equity amounts into the appropriate net position or fund balance category
• Identify the major components and presentation format of the government-wide financial statements
• Identify where the net pension liability is reported in the government-wide financial statements
• Identify the key information used to determine the net pension liability
• Identify the financial statements used to report governmental funds
• Identify the need for and purpose of the reconciliation between governmental fund statements and the government-wide statements
• Identify the five governmental fund types and the purpose of each
• Determine when an activity should be reported in the General Fund versus one of the other governmental fund types
• Identify the difference between interfund loans (interfund receivables/ payables) and interfund transfers (transfers in/out)
• Identify how interfund receivables/payables and transfers in/out appear in fund financial statements and in the government-wide statements
• Identify the criteria used to determine whether a governmental or enterprise fund is reported as a major fund
• Identify how major funds and nonmajor funds are presented in the fund financial statements
• Identify when an activity should be reported in an enterprise fund versus an internal service fund
• Identify the four types of fiduciary funds and the situations in which each is used
• Identify the purpose of using disclosure checklists when preparing notes to the financial statements
• Identify the purpose and typical content of the Summary of Significant Accounting Policies note
• Identify key elements commonly disclosed about a government’s budget process
• Determine the five types of depository and investment risks that governments must disclose
• Determine when depository and investment risk disclosures are required
• Discern the purpose of the receivables disclosure note
• Identify the required elements of the capital asset note disclosure
• Identify how right-to-use lease assets and subscription-based IT arrangement (SBITA) assets must be presented in the capital asset note disclosure
• Identify the required information in the long-term debt disclosure
• Identify when an interfund amount should be reclassified from a receivable/payable to a transfer
• Identify the key assumptions and inputs used in measuring the net pension liability
• Identify the required presentation of the schedule of changes in the net pension liability
• Identify where Required Supplementary Information (RSI) is located in relation to the basic financial statements and notes
• Identify the purpose of RSI
• Identify the purpose of Supplementary Information (SI) and how it differs from Required Supplementary Information (RSI)
• Identify the auditor’s responsibility for Other Information
• Identify the major sections of a standard independent auditor’s report for a government and the purpose of each section

Program level: Basic
Instructional method: Video with online qualified assessment. QAS SS
NASBA Category of Study: Accounting (Governmental)
Advance preparation: None
Prerequisites: None
Who should attend: Auditors of government financial statements and other professionals who want to understand governmental accounting
CPE Credit Hours: 13
Author: Charles B. Hall, CPA, MAcc

This course is also included in the Financial Statement Audit Bundle and the Single Audit Bundle.

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