Une série de Pavitt Public Finance
Les règles, sans filtre.
Bien comptabiliser, prouver que les dépenses ont respecté les règles, et les personnes qui font ce travail.
Un ensemble évolutif d'essais et de courts articles sur les aspects peu valorisés de la conformité et de la comptabilité dans le secteur public. La chronique principale, The Compliance Check, paraît chaque semaine ; IPSAS, Unfiltered y est intégré comme rubrique. Publié sur Substack, relayé sur LinkedIn, archivé ici pour que les tendances restent accessibles.
Entrées classées
Publications récentes du terrain.
Un aperçu récurrent de ce qui ressort des mises en œuvre. Chaque entrée renvoie à l'article sur Substack.
- RU-0102026.09
The first opinion is going to be qualified.
The first audit opinion after an accrual transition is almost always qualified, for reasons that were visible three years earlier. The opening balance has never been audited by anybody, because until that year it did not exist in that form, fixed assets are short and the employee benefit liability has never been valued. Saying so at the start of the transition costs nothing and turns the audit report from a blow into a document everyone expected, and a qualified opinion is a working list of specific matters, which is a different thing from a disclaimer.
accrual · audit opinionLire sur Substack → - RU-0092026.08
What the register says is there.
An asset register is wrong in both directions at once: things on the list that left the building years ago, and things in the building that were never written down. Purchases reach the list on their own, because buying creates paperwork somebody is required to file. Disposals need a committee, an inspection and a signature, and transfers need nothing at all. Nobody is measured on whether the register is right, which is survivable until accrual turns it into one of the largest lines on the statement of financial position.
fixed assets · accrualLire sur Substack → - RU-0082026.08
What the government thinks it has.
A treasury can pay every bill on time and still hold only an estimate of what it has in the bank. The ledger balance and the bank's differ for reasons that are dull individually and compound with age, and the only process that settles them runs monthly at best, from the most junior desk in the office. Falling years behind makes no noise at all, and cash rationing means the estimate is what this week's payment decisions actually run on.
cash · reconciliationLire sur Substack → - RU-0072026.08
Three lists, one payday.
The largest recurring expenditure in the budget reaches the ledger as the least informative entry of the month: gross, deductions, net. Everything that made those totals happened in offices that never post a journal, the establishment register, the appointment letter, the acting allowance nobody stopped. An appointment is a commitment that runs for years and clears no commitment control.
payroll · commitmentLire sur Substack → - RU-0062026.08
The contract the ledger never saw.
A contract signed on a Wednesday: three years, four milestones, five per cent retention, a performance security lodged before any work starts. The finance system hears none of it until the first invoice lands eleven weeks later, one number. The largest obligations are the ones the ledger learns about last.
procurement · commitmentLire sur Substack → - RU-0052026.07
The check in the wrong place.
The purchase order clears, because there is money left in the vote. Eight weeks later the invoice arrives and the contract was signed by someone who did not hold the authority to sign it. Budget availability is the part of control a system can always answer. The procedure is the part it usually cannot.
commitment · procedureLire sur Substack → - RU-0042026.07
One chart, three readers.
One invoice for a generator, read by three people who never meet: the budget office reading control, the accountant reading IPSAS, the statistician reading GFS. Three true descriptions of one machine, which only become a contradiction when the chart forces them through a single field.
IPSAS · GFS · budgetLire sur Substack → - RU-0032026.07
Where your law and the standard disagree, the law wins.
The standard says capitalise the truck. The financial instructions, written twenty years before anyone had heard of accrual, say it is expenditure of the vote. Both sentences are on the same desk. What the officer who signs can actually defend, and what has to be written down on the day.
IPSAS · statuteLire sur Substack → - RU-0022026.07
The paragraph that doesn't exist.
Ask a general-purpose AI tool a public-sector accounting question and it will often cite a standard and paragraph that do not exist. Why, in this work, the citation is the part the auditor checks, and the discipline of re-reading every reference against its source before it is shown.
IPSAS · citationsLire sur Substack → - RU-0012026.07
Every rule that binds it.
One ordinary payment answers to three rulebooks at once: the accounting standard, your own law, and the donor's manual. The first post sets out what Rules, Unfiltered is for, and the checking discipline behind every finding.
IPSAS · statute · donorLire sur Substack →
Les articles sont publiés sur Substack afin que les praticiens puissent s'abonner et les lire dans leur propre fil. Cette page archive l'index pour que les tendances restent accessibles.
À propos de la série
Des schémas, pas des opinions.
Rules, Unfiltered s'adresse aux praticiens qui suivent la conformité et la comptabilité du secteur public de l'intérieur comme de l'extérieur : responsables de la conformité, directeurs comptables adjoints, associés de cabinets d'audit, conseillers PFM côté bailleurs, économistes des ministères des finances. Les articles sont axés sur les tendances — ce qui revient d'une mise en œuvre à l'autre — et non sur des projets spécifiques.
Publié également sur LinkedIn pour le fil d'actualité et les commentaires. Archivé ici afin que les schémas restent accessibles lorsqu'on cherche un précédent plutôt que de faire défiler.
Publié en anglais en premier, avec des traductions groupées vers l'espagnol, le français, le portugais, le russe et l'arabe sur une base continue. Les traductions sont vérifiées, non générées automatiquement.
Abonnez-vous.
Principalement sur Substack, également sur LinkedInAbonnez-vous et chaque nouvel essai arrive dans votre boîte de réception : un par semaine, en langage courant, sur la rigueur comptable, la conformité à vos propres règles, et les personnes qui font ce travail. Les archives restent ici ; les textes viennent à vous.
Va ensemble
Exercices + Bureau + Série.
La série couvre les schémas au niveau du système. Les exercices développent des réflexes quotidiens face aux modes de défaillance que ces schémas révèlent. Le bureau gère les cas complexes lorsqu'ils apparaissent dans vos livres. Chacun fonctionne seul ; ensemble, ils couvrent le domaine.