Proposals of changes in the financial statements of non-profit organizations

Abstract

Financial statements (balance sheet, profit and loss statement) intended for profit and non-profit organizations have large number of differences in terms of content of individual items and also with regard to their formal structure. This is due to the existence of different types of accounting entities for which there are created sets of accounting rules. Need for separate set of accounting rules results from their objectives, management rules, performed activities and certain specific of costs, revenues, assets and liabilities. The differences found on the basis of comparative analysis in this paper are evaluated and subsequently there are recommended changes of the statements so that they would be more useful for the purposes of economic analysis. The paper also identified problems that arise in connection with the evaluation of the efficiency of this type of organizations and subsequently there are recommended tools of financial analysis suitable for evaluation of non-profit organizations and the specifics of non-profit sector are pointed out. The paper presents also the proposal to change the Decree 504/2002 Coll. so as to avoid distortion of financial statement closing of non-profit organizations, and also with regard to their higher explanatory power.

Keywords

• non-profit organization
• accounting
• balance sheet
• profit and loss statement
• measurement of efficiency