Budget Accounting

a bookkeeping account of the process of implementing a budget and an estimate of expenditures of budget institutions and organizations.

In socialist countries, budget accounting is one part of a single national economic accounting system and follows uniform procedures. It provides essential information on budgetary income and expenditure and promotes a rational distribution and redistribution of national income, furthering the goal of net socialist investment and maintenance of essential proportions in the development of different sectors of the national economy. With the help of budget accounting, leadership in planning is exercised by means of following a budget, maintaining financial budgetary discipline, and practicing economy in government expenditures. Budget accounting has great significance in the strengthening of finances and financial work.

In the USSR, budget accounting reflects the budgetary money resources on account in the institutions of the Gosbank (State Bank) of the USSR and the Stroibank (Construction Investment Bank) of the USSR, incomes and outlays of the budget, resources in accounts, and funds and reserves formed in the process of budget implementation, as well as the material value of budget institutions. The task of budget accounting is to show in a timely, full, and correct manner the fulfillment of plans through the income and expenditure of the state budget.

In the USSR, budget accounting includes about 50,000 independent budgets that enter into the state budget of the USSR. The estimation of expenditures is taken into account in more than 750,000 budget institutions. Budget accounting is carried out in conformity with the existing Soviet budget system. It reflects the implementation of the state budget of the USSR in its entirety and the implementation of national, republic, and local budgets; the estimate of expenditures of budget institutions; the operations of the institutions of Gosbank for the execution of the budget in cash terms; the operations of Gosbank and Stroibank for the financing of capital investments and other arrangements; and also the budget operations of state social insurance. Budget accounting is carried out by financial bodies; institutions of Gosbank and Stroibank; budget institutions; and village, settlement, and urban (cities under raion authority) soviets of working people’s deputies.

Leadership in the methodology of budget accounting is exercised by the Ministry of Finance of the USSR, which works out positions, instructions, and methodological directives on bookkeeping accounts and on the reporting of the fulfillment of the state budget of the USSR for finance bodies, budget institutions, and agricultural and settlement soviets of working people’s deputies. The ministry also establishes the order of document circulation; the volume, forms, and plans of calculation of current bookkeeping accounting and the correspondence of these calculations; and the forms of accounting registers and primary documents. Budget institutions carry out their accounting by the same forms and methods that are used for budget accounting in enterprises and economic organizations. In budget institutions, the centralization of budget accounting is becoming more widespread. For handling bookkeeping documentation and obtaining necessary information on the fulfillment of the budget and the calculation of expenditures of budget institutions, mechanized means are in ever greater use.

Under capitalism, budget accounting, which reflects the process of budget maintenance, is used to strengthen the power of the ruling class of the bourgeoisie and increase the exploitation of the working masses. Budget accounting often falsifies the real facts about the budget, covering up illegal expenditures on military and other goals in the interests of the monopolies.