Dealing with other people's money is tough and dealing with other people's tax money is tougher. While private sector accounting only has to deal with one person's or company's financial wellbeing, government accounting has to deal with a whole city, county, state, or nation's prosperity, and do so under the critical Public Eye.
Government accounting must also deal with fiscal accountability, which are the policies developed and put in place to help stimulate and drive the economy, along with the normal rigors of accounting such as financial planning, which is a mandatory tool unlike the private sector, forecasting, which could literally effect a whole country, and paper cuts. With such pressure and importance put on government accounting's practices, it is no wonder that virtually all facets of government accounting have turned to specific software packages specially designed to be up for the task.
Government accounting has used computers and software, in one form or another, since the late 17th century. Then the apparatuses were little more than mechanical calculators for calculating tax and distributing change, but instantly both the government and its people could see the use of an impartial, accurate, and somewhat third-party mediator.
Even though the cumbersome and easily broken adding machines are long gone, the idea of impartial checks and balances still exist today. Modern government accounting software, in order to facilitate compliance with various state and federal laws, provide required supplementary information that compares actual expenses with the original budget.
As mentioned before, virtually all facets of the government use some form of government accounting software. The most apparent may be city, county, state, and federal budgeting and forecasting, but there are several smaller governmental parts that require specially tailored software suites.
Payroll and other human resource requirements, for example, are prominent in many sections of the government and can include payment of employees and hired professionals, timekeeping, and benefits tracking. Along the same lines, the payment of materials and utilities is important and very well documented.
However, not all accounting is monetary. The various court systems in the nation use government accounting software to track court cases, mandatory court appearances, evidence locations, and roving judges. Government accounting is also used in the various licensing giving departments. Animal control, hunting and fishing permits, business and liquor permits, even seed handling and the dreaded driver's license are all facilitated by government accounting software.
It's true that accounting may not be the most exciting thing in the world, and normally government anything makes people cringe. However, government accounting is the backbone that keeps track of priceless commodities like evidence, licenses, utilities, and, most importantly, paychecks and benefits. When dealing with public funds, the phrase "Quis custodiet ipsos ficusim" or "who watches the treasury" becomes ever more important.
Government accounting software not only is the grease that keeps government accounting running smoothly, but is also a wonderful tool to that helps make sure the public is aware of spending, budgets, and forecasts by way of automatically generating required supplementary information.
The software, like it's predecessor mechanical calculators, helps provide impartial accountability, thus becoming the watcher for the people.
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