New accounting system in Italian universities: The role of accruals-based measurements in the budgeting process

The most important effect of the introduction of the new accruals-based accounting system in Italian state universities has clearly been that of mandatory “income-based” economic measurements. Although in state universities, such measurements clearly cannot have the function of determining a financial year results in advance or a posteriori based on the conditions of financial impact and managerial efficacy – as in private for profit businesses – they could/should have a fundamental role in both investigating and verifying the conditions of sustainability of institutional activities and support the creation of a broadly accepted result measuring system, linking the institutional results achieved with the consumption of economic resources to integrate institutional performance with the conditions of managerial sustainability and durability. In this phase, almost all universities are still largely experimenting with the method and we have decided to investigate the choices made by different universities to manage their budgeting process. This work aims to address two objectives: to identify the technical criticalities emerging from the application/interpretation of the referred legal framework and to attempt to offer comments and suggestions for improvement.