Digital Financial Reporting

The International Public Sector Accounting Standards Board (IPSASB) publishes the reporting scheme IPSAS, International Public Sector Accounting Standards. Per the IPSASB web site:

The International Public Sector Accounting Standards Board (IPSASB) works to improve public sector financial reporting worldwide through the development of IPSAS, international accrual-based accounting standards, for use by governments and other public sector entities around the world.

Basically, the IPSASB does internationally what the Government Accounting Standards Board (GASB) does in the United States.  The GASB establishes accounting and financial reporting standards for U.S. state and local governmental entities.

Per the 2012 Census of Governments, there are about 89,004 local governmental entities in the US. That breaks down to:

• 3,031 counties (down from 3,033 in 2007),
• 19,522 municipalities (up from 19,492 in 2007),
• 16,364 townships (down from 16,519 in 2007),
• 37,203 special districts (down from 37,381 in 2007), and
• 12,884 independent school districts (down from 13,051 in 2007).

I tried to find out how many such state and local governmental entities there are in the world, but I could not find that information.

Here is a list of all countries. Per this IPSASB fact sheet, there are 14 countries or groups of countries such as the European Union that have adopted or plan to adopt IPSASB accounting standards.

Here is information about IPSASB provided by EY.