Standard Project-Based Accounting System for Public Housing Agencies

摘要

The final report on the study of the accounting systems of 15 medium-sized andlarge public housing agencies (PHA's), 9 of which have implemented project-based accounting (P-BA) systems, discusses the study's background and research process, details study findings, and offers recommendations for improving P-BA systems. A P-BA system includes a set of accounts, i.e., a HUD chart of accounts, for tracking expenses and income at the project level. Internal reporting and use of P-BA information are critical elements of a P-BA system. The study found that PHA's with P-BA systems have greater organizational capacity to identify the source of cost overruns and mismatches between available resources and need at the site level. All P-BA systems were designed to permit tracking operating expenditures against budgets and tracing underruns and overruns to specific developments or clusters of developments. Maximum benefits are apparently derived by PHA's that have multiple cost centers, expanded charts of accounts, links between capital and operating budgets, and operating standards monitored by internal audit and control staff. No PHA's studied, however, had all of these features.