The draft Treasury Reference Model (TRM), designed by Ali Hashim of the World Bank and William Allan of the IMF, is intended as a development tool for fiscal managers and system developers which will help to implement good practices in fiscal accounting and expenditure control and give guidance on meeting standards prescribed under various international standards and codes. It is aimed, in the first instance, at facilitating the process of designing a treasury system project and preparing technical specifications for a tender document that will meet World Bank procurement standards.
Second, the establishment of an effective treasury system will contribute directly to improving transparency and accountability of government and to meeting the requirements set out in the IMF Code of Good Practice on Fiscal Transparency – Declaration on Principles (fiscal transparency code). Other standards, such as detailed fiduciary standards being developed by the World Bank, are also clearly relevant and should be applied once these are in place. It is important that these aspects be taken explicitly into account in design and implementation of treasury systems. Relevant elements of the fiscal transparency code are included in the TRM.
The TRM also provides a means for implementing improved analytical standards for fiscal reporting. Increasingly governments are moving toward accrual basis reports and the IMF Government Finance Statistics (GFS) system is being revised accordingly. While these can be observed by adjusting reports from a variety of sources and using cash or various levels of accrual basis accounting, it is far preferable that the accounts be structured to facilitate accrual recording and reporting. A generic chart of accounts that can be used for either case or accrual basis accounting, but is consistent with the principles of the revised GFS is included in the TRM.
This is a preliminary version of the TRM. A CD-ROM with the detailed flow charts for system design in Part II of the model, together with VISIO software, to customize flow charts will be posted on the web after the next stage of development. In the meantime, any comments and suggestions for improvement in the presentation are very welcome. Further comments should be sent to Ali Hashim (ahashim@worldbank.org) or William Allan (wallan@imf.org).
Main Document [PDF 572K]
Process Charts (Visio version) [can only be viewed by users who have this software]
Process Charts [PDF 114K]
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