Authors:

Abstract

In the wake of public financial management reforms, academics and practitioners have discussed and elaborated the impact of accounting reforms on heritage assets for more than three decades. Both national and international standard-setting bodies and the scientific community were not able to provide a common definition for heritage asset in an accounting context. This article presents the most relevant definitions used in public financial management as well as it elaborates on the critical issues concerning recognition, measurement and disclosure of heritage assets. Based on publicly accessible documents from twenty Swiss states and selected interviews with accounting officers from these states this paper presents an overview of what importance is being given to heritage assets in public financial reporting in Switzerland. The empirical results indicate that despite modern public financial management regimes (i.e. HAM2 or IPSAS) transparency regarding heritage assets remains very limited. As a result, recommendations for, but not limited to Switzerland are presented, which offer a possible approach to increase the level of information available on heritage assets in financial reporting.

Keywords: Heritage Assets ,   Public Financial Management ,   Financial Reporting ,   Switzerland ,   IPSAS