The Accounting Standardization System for Public Administrations and the Impact of their Adoption on Higher Education in Portugal

The Accounting Standardization System for Public Administrations (SNCAP) was approved by Decree-Law no. 192/2015 (DL) of September 11 and constitutes the new accounting system for public administrations. With the approval of the SNC-AP, it will be possible to implement the accrual basis in accounting and financial reporting of public administrations, articulating it with the current modified cash basis, establishing the grounds for a state budgeting on an accrual basis. According to the legal regime of higher education institutions (RJIES), there are university teaching institutions and institutions of polytechnic education. In this way, HEIs adopting the SNC-AP will have to prepare the opening balance sheet for the 2018 financial year in accordance with the new regulations, which implies a set of adjustments to the last balance prepared according to the POC-Educação.