Exploring attitudes to financial reporting in the Australian not-for-profit sector

The current level of satisfaction among different stakeholders about the current approaches and practises of financial reporting of not-for-profit (NFP) entities is underexplored (Christensen and Mohr, 2003; Lee, 2004; Gray, 2006; Parker, 2007). This paper uses content analysis to examine submissions to the 2008 Australian Senate Economics Standing Committee for its inquiry into the disclosure regimes of charities and NFP organisations, which aimed to explore attitudes about financial reporting in the NFP sector. Financial reporting is viewed as an important part of accountability, but the sector identifies deficiencies in the current regime in terms of consistency, efficiency and transparency. Respondents to this inquiry believed that a sector-specific accounting standard was important. Financial reporting standards, regulations and legal structures should be uniform across the entire sector, but with some variation allowed for smaller NFPs. The cost of complying with standards was a significant issue for smaller NFPs.