International Public Sector Accounting Standards (IPSAS)

IPSAS adoption is usually described as a conversion exercise and is really a measurement problem. A ministry holds assets nobody has valued, infrastructure with no cost records, revenue that arrives without an exchange, and obligations under benefit schemes never treated as liabilities. The standards are clear enough. The difficulty is the opening balance sheet and the judgements inside it, which is where most adoptions stall. This week works through recognition, measurement and the transition itself, on the delegate's own entity where that is possible.

It runs 7 times over the published calendar, in 6 cities and live online. Every date is the same programme with the same content and the same certificate.

• Distinguish cash basis from accrual IPSAS and say what a transition actually requires.
• Recognise and measure property, plant and infrastructure where no cost records exist.
• Account for non exchange revenue, including taxes, transfers and conditional grants.
• Treat employee benefits and social benefit obligations as the standards require.
• Build an opening balance sheet and document the judgements behind it.

Accountants and finance officers in ministries, municipalities, state entities and regulators, auditors of public sector bodies, and project staff running an IPSAS transition.

Short input, then work. Across 5 days of roughly 6 teaching hours each, the balance sits deliberately with the second: a programme where the trainer talks for six hours produces notes rather than capability.

• Your own material

  Exercises run on situations delegates bring, not on a case study written for a different organisation in a different decade.

• A capped cohort

  Small enough that everybody is asked something. Executive programmes are capped tighter still.

• Practice under scrutiny

  The difficult conversation, the challenged assumption, the decision defended out loud. Judgement is not built by watching.

• Something to take back

  Each day ends with a thing you can use on Monday rather than a slide deck you will not reopen.

• A gap analysis of the delegate's entity against the standards that apply to it.
• A measurement approach for one asset class that has no historic cost.
• A transition plan with the sequence, the owners and the known gaps named.

A GATI certificate recording what you attended, issued after the programme has run and attendance has been taken. Attending at least 80 per cent of the days earns a certificate of completion; attending less earns a certificate of attendance stating exactly what was attended.

Every certificate carries a code that anybody can check against GATI's own record, which is what makes it worth holding. It records participation. This site will not imply one it does not have.