Public Sector and Not-for-Profit Accounting - LOLF, ordonnateurs and comptables
This domain tests public financial management under Loi organique 15-07 relative aux lois de finances (the Algerian LOLF) and the accounting of associations. The core is the separation between the ordonnateur who decides and the comptable public who pays, and the transition from cash accounting to a patrimonial, accrual-based view.
Budget and accounting rules
- The Loi de Finances is annual and authorises revenue and expenditure; the LOLF 15-07 introduced a programme-based presentation with objectives and performance indicators, plus a multi-year framework.
- Execution follows four phases: engagement (commitment within an available credit), liquidation (verification that the service has been performed and the amount is due), ordonnancement (the ordonnateur orders payment), paiement (the comptable public disburses).
- Separation of duties: the ordonnateur cannot handle funds; the comptable public cannot decide expenditure. The comptable is personally and financially liable for irregular payments.
- Controls: the contrôleur financier a priori, the Inspection Générale des Finances, and the Cour des comptes as external jurisdiction.
- Accounting reform adds comptabilité générale en droits constatés (patrimonial accounts, assets, liabilities, depreciation) alongside the traditional comptabilité de caisse.
- Associations under Loi 12-06 must keep accounts and present them to the general assembly; they have no shareholders and no profit distribution.
Worked example
An equipment invoice of 1,200,000 DA is received. The ordonnateur first checks that a credit is available and engages the amount; on delivery the service fait is certified and the invoice liquidated at 1,200,000 DA; the ordonnateur then issues the ordonnancement; the comptable public verifies the regularity of the file and pays. If the credit line is exhausted at the engagement stage, the process stops there - an ordonnancement without a prior engagement is irregular and the comptable must refuse it.
Traps
- Attributing payment authority to the ordonnateur or spending decisions to the comptable.
- Treating cash accounting as showing liabilities and fixed assets - it does not.
- Forgetting that performance is assessed against indicators, not only against budget consumption.
- Applying commercial-company logic to an association, including distributing a surplus.