World Bank Technical Papers

2001-05, Hashim, Ali, Allan, Bill

The Treasury Reference Model (TRM) gives guidelines for the design of automated treasury systems for government aiming at a) authorities within government and their advisors who are engaged in planning and implementing such systems; and b) software designers and suppliers from the private sector - or even in-house developers of treasury software. The paper starts in Part I with a discussion of the key features of such systems, including the core functional processes, the various policy options associated with their design and the associated institutional arrangements. An effective treasury system will contribute directly to improving transparency and accountability of government and to meet the requirements set out in the IMF Code of Good Practice on Fiscal Transparency - Declaration on Principles and other standards, such as detailed fiduciary standards being developed by the World Bank. Part II gives detailed flow charts of the functional processes associated with Treasury systems, a diagnostic questionnaire that could be used to assess country specific requirements, a set of sample functional specification software that would be required to implement these systems, and a listing of the main data associated with Treasury systems. TRM also provides a means for implementing improved analytical standards for fiscal reporting. Increasingly governments are moving toward accrual basis reports and the IMF Government Finance Statistics system is being revised accordingly.