Budget vs Comprehensive Annual Financial Report (CAFR) - Essay Example

Differentiating Between Budget And Comprehensive Annual Financial Report (CAFsR) Differentiating Between Budget And Comprehensive Annual Financial Report (CAFR) Several differences between budget and CAFR exist the main difference between these two financial reports is that a budget is a map for one particular complete monetary year which mainly contains income tax that has to be distributed and the CAFR consists of information regarding the results of a particular year and is prepared on the basis of collection in a prior year (Hou, 2013).

The CAFR is a significant document that comprises of different financial reports that a budget lacks and the budget is even a portion of the several financial reports that are exhibited within the CAFR. The budget portion within the CAFR comprises of what was predicted and even what actually happened in terms of monetary expenditure and income. The CAFR even comprises of investments that the government has made and these investments are details in different categories and it even comprises of the ending balance of investments that occurred in prior years.

On the other hand a budget can be regarded as a map created by the government and this map comprises of spending that might be made by different governmental organizations over a particular year (Hou, 2013). It comprises of both revenues as well as the expenditure that different governmental units such as schools, defense services and other units spend and collect over a particular year. These budgets are created while keeping in mind the spending and revenues that were disbursed and collected by the governmental agencies in prior years.

ReferencesHou, Y. (2013). State government budget stabilization (1st ed.). New York, NY: Springer.