Long Term Obligations and Assets

Lessons in chapter IV of Financial Reporting in Government
By Dr. John Sacco , George Mason University
Revised Saturday, April 12, 1997

Lesson 1, Definitions, Importance, and Types of Long Term Items

Long term generally means more than a year. It can refer to obligations or assets. Long term obligations mean those that come due or need to be paid in a year or later. Long term fixed assets mean those that will have economic value for more than a year from now. In business, long term is defined by more than a year or more than one operating cycle, whichever is longer. For example, in a business, a manufacturing process may take much longer than a year. In such a case, long term could be greater than a year. The year period is used in government because the budget is generally an annual document. Thus, a year or less is current; more than a year is long term. Some exceptions exist. Sometimes items lapsing into the next sixty days after the end of year are considered current.

Lesson 2, Place in the Compliance and Liquidity Model

Lesson 3, Long Term Obligations

Lesson 4, Long Term or Fixed Assets

Lesson 5, Investment Strategies


See Also: the introduction , a pretest , a discussion , the study aides , a test , and your progress evaluation