1. Compilation system for GFS for Financial accounts

2. Louise Kristensen Kristina S. Vest The QFAGG team
Upstream data: Receive, initial compilation, quality assessing
Kristina S. Vest
Compile and quality assess data and data deliveries
My name is Kristina Vest and I am part of a small two person team working on compiling and improving Quarterly financial accounts for general government.
The area is at present subdivided into two areas of expertise.
1. Upstream data: receiving, initial compilation and quality assessing upstream data
2. Compiling and quality assessing data and data deliveries.
Louise is in charge of upstream data, which she has been doing for 6 years
I myself have been in charge of compiling data for financial accounts for general government for the past 6 years together with Louise.

3. Production process compilation quality assessing error checking
datasource comparing
publication
EDP production
data deliveries
Upstream data
The first part of the process is receiving the primary data. This is followed by the priliminary compilation and data assessing, all conducted by louise during the last 6 weeks before publication. During this period the I begin to check the systems handling the 2. level of compilation for errors as well as the data ready for compilation.

4. Data relationships

5. Data compilation overview

6. Primary data
The system itself is at present excell based but will, in the coming years, be exchanged in favour of a sas based system already used by other groups working on financial statistics in the same office as us, which of course is a great advantage as they have already developed most of what we need.
The present system can, as i will show you, be divided into four parts. One excell workbook for upsteam data, one for a second level compiling and one for the third and final level of compilation. After the first three levels of compilation has been conducted, data is ready for use. The fourt kind of spreadsheets are simply different ways of extracting the data needed for the different datadeliveries such as for example for the EDP tables.
As upstream data is received, it is entered, sometimes as is, sometimes after some compiling, into the first spreadsheet. Data included is always stock value and whenever possible financial transactions. Data is divided into the relevant areas to ease later use in the 2. level compilation system.
Most data received is either purely accounts based or closely linked to these.

7. Second level compilation
When the first level of data compiling is complete, the second level of compilation begins. Most of the data is automatically included as soon as all links between the spreadsheets have been updated. Some data is entered directly into this spreadsheet, but not much. Some is data compiled by other groups within the office, most of this is needed in order to to comply with national accounting standards, adding data for extrabudgetary units for example or data needed to ensure taxes ar on an accruel basis.
The second level of compilation includes adding the last data and transforming all data into stock values, financial transactions and revaluations as well as including information on ”other changes in volume”
At this level of compilation a lot of information is still available on what each instrument consists of. This is why, when answering questions for example in regards to EDP notifications, this is where the research into each question begins. From here it is easy to continue further down into the more detailed upstreamdata, which has been narrowed considerably by the subdivisions made in the second level spreadsheet.

8. Last level of compilation
The final level of compilation simply consists of adding all entries concerning each individual instrument, extracting data on the three different levels of consolidation and calculating numbers for, for example, net lending/net borroving, net debt, etc.
These speadsheets are part of our delivery to the central bank as this provides them with most of the information they need in a readily assessible manor.
This spreadsheet is also used for all final checks concerning identities such as ”end previous quarter = beginning present quarter stock”, ”beginning quarter + financial transactions + revaluations + other changes in volume = end quarter” and ” consolidation on assets = consolidation of liabilities within each sector” etz.

9. Quarterly data, year t: issues
Estimating data if the data is unavailable on a quarterly basis
Use of previous year to estimate quarterly data either as a simple linear progression or by using the yearly split as a estimate for the quarterly split percentagevise if what is missing is the actual split but aggregated data i available.
If special things influence either the previous year or the present year, this ofcourse is taken into consideration and the estimates adjusted accordingly
Often some data is missing for the quartely data until the yearly accounts are received. This is temporarily solved, until the yearly accounts are received, in one of two ways:
If no data exist: A simple linear progression
If aggregated data exist: Yearly split of the previous year used to calculate a percentage used to distribute the data on the subinstruments.
If special events have occured which have an influence on the quarters of year t, then this is taken into consideration when using previous year/years as an estimation for the present year until final data exist. This for example is the case when estimating accrual taxes. This has been needed when payments for certain types of taxes have changed timewise for example.
Or if some government fund has been discontinued in the previous year, then naturally transactions for this fund from year t-1 cannot be used to estimate transactions for year t.

10. Data deliveries Danish Central bank Ministry of finance Eurostat ECB
EDP to Eurostat
Debt to Eurostat
Debt to OECD etc.
Apart from the data being published nationally by statistics denmark, it is also send to eurostat and ecb for publication. Data is also send to the danish ministry of finance and the danish central bank. Part of the data is send, with minor changes, to the oecd, THE imf and the world bank.
Of these the closest working relationship is with the central bank from whom we receive upstream data mostly on debt and to whom we deliver back the full financial accounts for general government in a very detailed split.

11. Ongoing revisions of data 1
Quarters 1-4th. preliminary: Hardly no revisions to data, except what is effected by the yearly data
Fourth quarter final and yearly data: received in May/June t+1
Revisions to the yearly data: takes place once a year untill t+3
Preliminary data ”flagged” i all publications
Quarterly data is, as mentioned, received from the municipalities and regions as well as from the agency for the modernization of public administration, the last received about 6 weeks after the end of the quarter.
As this is not final accounts data, the data can change but changes are mostly due to changes in the yearly data.
The first publication of the yearly data is based on the data for the four quarters and thus on data which are by no means final.
When the yearly accounts data are received, the quarters are recalculated to make them add up to the yearly data. This can result in some rather large changes across instuments. These changes are often noticed by Eurostat, as the first EDP notification of the year is based on these very preliminary data.
Because we do revice data for the first three years, this is always flagged in the publications to ensure that users understand the preliminary state of the data. When larger changes occur, especially if the data is more than a year old, this is explained as well.

12. On going revisions of data 2
Year 2009, billion DKK
Marts t+1
June t+1
November t+1
November t+2
November t+3
Net debt, S.13
84.464
74.561
69.735
74.553
76.147
F.4 assets, S.1311
F.79 assets, S.1311
F.79 assets, S.1313
29.175
29.251
27.973
28.003
28.540
F.4 liabilities, S.1313

13. 2003, the first publication of QFAGG
Net debt
2003, consolidated
Marts t+1
June t+1
November t+1
November t+2, revision
November t+6, revision
S.1311
279,0
287,0
286,7
207,9
242,8
S.1313
41,3
44,1
34,1
9,5
S.1314
-255,9
-257,9
-0,9
-0,3
S.13
65,4
73,2
72,9
241,1
252,0
The first publication of QFAGG data took place in 2003, including data from Data from were not as detailed as data from 1999 and unwards.
Apart from the usual revisions of data due to more final data becoming available, we also have, an occational larger revion of data where we are allowed to open up data all the way back in order to implement larger changes and corrections.
In 2005 a data and methodological revision resulted in large changes especially to Social security funds. ATP which is a pension scheme, was moved from S.1314 to S.125, based on a decision by Eurostat on which sector a certain type of pension schemes belongs to.
Another revision in 2009 resulted in further changes in back data. This time mostly due to changes in accrued taxes and a certain type of guarantees being redefined as government debt.

14. Preliminary to final accounts data
S.1313, 2004 billion DKK
4th. preliminary
4th. final accounts
Long term receivables
38,5
59,9
Liquid assets
22,1
22,5
Receivables S.1311
1,2
3,6
Other short term receivables
28,8
38,9
Short term liabilities S.1311
6,5
8,9
Short term debt
27,3
40,8
Long term debt
65,7
66,2
If we take a look at some more specific raw data from local governments, this use to change a lot when we first started publishing data. At the end of 2004 this was the typical way data changed between the fourth quarter and the yearly accounts. Now, thankfully, we receive more final data from tyhe local governments in time to include this in the first publication of the year.

15. Publication of preliminary data
Yes we publish preliminary data
Large improvements in data since 2003
We flag preliminary data
We explain large corrections
If in doubt about whether to publish preliminary data, analyze the differences both gross and net between preliminary and final data.
Making the analysis on old years can also be a great help
As I have shown you, we too have large differences between preliminary and final data. Especially when we initially began to publish data, the difference could be very large especially concerning other accounts receivable/payable.
It can also be advantageous to test older years in order to see the generel level of corrections as well as trying to spot trends which may provide an avenue for adjusting the data in order to make the quarterly data closer to the final data.
I find that by publishing preliminary data, it is much easier to work on improving these.
It is important to have a rythm concerning the revisions, otherwise end users might become annoyed with alle the constant changes, but by only changing threee years back and only once a year, this is easier to explain.

16. Communicating with users and Eurostat
Data is always published for the entire subsector, never parts of this.
Explanations concerning data is our job – both when communicating with Eurostat and other end users.
Communication between end users and data providers goes through statistics Denmark.
Data is always published for the subsectors as a whole never for parts of this. Because we publish the data and at an aggregated level, it is natural for most questions concerning the data to be posted to us. If contact with data providers is needed in order to understand a certain part of data, We will contact the dataproviders to find out what the explanation is, we only refer users to dataproviderts after asking if this is alright or if the questions concern final accounts

17. Balancing adjustment Step 1 Step 2 Step 3
Compiling financial accounts using mostly the same datasources a for the non-financial accounts
Step 2
Adding the net lending net borrowing calculated in the non financial accounts to the compilation system
Step 3
balancing the financial accounts system using F.79 assets for the residual
Adjustments are made to the financial net lending by using the non financial net lending, because the sources on the non financial side, concerning net lending, is considered to be better. Work on a more precise split of the F7 items is in process.
Regarding quarterly data, until the year is complete, adjustments to the transactions are allowed to have an effect on the balance (please see explanation above), but as the year becomes more final and end of the year accounts are received, the effect of the adjustments are neutralized (in regards to stock values) as the stock values from the final accounts are considered the most correct sources. The effect on the stock values of the adjusted transactions are neutralized, by use of the “Other changes in volume” account. The effect on the transactions remains.

18. Balancing adjustment 2007-2012
2008
2009
2010
2011
2012
Produced 2008
2.863
Produced 2009
-7.286
-1.278
Produced 2010
2.865
-6.950
Produced 2011
6.999
1.772
Produced 2012
-205
3.869
-2.718
260
Produced 2013
3.219
-2.309
-1.490
-1.846
A lot of time and effort goes into managing and hopefully improving the balancing adjustment. Most of the previous improvements have concerned F.7 items thereby supporting our hypothesis of the difference between the two systems stemming from incompleted/lacking data on F.7 transactions. Part of this has been data on accrued taxes, part has been other timing issues and some have concerned items such as trade credits which have been to some extend included in F.79.

19. Other pending issues Improvements to EBU Budgetary data for S.1314
Stock values for Quasi corporations
MLDB – equity removed from the ones providing mainly/solely concessional loans
Data on trade credits improved
Finding the missing link to MFI statistics
Including standardized loan guarantees
Improving transaction data and data on other changes in volume
Including security deposits concerning SWAP agreements in F.41

20. That’s all
Any questions?