O ativo intangível no processo de prestação de contas das universidades federais brasileiras

Abstract

The accounting practices applied to Public Accounting through the process of convergence of national standards to international standards come to cover its control focus, previously focused mainly on budgetary control, now also focus on adequate equity control. As of the publication of Ordinance No. 548/2015 of the National Treasury Secretariat, the deadlines to be adopted gradually by the Federation entities were determined as to the implementation of equity accounting procedures, among the procedures to be adopted is the record from the recognition, measurement and disclosure of intangible assets. The present study aims to verify some characteristics related to the intangible assets published in the Balance Sheet of the Brazilian Federal Universities. To do so, two moments were necessary, where the first was the realization of a professional workshop in two sectors of the Federal University of Alagoas and the use of the FALA.BR platform. During the professional workshop held in two sectors of the Federal University of Alagoas it was possible to verify the data related to their intangible assets as well as some existing bottlenecks that may have hindered the registration and publication of intangibles. The second moment was the availability of a questionnaire containing 10 questions directed to 60 Brazilian Federal Universities through the FALA.BR platform with the request for data concerning the intangible assets published in their Balance Sheet. The results obtained showed that the Federal University of Alagoas, among the 60 Universities surveyed, was the only one that did not publish data related to intangible assets in its Balance Sheet. It was verified that from the researched Universities, 32 pointed as the main factor for the adequacy and publication of the intangible assets the legislation and 53% of the information related to the intangible assets are managed by the Deans of Administration or Planning. The intangible assets identified and published in the Universities were the software, trademarks and patents, where the software are evidenced in 37% of the researched Universities, 21 of these Universities perform the control of this information in internal systems, of the intangible assets evidenced in the Balance Sheet, 76% are acquired from third parties. When it comes to the accounting or not of the amortization and impairment test, 25 of the surveyed Universities perform the amortization, 4 perform the amortization and impairment test and 23 of them do not perform it. Based on the information provided by the Federal University of Alagoas an action plan was proposed in the short term based on some identified challenges such as the definition of intangibles, identification as to the occurrence of future economic benefits for the institution, definition of an adequate measurement basis. With the accomplishment of the work it was verified the challenges to be worked on by the Federal University of Alagoas so that this information is part of the data present in the Balance Sheet, meeting the legislation, corroborating with the institutional objectives and making public before society the acts and facts related to intangible assets.