private vs. government

J Locklin explained on 4/17/2007 :

Government accounts start with a budget set by act of the legislature. There are no profit and loss statements (or, if there are in some cases, they bear a different significance). One would concentrate less on labor costs, because, most often, those to are fixed too (in terms of the production function, you would concentrate on efficiency). Different agencies use different accounting programs and none of them integrate well with the other agency?s system.