This book provides a comparative look at financial management systems from a family of systems point of view. Despite the similarity between the models there are significant differences that have evolved over time because of systemic reasons like national culture and values, administrative culture, and constitutional and organisational arrangements. The book looks at the two major families of accounting regimes: the Anglo-american model and the continental European model and its two subsets of the German tradition and the French tradition as well as how the accounting structure has evolved in China. These papers were originally delivered during a conference in Beijing in support of efforts to reform the public accounting structure in China.