Acta Scientiarum Polonorum
Silvarum Colendarum Ratio et Industria Lignaria

The specific character of forest economy results in a situation when individual units operating under ad- vantageous conditions obtain additional (surplus) economic results such as the differential land rent, while units operating under less advantageous conditions are devoid of these results. In practice we may find two forms of the financial system in forestry. One of them is closely related with the state budget and consists   in the financing of forest economy from that budget, while the other consists in the redistribution of a part of income of all forest management units. In Poland the latter solution is used. Redistribution of funds is executed through the financial instrument of the Forest Fund (FL). It affects the balance sheet of enterprises. In view of the fact that data from that balance sheet are used in indicator analyses of the financial standing of enterprises, an important methodological element is related with the identification of the effect of flow of funds connected with FL on specific items of the balance sheet. For this reason in this study it was decided to indicate the effect of sector settlements related with FL on changes in individual items in balance sheets of forest divisions. Based on the analyses it was stated that redistribution of FL influences selected items of the balance sheet of forest divisions. A different effect on components of the balance sheet was observed between forest divisions being net and gross payers. A positive value of the balance from sector settlements causes    a proportional increase in balance totals. Due to accounting of FL flows to assets the value of short-term in- vestments and the net income (net profit) entered to liabilities increase. A negative value of the balance from sector settlements does not cause changes in balance totals, whereas the financing structure within liabilities changes, as the net income is reduced by an identical value to that, by which short-term liabilities increase. In this case assets do not change.