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Corresponding author:
1 Lviv University of Trade and Economics, Ukraine.
E-mail: kutsykpetro@gmail.com 
ORCID: http://orcid.org/0000-0001-5795-9704
ResearcherID: G-9204-2019

DOI: https://doi.org/10.30525/2661-5150/2020-3-9

STATISTICAL ANALYSIS OF THE RECEIVABLES  
OF ENTERPRISES OF HOUSING AND COMMUNAL SERVICES: 

ACCOUNTING SUPPORT

Petro Kutsyk1

Abstract. The branch characteristics of activity of the enterprises of housing and communal services are 
defined with features of management of receivables: its absence of alternative concerning partially rendered 
services to consumers that would directly influence reduction of incomes of the enterprise of housing and 
communal services; its impossibility of resale of services, lack of clear control over the quality of services 
provided and its price, which leads to dissatisfaction with the social needs of the population; its lack of flexible 
discounts for honest payers of housing and communal services. The analysis of the structure of receivables of 
the population for the consumed housing and communal services of the enterprises of the Lviv region during 
April-August 2020 is carried out. It is established that the use of inefficient methods of housing management 
leads to low payment discipline of buyers, which contributes to the deterioration of the financial condition 
of the industry as a whole. Therefore, methods of accelerating the payment of receivables with appropriate 
reporting on the quality of services provided should be actively used. The dynamics of the amount of funds 
for which agreements on debt restructuring for housing and communal services have been concluded, and 
the amount repaid by consumers-debtors indicates increased activities on concluding contracts and gradual 
repayment of debts by consumers.
In case of overdue receivables for housing and communal services, the consumer should be reminded of 
the need to pay the debt in different ways. These are in the form of a re-receipt, correspondent (send by 
registered mail on demand), SMS, or call, or direct visit of the housing and communal services department 
representative to the service object, and finding out the cause of existing receivables, the order of criteria for 
their classification into doubtful and bad types of receivables. The purpose of the research is to identify sectorial 
characteristics of housing and communal services, which determine the features of receivables management 
and improve the methodology of statistical analysis of receivables to identify causes of late payment of 
housing and communal services and ways to motivate consumers to repay debts. Methodology. The method 
of statistical analysis of receivables is developed to be carried out in three stages: analysis of the structure of 
receivables; analysis of the dynamics of receivables for communal services; analysis of the effectiveness of 
receivables restructuring. Results. The following stages of statistical analysis of receivables for housing and 
communal services are offered. Analysis of the structure of receivables to determine the types of housing 
and communal services for which we observe the largest and smallest share in total is proposed. Analysis of 
the dynamics of receivables for communal services to determine trends in indicators in the regional aspect is 
suggested. Analysis of the effectiveness of the restructuring receivables (provides for the calculation of the 
increase in the number of agreements on debt restructuring and assessment in the dynamics of repayment 
of these receivables) is proffered. Practical implications. We identified effective management methods of 
receivables of housing and communal services that improves the financial condition of the industry as a whole.  
Value/originality. The statistical analysis of the receivables of enterprise of housing and communal services has 
been further developed.

Key words: receivables, statistical analysis, restructuring, housing and communal services department, 
accounting.

JEL Classification: G18, H32, M21



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1. Introduction
The activity of housing and communal services 

department is carried out in conditions of low 
contractual discipline, which leads to significant 
amounts of doubtful and bad receivables. At the 
same time, a certain part of consumers is dissatisfied 
with the existing discrepancy between the size 
of tariffs and the quality of services provided. 
Therefore, the calculation of the current calculation 
of the cost of services provided by the management 
of housing and communal services requires greater 
substantiation, publication and bringing to the 
notice of consumers. The appropriate adjustments 
should be made in case of unreasonable 
overestimation of certain articles. The research of 
statistical indicators of the structure and dynamics 
of existing receivables in the regional aspect will 
identify regions with or without violations, as well 
as positive or negative trends in changes in payment 
discipline by consumers of housing and communal 
services.

The lack of effective methodological approaches 
to debt management for housing and communal 
services necessitates the development of 
methodological support for statistical analysis of 
receivables of housing and communal services, 
which will improve the liquidity and solvency of 
enterprises in the industry.

2. Brief literature review
The receivables that are in doubt should be 

disclosed (Chyzhevska et al., 2019). In order 
for receivables to be transparent, it is necessary 
to disclose reports in more detail, reflecting in 
the reporting lines the amount of receivables in 
terms of taxes and types of receivables and other 
information on receivables and its management, 
because there are debts that are actually bad.

The financial statements are not enough to 
manage receivables. The qualitative and quantitative 
data complement and support each other, they 
must be considered simultaneously by the users of 
the annual report so that they can make the right 
decisions.

The qualitative and quantitative data complement 
and support each other, it must be considered 
simultaneously by the users of the annual report so 
that they can make the right decisions (Kubaščíková 
et al., 2019). The investors and other users of the 
annual reports are encouraged to research the 
descriptions together with individual financial 

situations and other sources of information to get 
a full picture of the possible future development 
of the company’s financial performance. This, in 
turn, would promote their ability to make the right 
investment decisions and allow them to assess the 
value of their funds.

The causes of doubtful and bad receivables are 
due to the peculiarities of housing and communal 
services department, which affect the nature of 
socio-economic relations in the industry such as: 

1. Continuity of the process of providing and 
consuming services.

2. Social orientation (significance) of services.
3. No alternative to the services provided. 
4. Inseparability of the process of providing and 

consuming services. 
5. The dependence of production and consuming 

services. 
6. Social response to the results of service 

providers. 
7. The production nature of the formation of 

prices and tariffs for services. 
8. Intangible nature of services provided 

(intangibility, impossibility of accumulation (tare) 
and resale) (Holovchenko et al., 2017).

We believe that the main characteristics of 
enterprises of housing and communal services that 
directly affect the management of receivables are: 
– The lack of alternatives to partially provide 
services to consumers, which would directly affect 
the reduction of income of enterprises of housing 
and communal services. 
– Impossibility of resale of services, lack of clear 
control over the quality of services provided and 
price, which leads to dissatisfaction with the social 
needs of the population, lack of flexible discounts 
for honest payers of housing and communal 
services.

The economic component of the agglomeration 
effect, which forms the competitive advantages of 
housing and communal services department in 
urban agglomerations, includes:
– ensuring the profitability of enterprises in the 
industry;
– reducing accounts payable and receivable;
– optimizing (saving) management costs and 
reducing management risks (and, in turn, costs 
associated with its elimination, minimization, 
localization or prevention) by reducing the 
management staff (Hradoboieva et al., 2015).

The level of payment for services by the 
population; the level of reimbursement of expenses 



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for the production of services; the average cost 
of services ensures the break-even operation of 
enterprises of housing and communal services 
(Kipenko et al., 2014). That is, the presence or 
absence of receivables significantly determines the 
further vector of work with consumers to encourage 
timely payment of debts.

The cause of receivables and payables in 
the housing sector are a number of factors 
(Havrylenko et al., 2014). It is the current 
significant debt in Ukraine with the payment of 
wages and other cash payments to the population. 
In this situation, people are physically unable 
to pay exorbitant prices for energy, housing and 
communal services. However, tariffs for housing 
and communal services must be economically 
justified, because both low or high prices and 
tariffs for services lead to destabilization of the 
housing and communal services department. In 
the first case, there is an aging of fixed assets and 
the impossibility of technological renewal of the 
industry, which increases the loss of energy, water 
and other resources and, accordingly, creates 
conditions for increasing the cost of works and 
services of enterprises of housing and communal 
services. Therefore, in order to solve the problems 
of the industry, it is necessary to attract additional 
financial and material resources. At the same 
time, the unprofitability of enterprises of housing 
and communal services, the lack of sources of 
financing the costs of upgrading its material and 
technical base does not make it possible to attract 
investment in the industry, introduce modern 
production technologies and save resources, as 
well as obtain loans.

Each enterprise must form a set of analytical 
indicators guided by its own information needs. 
As a rule, when analyzing receivables, analysts of 
enterprises calculate the following indicators in 
Ukraine: 
– its total volume; 
– the amount of overdue receivables; 
– timeliness of payments; 
– its actual reversibility (general and in the context 
of each client); 
– the dynamics of its repayment;
–  the average period of deferred payments; 
– the average repayment period of the deferral; 
– the dynamics of working capital, etc.

The calculation of these indicators makes it 
possible to control the movement of current 
funds and maintain the minimum required level 

of cash. Often, business leaders cannot obtain the  
necessary information on the maturity of 
receivables, because the available information 
systems cannot ensure the formation of a report. In 
addition to the amount and timing of receivables, 
it is necessary to control the order of payments, 
receipts for each group of services and for each 
debtor, the emergence of a critical level of debt 
on it (Fedorchenko et al., 2015). The control of 
doubtful and bad debts should be carried out for 
each consumer who did not pay on time for the 
received housing and communal services.

3. Results
The method of statistical analysis of receivables 

allows establishing patterns of state and 
development of housing and communal services 
department. The following stages of statistical 
analysis of receivables for housing and communal 
services are offered: 

1. Analysis of the structure of receivable.
2. Analysis of the dynamics of receivables for 

communal services.
3. Analysis of the effectiveness of receivables 

restructuring (provides the calculation of the 
increase in the number of agreements on debt 
restructuring and assessment in the dynamics of 
repayment of these receivables).

The first stage is “Analysis of the structure of 
receivable”. We consider the method of statistical 
analysis of the structure of receivable on Lviv 
region during April-August 2020; the calculated 
indicators are given in Table 1.

In the total amount of receivables of the 
population for consumed housing and communal 
services of enterprises of housing and communal 
services of Lviv region during April-August 2020, 
the largest specific weight on April 1, 2020 and 
on August 1, 2020 is district heating and hot 
water supply (65.84 % and 53.66 % respectively). 
Moreover, there is a decrease in debt by 
188.4 million UAH or 35.49 % for April-August 
2020, and there is a decrease by 12.18 points  
of the structure in the share of consumer debt 
for district heating and hot water supply in the 
total amount of communal services. The debts 
for communal services have the lowest share, in  
terms the removal of household waste, in parti-
cular, on April 1, 2020 – 3.15 %, and on August 
1, 2020 – 4.59 %. However, the total amount of 
unpaid payments for garbage removal in Lviv re-
gion increased by 3.90 million UAH or by 15.35 %.



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The total amount of consumer debt for water 
supply and drainage in Lviv region increased 
by 17.1 million UAH or 14.83 %. The debts of 
consumers for services related to the maintenance 
of buildings and adjacent territory decreased by 
0.6 million UAH or 0.45 %.

The second stage is “Analysis of the dynamics 
of receivables for communal services”. In general, 
during January-August 2020, the debt for consumed 
housing and communal services in Ukraine 
decreased by 1 597.4 million UAH or 5.24 %. This 
is a positive trend in such regions as Vinnytsia, 
Dnipropetrovsk, Zhytomyr, Zaporizhzhia, Ivano-
Frankivsk, Kyiv, Lviv, Mykolaiv, Odesa, Poltava, 
Rivne, Sumy, Ternopil, Kherson, Khmelnytskyi, 
Cherkasy, Chernivtsi, Chernihiv, and the city of 
Kyiv. In other regions, there is a deterioration of 
payment discipline.

The dynamics of consumer debt for communal 
services of Lviv region during 7 months of 2020 is 
shown in Figure 1.

During 7 months of 2020, the largest amount of 
consumer debt for housing and communal services 
in Lviv region falls on February 1, 2020, and the 
lowest – on August 1, 2020, and starting from April 
2020 there is a positive trend towards a gradual 
decrease in debt.

The use of inefficient management methods 
of housing and communal services department 
leads to low payment discipline of buyers, which 
contributes to the deterioration of the financial 

condition of the industry as a whole. Therefore, 
methods of accelerating the payment of receivables 
with appropriate reporting on the quality of 
services provided should be actively used.

The third stage “Analysis of the effectiveness of 
receivables restructuring”. In order to assess how 
effectively the debt restructuring for housing and 
communal services was carried out, it is necessary 
to analyze how the increase in the concluded 
restructuring agreements affected the amount of 
receivables repayment. The dynamics of growth in 
the number of agreements on debt restructuring 
and the dynamics of repayment of this receivable in 
Ukraine as a whole are given in Table 2.

The dynamics of the amount of funds, for which 
agreements on debt restructuring for housing and 
communal services have been concluded, and the 
amount repaid by consumers-debtors testify to the 
revival of activities on concluding contracts and 
gradual repayment of debts by consumers.

In case of overdue receivables for housing and 
communal services, the consumer should be 
reminded of the need to pay the debt in different 
ways. These are in the form of a re-receipt, 
correspondent (send by registered mail on 
demand), SMS, or call, or direct visit of the housing 
and communal services department representative 
to the service object, and finding out the cause 
of existing receivables, the order of criteria for 
their classification into doubtful and bad types of 
receivables. 

Table 1
Methods of statistical analysis of the structure of receivable of the population  
for consumed housing and communal services of enterprises of housing  
and communal services of Lviv region during April-August 2020 

No Article

01.04.2020 01.08.2020 Deviation

Amount 
in millions 

UAH

Specific 
weight, %

Amount 
in millions 

UAH

Specific 
weight, %

Absolute 
deviation 

in millions 
UAH

Relative 
deviation, %

Deviations 
in the points 

of the 
structure

1
District heating 
and hot water 
supply

530.9 65.84 342.5 53.66 -188.4 -35.49 -12.18

2
Water supply and 
drainage

115.3 14.30 132.4 20.74 17.1 14,83 6.44

3
Maintenance of 
buildings and 
adjacent territory

134.7 16.71 134.1 21.01 -0.60 -0.45 4.30

4
Removal of 
household waste

25.4 3.15 29.3 4.59 3,90 15.35 1.44

Total: 806.3 100 638.3 100 -168.00 -20.84 х
Source: Ministerstvo rozvytku hromad ta terytorii Ukrainy



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4. Conclusions
The following stages of statistical analysis of 

receivables for housing and communal services 
are offered. Analysis of the structure of receivables 
to determine the types of housing and communal 
services for which we observe the largest and 
smallest share in total is proposed. Analysis of the 
dynamics of receivables for communal services 
to determine trends in indicators in the regional 
aspect is suggested. Analysis of the effectiveness 
of the restructuring receivables (provides for 

the calculation of the increase in the number of 
agreements on debt restructuring and assessment 
in the dynamics of repayment of these receivables) 
is proffered.

The use of inefficient management methods 
of housing and communal services department 
leads to low payment discipline of buyers, which 
contributes to the deterioration of the financial 
condition of the industry as a whole. Therefore, 
you should actively use reminder methods that 
will speed up the payment of receivables with 

 

Figure 1. The dynamics of consumer debt for communal services of Lviv region during 7 months of 2020

Source: State Statistics Service of Ukraine

Table 2
Dynamics of growth in the number of agreements on debt restructuring and the dynamics  
of repayment of this receivable in Ukraine as a whole during January-July 2020

Month
Number of concluded 

agreements, units

Amount of restructured 
debt for housing and 
communal services in 

thousand UAH

Amount of repayment 
of restructured debt for 
housing and communal 

services in thousand UAH

Repayment of restructured 
debt for housing and 

communal services, %

January 4933 38587.9 37359.7 96.82
February 5532 59005.5 24248.4 41.10

March 3539 151470.4 107865.7 71.21
April 1558 8333.2 18072.4 216.87
May 2049 11998.3 18597.9 155.00
June 3841 28949.1 19507.5 67.39
July 4631 35028.7 21524.7 61.45

Source: Ministerstvo rozvytku hromad ta terytorii Ukrainy



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appropriate reporting on the quality of services 
provided. These are in the form of a re-receipt, 
correspondent (send by registered mail on 
demand), SMS, or call, or direct visit of the housing 
and communal services department representative 
to the service object, and finding out the cause 
of existing receivables, the order of criteria for 
their classification into doubtful and bad types of 
receivables. 

The statistical analysis of the dynamics of the 
amount of funds for which agreements on debt 
restructuring for housing and communal services 
and the amount repaid by consumers-debtors shows 
the effectiveness of this method of debt management. 

The prospects for further research are the 
development of measures to improve the payment 
discipline of consumers of housing and communal 
services.

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