The South African authorities recognise the importance of the timely availability of high-quality macroeconomic data. In view of the important role of government finance statistics in the assessment of the stability and sustainability of macroeconomic policies, South Africa has devoted considerable resources to ensuring that best practice is adhered to in the compilation of statistics. The quest for best practice was informed by recent initiatives of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in developing methodologies for the compilation of statistics. The Government Finance Statistics Manual 2001 (GFSM 2001), released by the IMF, was one of a series of manuals that was thoroughly revised to set a standard for the compilation and presentation of statistics. The revision was done following the identification of deficiencies in the reporting framework of traditional government reporting systems as portrayed in the IMF’s Manual on Government Finance Statistics 1986 (GFS 1986). GFSM 2001 aims at providing improved flows of information that can be used to optimally guide policy decisions, and was released in December 2001 after extensive consultation.  The aim of this note is to briefly describe - the background to the revision of the manual;- major changes introduced by the new manual;- the structure and accounts of the revised analytical framework of the GFSM 2001;- the migration path needed to convert from the GFS 1986 framework to the revised framework; and- the adjustments made to the Quarterly Bulletin tables (Tables S71 – S79) as a first step in the migration process.​