This article discusses the benefits of active learning techniques in teaching public sector accounting and highlights the particularities of teaching this subject to public administration students. As students in public administration in university or vocational learning programmes do not usually possess the necessary accounting and budgeting background, the educational focus should be on accounting comprehension and not on accounting information generation technicalities. Using active learning tools that correspond to the realistic financial overview of local governments, but in a user-friendly and easily understood way, could prove advantageous. Newly-developed educational software that is built along these lines is presented as a case study in this article.