End of Financial Year Questionnaire

The end of financial year questionnaire will be sent out early next month and will be the last one!  The questionnaire is for two purposes:

  • Some centres have not yet completed their financial transition to Playcentre Aotearoa (i.e. they are still transacting using Xero).  This means we will need to pull year end year financial information from each centre’s Xero account.  As part of this year’s questionnaire, as in past years, we will be asking these centres to confirm that Xero has been fully reconciled and correct, fixed assets have been set up, and depreciation run.  Centres who have transferred funds to Playcentre Aotearoa and are now transacting through Business Central will not be required to complete this section.
  • We will be asking all centres for information used in Playcentre’s Annual Report e.g. number of bi-lingual sessions run, community engagement.  For future years, we will look into alternative ways of gathering this information.

The questionnaire needs to be completed by late September.  Please look in your centre email for this (or from your Kaimahi).  As part of the transition to our new operating model, the Finance transition team have been working hard to investigate and fix up historical errors in Xero so clean data can be transferred to Business Central (our financial system).  If your centre receives Equity Funding, we will coordinate this with you for the 2025 financial year (from Xero – details later in the year) and a new process will be introduced from 2026.

Online Centre Hire Bookings are now Live!

We have a new way to manage centre hires. An app has been developed where bookings and payments will be done on-line and proceeds allocated to each centre’s cost centre. This will initially be used for all one-off centre hires (e.g. parties) where there is one booking per day. We are working on a solution for centres with multiple hires per day – in the meantime these centres will continue to use the current process, but with payment to the Playcentre Aotearoa bank account once finances have been transitioned.

The new app can be made available to all centres, whether they have transitioned finances to Playcentre Aotearoa or are still in the process of doing so.

To register your centre, please complete the Centre Hire – Activation Form

Calendar Managers can find more details here.

Centre Budgets

We know how important it is for our centres to have clarity and confidence when planning for the year ahead. Playcentre Aotearoa is working hard to ensure that centre budgets will be available by 1st September 2025.

Your basic budget will take into account the size of your centre (session hours and number of tamariki enrolled) as well as how many Space sessions are hosted. Additional budget will be provided for centres which have quality funding, those where volunteers run sessions and for any equity funding relating to your centre. Funds raised by centre whānau via fundraising and donations will be additional, to give choices to the centre on non-essential spending e.g. cleaners, lawnmowing services, trips and events.

To support your planning, an example of what the updated centre budget will look like is available on our website. This will give you a sense of the format and structure you can expect.

Until your budget is finalised, we recommend using your current budget as a guideline for expenditure planning. Please remove any one-off items that were specific to this financial year to help create a more accurate picture of your ongoing costs.

We encourage you to come together as a centre whānau to begin discussions and preparations for the year ahead. Your commitment and collaboration are what make Playcentre so special, and we’re here to support you every step of the way.