Increase in Finance Support

With the implementation of the new operating model, Treasurers will handover finance tasks to the Kaimahi and the national Finance team.  In preparation for this, there have been several new appointments in the team. 

  • An Accounts Manager (Michelle Friedman) will be starting in the New Year to manage an expanded accounts payable and accounts receivable team (as well as payroll). 
  • We have increased our accounts payable team from 1 to 3, with more to come as invoice volumes grow.
  • The Accounts Receivable Administrator will become a full-time role.
  • A National Procurement Manager (Bridget Stewart) will start in the New Year to get us all some better deals with suppliers and consolidate invoices from suppliers we already use nationwide.
  • A transition team is being recruited/seconded which will assist centres with the process of transferring their finances to Playcentre Aotearoa.  Some of this team will stay on board after the transition to support centres and Centre Kaimahi in the new operating model.

Account Name Matching

New Zealand banks are rolling out account name matching for online payments.  The roll-out has begun but will be gradually implemented over the next few months.  Once implemented for your bank account, when you do a bill payment, the account name and bank account number you have entered will be checked against the account name attached to that bank account.  If this is an exact match, the payment will proceed; if you get a partial match or a non-match you can still choose to proceed, but you should double-check the bank account number you are using.

Playcentre Aotearoa’s legal name is Te Whānau tupu Ngātahi o Aotearoa – Playcentre Aotearoa.  If you pay using bill payments via online banking, you may need to update the account name for the Playcentre Aotearoa bill payment so you get an exact match when you make a payment. If you run out of characters, enter as much of the name as you can. If you use Xero to create payment batches, please check and update the vendor name in Xero.  Your bank’s interface may not accept macrons or hyphens, so please remove these if you get an error.