Finance pack update
Thank you for the huge co-operation of so many of our wonderful Treasurers who have completed our finance pack this year. I would also like to acknowledge what a huge contribution you have all made to your centres over the past 12 months and for many much longer. I genuinely appreciate your part in our larger financial processes, so again thank you.
This year we have had a wonderful response rate and at the time of writing were sitting at over 82% – for those who have yet to complete, please do as it is important for all our centres to have access to timely accounts to meet our Charities reporting and Grants deadlines.
If you need some extra support, please contact Trina in the finance team who will be happy to assist [email protected]
What to take to your AGM and how to change your Treasurer in Xero
I have had a few questions asking what finance docs to print for your AGMs – the answer is simply your Balance sheet, profit and loss statement and cash summary which can all be exported straight out of Xero. Also take your budget, which you can prepare in Xero or using the budgeting tool on the Playcentre website. Although finance are not asking for copies of budgets to be sent in, please do ensure these are available on request as we do spot check and also ask for these prior to centre making commitments e.g. to employment or capital projects.
We have also been asked how to change the Treasurer in Xero, depending on access many Treasurers can do this simply by going into settings, if this doesn’t work for you then contact Trina on the email above and she will set this up for your centre to self-service in the future.
Are we required to get an audit?
No – our constitution does not require our centres to get separate audits, however your own centre may opt to do so.
All our centres are covered by our Group audit and some centres will be selected to provide documentation for various items.
If you are a member of our group you have no further financial reporting to do for Charities this year, for those who have opted out of the Group please ensure you provide your Tier 4 reporting prior to the end of February 2020.
GST; does your centre really need to be registered?
I have had a few queries from Centres who are currently GST registered but are not reaching the $60,000 cut off and wondering if they should consider cancelling their registration.
If your centre has is nowhere near the $60,000 cut off and you are paying wages or looking to in the future, then you will currently be paying GST so I would recommend you consider cancelling your account. If you do this, you will be required to repay GST on any asset previously claimed. So any assets that are on your fixed asset register and were paid for by the centre. Chances are your building and many of your larger assets paid for by the capital works schemes will be sitting on Federations Asset register and so won’t require you to repay. For the example we have seen the repayment will only be less than $500 so probably worth considering.
How to cancel:
You can find the information about cancelling GST here: https://www.classic.ird.govt.nz/gst/cancelling/cancelling-index.html
The easiest way is if they have a MyIR login, if not it can be posted in. The reason for cancelling will be because the centre has revenue under $60,000
Is there any reason I wouldn’t want to cancel? Yes, if your centre does not pay wages and received much of its income from Donations then you would be in a GST receivable position and so would be best to remain GST registered.