ACNC reports more than $195 million in revenue errors in 2018
Dan Wade • March 2, 2021
ACNC REPORTS MORE THAN $195 MILLION IN REVENUE ERRORS FOR 2018
The Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission has disclosed errors totalling $195,522,440 in 2018 information statements and financial reports.
The faults were catalogued in the commission's
R
eporting statistics for the 2018 reporting period
.
Amendments to the ACNC register have corrected $195,522,440 in revenue and $614,226,373 in assets.
Key findings included:
- 68 per cent of charities selected the correct type of financial report to submit with their AIS. Of the remainder, the most common errors were the misclassification of the reduced-disclosure requirement in general-purpose financial statements and special-purpose financial statements as general-purpose statements
- 21 per cent incorrectly stated they were using transitional reporting arrangements – where the ACNC accepts financial reports prepared for and submitted to other regulators. These charities stated that they had to report to another regulator when in fact there was a streamlined reporting arrangement in place with the regulator. The charities were required to submit a report only to the ACNC
- 17 per cent incorrectly identified their financial report as 'consolidated' when it was in fact a single-charity report
- 42 per cent of charities that submitted a consolidated report provided figures for the group instead of information for an individual charity
- 75 per cent of financial reports included a complete set of financial statements. Of the remaining 25 per cent, the most common missing figures were statements of changes in equity and cash flow, and
- A lack of disclosures about whether charities were for-profit or not-for-profit for financial-reporting purposes and the absence of whether a legislative framework under which the financial report was prepared complied with the ACNC Act.
The commission stressed that it would continue to review charities' reports to ensure compliance with ACNC requirements. It would ensure that financial information charities provided matched the information in their formal statements.
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