Financial Reporting

Financial Statements & Audit Requirements 

The Otago Community Trust generally expect that all entities applying to us for funding will provide us with financial statements which:

• are no more than 18 months old at the time the application is submitted
• have been prepared by a Chartered Accountant who is a member of Chartered Accountants Australia and New Zealand (CAANZ), or equivalent and
• have been signed by two office holders

Otago Community Trust requires that entities other than Charities provide us with financial statements that are materially consistent with generally accepted accounting practices which meet the audit or review requirements set out in their constitutions.

Otago Community Trust’s audit requirement for different types of organisations is shown below:

Annual operating expenditure of applicant for latest financial year	Audit or Review requirements
	Grant Requests under $50,000	Grant Requests over $50,000
Greater than $1m	Audit required	Audit required
Between $500,000 and $1m	Audit or Review required only if required by Constitution or Trust Deed	Audit required
Under $500,000	Review or Audit required only if required by Constitution or Trust Deed	Financial statements must be prepared by a CA with a Certificate of Public Practice and an audit maybe required

 

All audits must be completed by a Qualified Auditor as defined by section 36 of the Financial Reporting Act.

If your organisation is unable to meet any of these requirements we would encourage you to call our office to discuss this further as you may still be able to apply for a grant.

NFP Financial Reporting Resources

The Chartered Accountants Australia and New Zealand have a downloadable guide for NFP financial reporting in New Zealand. The 2024 Guide can be viewed here.