Getting ready for 30 June reporting for Not-For-Profits

Article

Published: June 24, 2025 |

Authors: Elizabeth Blunt, Ben Renshaw, Leon Fouche, Fridrich Housa

Are you ready for 30 June reporting? We recently held a webinar hosted by Not-For-Profit National Leader Elizabeth Blunt with experts Fridrich Housa, Ben Renshaw and Leon Fouche. The webinar provided updates on accounting and sustainability reporting standards, wage compliance, and cyber security to assist NFPs and charity organisations prepare for 30 June 2025 reporting.

Topics covered in the webinar included regulatory updates, standards mandatorily applicable for the first time at 30 June, ASIC financial reporting surveillance, payroll compliance, Fair Work, and cyber security trends and challenges. The key points are summarised below:

Financial and sustainability reporting

During the upcoming reporting period, although many NFP’s report to the ACNC and not ASIC, we shared ASIC’s focus areas as all reporting entities should be aware of these focus areas. They highlight the most significant or common instances of past non-compliance with Australian Accounting Standards, as well as emerging areas posing significant challenges for financial statement preparers. 

ASIC will continue to focus on several areas where significant judgement from preparers of financial reports is required such as revenue recognition, asset values and impairment, provisions, events after the reporting period, disclosures in the financial statements and the operating and financial review. ASIC will also review December 2025 sustainability reports and will share observations with the market to assist preparers. In its recent media release, ASIC outlined its focus areas for its surveillance of 30 June 2025 financial reports.

Revenue recognition is a new area ASIC will focus on when reviewing 30 June 2025 financial reports which is applicable to NFP organisations due to NFPs being required to apply two accounting standards to its revenue recognition. While ASIC has not provided details of areas within revenue recognition it will be looking at, we expect it to focus on aspects of AASB 15 Revenue from Contracts with Customers where revenue recognition spans multiple periods. That is, the focus is likely to be on identifying separate performance obligations and recognising revenue when each performance obligation is satisfied.

The most recent key findings available from the financial statements and annual information statement reviews from the ACNC include the key management personnel remuneration disclosures, completeness of the financial statements, inconsistencies between financial statements and annual information statement, and appropriate disclosures that include sufficient information for the users of the financial statements.

Directors, preparers, and auditors should collectively pay particular attention to these matters to improve financial reporting and audit quality. They should also ensure that they have robust position papers with appropriate analysis and conclusions to support complex and judgemental areas of accounting. These should refer to Australian Accounting Standards. Regulators, including ASIC, will be looking at how NFPs have assessed and analysed their positions, applications of accounting standards and how they have documented that analysis and consideration.

The ACNC has reported they received an increase of 14% in registration applications in the 2023-24 financial year, around 50% of these due to the ATO self-assessing income tax exempt reforms. In this regard, there was an extension to provide the self-return to 31 March 2025, only for the 2023-24 income year. ATO noted if an NFP has missed the lodgement due date, they should lodge as soon as possible before the next return is due. NFPs do not need to request an extension from the ATO, and they have suspended the penalty for NFPs making genuine efforts to comply.

There have been amendments to accounting standards that will be effective for the first time for the 30 June 2025 year-end period, including:

AASB 101
- AASB 2020-1 – Classification of Liabilities as Current or Non-current
- AASB 2022-6 – Non-current Liabilities with Covenants
AASB 1060
- AASB 2023-3 – Disclosure of Non-current Liabilities with Covenants
AASB 16
- AASB 2022-5 – Lease Liability in a Sale and Leaseback
AASB 107 and AASB 7
- AASB 2023-1 – Supplier Finance Arrangements
AASB 1060
- AASB 2024-1 - Supplier Finance Arrangements: Tier 2 Disclosures
AASB 13
- AASB 2022-10 – Fair Value Measurement of Non-Financial Assets of Not-for-Profit Public Sector Entities.

There have been recent changes to the consolidated entity disclosure statement for 30 June 2025, this will affect NFPs that are companies limited by guarantee and not registered with the ACNC. Information around these changes can be found here.

Payroll compliance and Fair Work

To ensure businesses know their payroll is working, we look at four pillars of a payroll review, being confident across each pillar helps identify that the payroll system is working. The NFP sector is often a complicated area when it comes to navigating Pay Against Award, and we recommend organisations perform a targeted review of their pay against the award to identify any concerns that require a deeper review. Second to this we suggest a wage code review, ensuring the payroll is configured properly to make sure organisations wage codes lead to the right statutory or technical outcomes.

The introduction of Portable Long Service Leave has led to a high focus on leave accrual and long service leave payouts from the Victorian wage inspector. We’re seeing a lot of activity in this space, and it can be a challenge to get right and keep right, so we suggest a spot check to ensure organisations are following the right processes. We also recommend that organisations undertake periodic end-to-end payroll process reviews from a risk and controls perspective, with a focus on the usual elements of people, processes and systems.

We have seen several Fair Work investigations, particularly around enforceable undertakings. For NFPs working within the complexities of various awards in the sector, Fair Work are conscious of mistakes that can occur. Taking steps to review your payroll can help organisations be prepared if any Fair Work investigations are to occur. Fair Work have published a remediation guide to set out expectations around the remediation process because of an investigation.

Cyber security trends and challenges

NFPs are embracing innovation and new technologies, extending digital platforms for fundraising, communications and interaction with donors and stakeholders. NFPs are also embracing data-driven decision-making, including integrating CRMs. This brings additional risk as sensitive information, personal and healthcare information will be filtering through, and organisations can only protect and control the data they house themselves. NFPs will need to be aware of their service providers’ cyber security to monitor and evaluate these risks.

Generative AI is increasing in adoption within organisations and NFPs, hackers are also starting to use the same technology leading to risks such as:

Use of unapproved tools (shadow AI)
Accidental exposure of sensitive or confidential data
AI-generated content leading to reputational or legal issues.

Advancements in technologies have led to emerging regulatory requirements for Australian NFPs including:

ACNC Cyber Security Governance
Identify and manage cyber risks
Safeguard personal and sensitive data
Implement an incident response plan
Review third-party provider security controls
Cyber Security Act 2024
Report ransomware payments within 72hrs
Report significant cyber incidents
Prepare for mandatory incident disclosure obligations
Privacy Act & NDB Scheme
Notify OAIC (Office of the Australian Information Commissioner) and affected individuals of eligible data breaches
Apply reasonable data protection and retention practices
Maintain internal breach registers and review controls regularly.