A charity's financial statements must be either General Purpose Financial Statements (GPFS) or Special Purpose Financial Statements (SPFS).
The type of financial statements a charity must prepare depends on whether it is classed as a reporting entity.
If your charity is a reporting entity, it must submit General Purpose Financial Statements that comply with all applicable Australian Accounting Standards.
If your charity is not a reporting entity, it can submit either General Purpose Financial Statements or Special Purpose Financial Statements to the ACNC.
Reporting entity
Generally speaking, if people:
- use and rely on your charity's financial statements to help them make decisions about how to allocate resources, and
- cannot have their information needs satisfied if your charity prepared a Special Purpose Financial Statement
then your charity is most likely a reporting entity.
The Australian Accounting Standard AASB 1053 defines a reporting entity as:
an entity in respect of which it is reasonable to expect the existence of users who rely on the entity's general purpose financial statements for information that will be useful to them for making and evaluating decisions about the allocation of resources. A reporting entity can be a single entity or a group comprising a parent and all of its subsidiaries.
Ultimately, whether your charity is a reporting entity will depend on a number of factors, including its particular circumstances.
Consideration of these factors will help determine whether your charity is likely to be classed as a reporting entity.
Primary factors for consideration
Where it is not apparent that people use and rely on your charity’s financial statements, the primary factors you need to consider are:
- If there is a spread of ownership/membership, or a level of separation between management and owners/members/others, that have an economic interest in your charity. The greater the separation of membership from management, the more likely members will use and rely on your charity’s financial statements.
- Whether your charity has economic or political importance or influence. The more economic or political importance or influence your charity has, the more likely it is that people will use and rely on your charity’s financial statements.
- If your charity is large, if it has a high level of sales/assets/debt/funding from governments or other parties, or if it has a high number of employees. The larger your charity is, the higher its level of sales/assets/debt/funding, or the higher its number of employees, the more likely people will use and rely on your charity’s financial statements.
For more information you can refer to the Definition of the Reporting Entity (Statement of Accounting Concepts SAC 1) on the AASB website.
General Purpose Financial Statements
If your charity is a reporting entity, it must submit General Purpose Financial Statements that comply with all applicable Australian Accounting Standards.
The standards are issued by the Australian Accounting Standards Board (AASB), and provide guidance for the presentation, measurement and disclosure of financial information for your charity.
Your charity can choose to prepare full General Purpose Financial Statements (Tier 1), or General Purpose Financial Statements under a simplified disclosure framework (Tier 2).
When applying a simplified disclosure framework, the statements are still considered to be General Purpose Financial Statements.
All private sector not-for-profit entities (which includes charities) are permitted to apply either Tier 1 or Tier 2 requirements when preparing GPFS. However, some charities that must comply with other legislation or regulation may be required to prepare full General Purpose Financial Statements (Tier 1).
Simplified Disclosure Requirements
A new simplified disclosure standard has replaced the Tier 2 Reduced Disclosure Requirements (RDR) framework from 1 July 2021.
Charities preparing financial statements using Reduced Disclosure Arrangements are required to apply the simplified disclosure standard.
The changes have been introduced as part of AASB 1060 General Purpose Financial Statements – Simplified Disclosures for For-Profit and Not-for-Profit Tier 2 Entities.
Under AASB 1060, all relevant disclosure requirements are now contained in a single standard. The changes will apply to all Tier 2 entities and do not affect which entities are permitted to apply Tier 2. The recognition and measurement requirements of Tier 2 also remain unchanged and the same as Tier 1.
For more information about the changes and the new disclosures that will be required, refer to AASB 1060 on the AASB website, and to AASB Staff FAQs for Not-For-Profit entities.
Special Purpose Financial Statements
If your charity is not a reporting entity, it can submit either General Purpose Financial Statements or Special Purpose Financial Statements to the ACNC.
Amendments to AASB Standard 2020-2 do not affect a charity's ability to prepare and submit Special Purpose Financial Statements. These amendments only prevent some for-profit entities from preparing and submitting Special Purpose Financial Statements.
Charities can continue to prepare Special Purpose Financial Statements, which are currently allowed under s60.30 of the Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission Regulation 2013 (Cth) (the ACNC regulations).
Submitting Special Purpose Financial Statements means you must apply, as a minimum, the following six accounting standards:
- AASB 101, Presentation of Financial Statements
- AASB 107, Statement of Cash Flows
- AASB 108, Accounting Policies, Changes in Accounting Estimates and Errors
- AASB 124, Related Party Disclosures
- AASB 1048, Interpretation of Standards
- AASB 1054, Australian Additional Disclosures.
Amendments to the ACNC regulations introduced AASB 124 as a new mandatory accounting standard for charities preparing Special Purpose Financial Statements. Please note that certain exemptions are available when applying AASB 124. For more details, see our guidance about key management personnel remuneration and related party transactions.
Charities also have the option to apply the simplified disclosure requirements in AASB 1060 General Purpose Financial Statements - Simplified Disclosures for For-profit and Not-for-profit Tier 2 Entities in the preparation of Special Purpose Financial Statements.
Please note that AASB Standard 2019-4 Disclosure in Special Purpose Financial Statements of Not-for-Profit Private Sector Entities on Compliance with Recognition and Measurement Requirements amended AASB 1054.
For more information, see our guidance on AASB standards and financial reporting, which aims to assist charities when applying certain AASB standards to prepare annual financial reports. The guidance covers AASB 9 Financial Instruments, AASB 15 Revenue from Contracts with Customers, AASB 16 Leases and AASB 1058 Income for Not-for-Profit Entities.
The ACNC has been working closely with the Australian Accounting Standards Board to provide further technical guidance. For more information, visit the AASB Staff FAQ for Not-for-profit entities.