FinPro Member Update July 2020 (Edition 2)
July 31, 2020
President’s Message
Hi everyone,
I hope you have been able to find 5 minutes this week to relax, or do something other than emails and ZOOM meetings!
Plenty happening across the sector and organisation – many budgets were adopted this week and some Councils have even had their year-end auditors visit ???? Tony Rocca (VP Technical Committee FinPro) and myself caught up with Sanchu Chummar from VAGO yesterday to ‘check in’ on how things are going. We will have an update about our discussion in next week’s Member Update. In the meantime, if you do have any concerns and further items you would like us to raise with VAGO (or anyone else) please email Gab.
In our recent Member Survey around how we can assist you through our Professional Development Program, 62% of respondents identified that they were concerned about implementing all the changes required for the new accounting standards. In response to this we have put together a number of key documents and summarised these in today’s members update on pages 2 and 3. We have even included an example report that you would be able to provide to your Audit and Risk Committees on the work required to be compliant. We hope that providing these resources is of assistance to you!
Next week we will be launching our FinPro PD for the upcoming months, which given the current circumstances will be on-line webinars!
Have a great weekend,
Membership News
Congratulations to Kristy Stephens, Senior Accountant at Bass Coast Shire and FinPro Executive Member and her partner Ramsey on the birth of their first child, Aiden on 2 July 2020. A lovely gift for the new Financial Year!
Wishing good luck to Greg Hall, CFO Boroondara City Council as he eases into retirement. His last day is 6 August and prior to leaving he will be completing his 18th budget for that organisation. Greg also served on the FinPro Executive Team from 2013 – 2017. Great effort Greg and good luck.
If you have any news to share with the FinPro membership please forward this to Gab
FinPro Technical Committee News / Updates
General Information
The LGV website provides a host of information: LGV – COVID19 Information
The FinPro Website provides a host of information: FinPro Resource Library
Information available here includes:
- Previous copies of the FinPro Member Updates
- Implementation of the Local Government Act
- Accounting Standards Guidance
- Model Budget 2020/2021 and Model Financial Statements 2019/20
- Samples of council policies
Implementing the changes to the Accounting Standards
Recent survey results (from the FinPro survey on Professional development) showed that 62% of respondents were concerned about implementing all the changes required for the new accounting standards.
Taking this onboard, we have developed some guidance to assist members. This information is provided following consultation with both LGV and VAGO and is listed here and also included on our website.
Accounting Standards Guidance and Worked Examples – AASB 15, AASB 16 and AASB 1058
The Accounting Standards Working Group, (Comprising FinPro members and staff from LGV and Crowe Horwath), worked together during 2018 and early 2019 to develop a guidance document specific to the Local Government Sector. It was developed by the working group and was published and issued by Local Government Victoria.
A copy of the guidance is available HERE – please note that you will need to scroll right down the page to the last item.
The guidance material is to assist the LG sector to transition to the new accounting standards in a consistent and practical manner and should be used to supplement the standards. The worked examples are in an appendix to the guidance document and provide practical guidance to the overall application of the guidance materials. The examples have been made simple with the aim being that the sector be able to apply such examples in their
organisation’s decision making.
The 2019-20 Local Government Model Financial Report and associated Better Practice Guide and Summary of Changes may also be useful in identifying specific financial statement impacts and changes in accounting policy resulting from the changes to the Accounting Standards.
To further assist Councils with their progress in implementing the new standards, please refer to the following documents and webinars that may assist with the process at financial year end:
Sample Audit Committee Report
Copy available on the FinPro Website– pdf format
Word format available by emailing [email protected]
Sample Position Paper – application of revised standards
Copy available on the FinPro website – pdf format
Word format available by emailing [email protected]
AASB16 Leases – Webinar
Webinar conducted by Martin Thompson (Crowe) and Daniel O’Shea (LGV) – 29 March 2019 – Recording link
AASB16 Leases – further worked examples
Additional Information – AASB 16 Examples (April 2019) – there are two sets of spreadsheets with examples on them available on the FinPro Website
Accounting Standards AASB 15 Revenue, AASB 1058 Income for Not for Profits and AASB 9 Financial Instruments
A webinar was held on 12 April 2019 – recording link
Copy of the presentation is available on the FinPro Website.
2019-20 Local Government Model Financial Report (LGMFR) and associated Better Practice Guide and Summary of Changes
Copies available on the LGV website – excel, pdf and word formats.
AASB 15/1058 Assessment Tool
This tool, designed by DMG Audit & Advisory, was designed to address particular audit risks in their clients and assists in the completion of your assessment. It seeks to simplify the steps in the standards and provide guidance. Please note that it may not address all situations or take every situation into account. Copy available on the FinPro Website.
Copies of all accounting standards
Copies available on the AASB website
LGV Supplementary guidance for the treatment of COVID-19 impacts on the LGPRF performance indications
VAGO’s advice is that each indicator needs to be assessed for the COVID_19 impact and further guidance has been provided by LGV – see page 4 of last week’s FinPro Member Update.
2020/21 Council Budget Parameters and Budget Adoption Timelines
A reminder that FinPro are providing an up-to-date picture across the state of the progress of adoption of Council Budgets for 2020/21, along with measures taken within the budget to assist communities to cope with the affects of COVID-19. As Council’s adopt their budgets, please provide the updated information to gab so that she can update the survey accordingly.
Submission of 2020-21 Annual Budgets and 2019-20 Annual Reports
Local Government Victoria issued Bulletin 49/2020 today (Friday 17 July 2020). The content of the Bulletin was as follows:
BULLETIN: 49/2020
SUBMISSION OF 2020-21 ANNUAL BUDGETS AND 2019-20 ANNUAL REPORTS
The Local Government Act 1989 requires Victorian councils to submit their Annual Budget and Annual Report to the Minister for Local Government. Councils can submit these documents by electronic means to [email protected] with a copy to [email protected].
If councils wish to post their documents the mailing address is:
The Hon Shaun Leane MP
Minister for Local Government
121 Exhibition Street
Melbourne, Victoria 3000
Australia
DX 210074
Colin Morrison Acting Executive Director
Local Government Victoria
COVID-19 impacts on financial reporting
CPA Australia have recently released a publication on the COVID-19 impacts on financial reporting. This may be useful as an additional resource for members.
Sample Employer superannuation note for financial statements – as provided by Vision Super
This week Vision Super distributed the following information to their VBI contacts at each employer. A copy is included here for your information. If you would like to join the mailing list at Vision Super to ensure you receive such updates please contact Vision Super Employer Services on 1300 304 947 or [email protected]
Sample employer superannuation note for financial statements
Employers are required to make specific superannuation disclosures in their financial statements regarding their superannuation arrangements in accordance with AASB 119 – Accounting for Employee Benefits.
To help you, every year Vision Super prepares two sample notes as guides – one for a short-form note and the other for a long-form note.
PDF copies of the sample notes are linked below:
Year ended 30 June – 2020
Short form – Reduced sample superannuation note for the year ended 30 June 2020
Long form – Sample superannuation note for the year ended 30 June 2020
FinPro Professional Development
Cancellation of both our Leadership Program for 2020 and our Annual Conference has now provided us with an opportunity to revisit our Professional Development offerings. We recently surveyed members about their Professional development needs over the coming months. Thank-you to the many members who took the time to provide quite detailed responses to us. This will really allow us to make some informed decisions regarding a new PD program for the remainder of 2020 which we will roll out in the new few weeks. The program will provide a 1 – 1 ½ hr. LUNCH AND LEARN session on the last Friday of each month. It will cover a range of topics and speakers and include Q&A and panel sessions. The program will be FREE to all members. Proposed dates and focus areas are:
- Friday 31 July 2020 (focus on working from home, managing teams virtually and being part of a virtual team.
- Friday 28 August 2020 – focus on the economy)
- September date TBA (pending AFL final series announcements), – focus on learnings from the Preparation of 2020/21 Budgets and
- Friday 30 October 2020 – focus TBA
Job Vacancies
FinPro is happy to place advertisements on our website for any finance related positions our members councils are advertising. Please send the following details through to Gab
The following position is currently being advertised:
- Coordinator Procurement (Full-time)
Hume City Council
Applications close 20 July 2020
For further information please view Position Description or contact Fadi Srour on 9205 2600
FinPro Executive Members
President – Bradley Thomas (Hepburn Shire Council)
Executive Officer – Gab Gordon
Vice-President: Chair Technical Committee – Tony Rocca (Maroondah City Council)
Technical Committee members:
-
- Danny Wain (Monash City Council)
- Kristy Stephens (Bass Coast Shire)
- Liz Rowland (Western Water)
- Mark Montague (Yarra City Council)
- Nathan Morsillo (Greater Bendigo City Council)
- Vishantri Perera (Yarra Ranges Shire Council)
Vice-President: Chair Professional Development committee – Binda Gokhale (Wyndham CC)
Professional Development Committee members:
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- Belinda Johnson (Southern Grampians Shire)
- Charles Nganga (Casey City Council)
- John Brockway (Surf Coast Shire) – also leads the FinPro Mentoring Program
- Kim Jaensch (Frankston City Council) – also leads the FinPro Leadership Program
Thank-you to our 2019 Conference sponsors
To Contact FinPro:
Gabrielle Gordon – Executive Officer – FinPro
M: 0400 114 015
E: [email protected]
W: www.finpro.org.au
To get a copy of this article, click here.