Practical Guide to ACNC Reporting for Charities
- Lucia
- 1 day ago
- 5 min read
2025 AIS Deadline Extended to 31 Jan 2026—A quick guide to the new size thresholds and financial reporting compliance.
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For charities that report to a standard 1 July to 30 June financial year, the Commissioner extended the deadline to submit the 2025 Annual Information Statement to 31 January 2026. Approaching to the reporting deadline, we would like to provide some key information to help readers better understand their reporting obligations.
Registered charities have an obligation to report annually to the ACNC. This involves submitting an Annual Information Statement (AIS), and an annual financial report (for medium and large sized charities).
A charity's Annual Information Statement and financial report (if required) must be submitted within six months of the end of the charity’s reporting period.
The two most common reporting due dates are:
31 December for charities that report to a standard financial year (1 July to 30 June).
30 June for charities that report to a calendar year (1 January to 31 December).
Size of the charities
Medium and large charities, except for those that are Basic Religious Charities, must submit an annual financial report as part of their Annual Information Statement.
For small charities, submitting an annual financial report is optional unless required.
For reporting periods | Threshold starting from the 2022 Annual Information Statement |
Small charities | annual revenue < $500,000 |
Medium charities | $500,000 =<annual revenue > $3 million |
Large charities | Annual revenue >= $3 million |
Reporting requirements
All charities are required to submit an Annual Information Statement each year, and medium and large sized charities also need to submit an annual financial report. This table summarizes the annual reporting requirements for charities based on their size.
1 Unless the charity is a Basic Religious Charity or other transitional reporting arrangements apply.
2 A charity's governing document or grant funding agreements may state whether its financial report needs to be reviewed or audited.
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.
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
Keeping your charity size & Once off Event
A charity's ongoing obligations to the ACNC - for example, its reporting requirements - are determined by its size.
The ACNC bases a charity's size on its total revenue for the reporting period.
However, a large bequest, or similar one-off event, may mean that your charity's size changes for just one reporting period.
If your charity's size changes, but you think it is likely to return to its previous size in the next reporting period, you can apply to have its former size recognized for a single reporting period.
Doing so means your charity will not have to meet the reporting obligations of a larger charity during the reporting period where increased total revenue pushed it into a larger charity size category.
The opportunity for charities to apply to keep their size is meant to cover situations where there is a temporary increase in the charity's total revenue. Because of this, charities cannot apply to keep their charity size in consecutive years.
Diagram for a better illustration
****** If A’s annual revenue is more than $500,000 in its next reporting period, it cannot apply to keep its small charity size for a second year in a row.
Providing an annual financial report
Generally, annual financial reports must be prepared as required by the ACNC Act and ACNC Regulations and must meet ACNC requirements.
They must also comply with the Australian Accounting Standards set by the Australian Accounting Standards Board (AASB) and give a true and fair view of the financial position and performance of the charity.
Large charities must have their annual financial report audited. Medium charities can have their annual financial report either audited or reviewed.
As a minimum, medium and large charities must provide the ACNC with the following information when submitting their annual financial report:
a statement of profit or loss and other comprehensive income1
a statement of financial position
a statement of changes in equity1
a statement of cash flows
notes to the financial statements
a signed and dated Responsible People’s declaration about the statements and notes (the ACNC has a template declaration available)
for medium charities, a signed and dated reviewer's report or auditor's report; for large charities, a signed and dated auditor's report.
Charities preparing General/Special Purpose Financial Statements (SPFS)
If your charity is a reporting entity,
It must submit General Purpose Financial Statements that comply with all applicable Australian Accounting Standards.
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).
If your charity is not a reporting entity,
It can submit either General-Purpose Financial Statements or Special Purpose Financial Statements to the ACNC.
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 Regulations 2022 (Cth) (the ACNC regulations).
Submitting Special Purpose Financial Statements means you must apply, as a minimum, the following six accounting standards:
**** 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.
Applying the simplified disclosure requirements in AASB 1060
Changes to the Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission Regulations 2022 (Cth) (the ACNC Regulations) mean that charities preparing SPFS 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.
This is instead of the full presentation and disclosure requirements in the compulsory standards for SPFS listed in section 60.30 of the Regulations (AASB 101, AASB 107, AASB 108, AASB 124, AASB 1048, AASB 1054).
This is a sample disclosure note for the Basis of preparation section of the financial statement notes:
This financial report is a special purpose financial report prepared in accordance with the disclosure requirements of AASB 1060 General Purpose Financial Statements – Simplified Disclosures for For-Profit and Not-for-Profit Tier 2 Entities to the extent applicable as required by the ACNC Regulations 2022.
Source of information:
Liability Limited By A Scheme Approved Under Professional Standards Legislation.
