Focus on Finance - Spring 2014

Welcome

Welcome to the Spring 2014 Focus on Finance eNewsletter, that is sent on a quarterly to keep members informed on the current financial issues affecting local government.


President's Message

SimonI would like to welcome you to our first e-newsletter for the financial year and my first as President. It would be remiss of me not to firstly acknowledge the vast amount of time, effort and passion that Annette Martin has put into the Presidency role over the past 4 years. While still a member of the Executive, her legacy in the Presidency chair will be felt for many years to come. I am sure the new Committee will continue the excellent work it undertakes on behalf of local government finance professionals.

This year hails a very significant milestone for the FMG, as it celebrates its 25th year of operation. I was able to find a copy of the newsletter which marked the Group's 10 year anniversary. One of the articles summarised the reasons for establishing the FMG back then and these reasons are still appropriate to the Group today:

"This enabled information exchange on a range of contemporary financial issues in local government and was a good opportunity for networking for finance professionals."

To commemorate the occasion, a dinner will be held on the Thursday evening of our upcoming 2 day workshop and conference (4 and 5 December 2014). A number of exciting events are planned for the evening, so make sure you do not miss out. The cost of the dinner is included within the registration fees for those attending the workshop and/or conference, so there is no excuse to miss it!

At our AGM held in August 2014, we welcomed our Executive for 2014/2015. It also marked the end for a number of long serving Committee members, including Ginny Moon, Annette Pianezzola and Peter Fairlie-Jones, who has been part of the group since its inception in 1989. Peter was recognised as one of our inaugural life members back in 2011 and his knowledge and wisdom will be sorely missed, although he will continue to be a member of our Seminars sub-committee. At the AGM we were also provided some interesting insights into the Australian economy from our guest presenter, the entertaining Michael Pascoe. Although absent at the meeting, we formally recognised a long time FMG contributor in David Hope, who was awarded Honorary Membership.

By the time you are reading this, I hope that your 2013/2014 financial statements have been finalised, you have survived the requirements of AASB 13 and for metropolitan Councils, you have passed your first audit on Internal Financial Controls with flying colours. For rural Councils, the fun relating to the new audit requirements is just about to start!

Based on my experience in regards to internal controls, I have two pieces of advice for our rural counterparts:

  1. Speak to your auditors as soon as you can. This will help you understand where their focus will be when auditing your Council
  2. If you have any questions or concerns, speak to any one of the members from a metropolitan Council to draw from their experiences. One of the huge advantages of being involved in Local Government is that we are all on the same side and being part of the FMG allows us to take advantage of this through the networks available to you.

You will notice when reading the minutes of our meetings that the Executive has a number of working groups to tackle current issues affecting the industry. They also provide a mechanism for various parties to seek feedback from our Group. If you are interested in being a part of any one of the groups, please make contact with our Secretariat, Patricia Coonan (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.) and she will establish contact with the relevant Chair. I encourage you to take advantage of the great opportunity this can provide you not only from a professional development perspective, but also to help build your own networks.

Finally, I wish to thank our loyal sponsors who enable us to provide such a strong advocacy role in the industry and provide valuable professional development for our members through our workshops and seminars. I encourage you to support them whenever you are in the market for goods or services which they provide.

Until next time,

Simon Zbierski
President SALGFMG

 

President's Message proudly sponsored by
Local Government Finance Authority

lgfa  


Key Dates

30 September – 31 May
At least twice, a council, council subsidiary or regional subsidiary must consider a report showing a revised forecast of its operating and capital investment activities for the relevant financial year compared with the estimates for those activities set out in the budget presented in a manner consistent with the note in the Model Financial Statements entitled Uniform Presentation of Finances.

November 2014
Local Government elections.

7 November 2014 – 5pm
Closure of votes for Local Government Elections.

8 November 2014 – 9am
Counting of votes for Local Government Elections.

First ordinary Council meeting after periodic election
Date of effect for allowances for Council Members for the ensuing 12-month period. (Rate of allowances now set by Remuneration Tribunal – see http://www.remtribunal.sa.gov.au/determinations/local-government-allowances  for latest determination).

30 November
Last date that audited financial statements must be submitted to the Minister and the SA Local Government Grants Commission.

Deadline for Local Government Grants Commission returns.

Last date for adoption of annual report for the preceding financial year.

4 & 5 December 2014
SALGFMG Workshop, Dinner and Conference. "A Recipe for Success". The National Wine Centre, Adelaide.

31 December
Last date that a council, council subsidiary or regional subsidiary must prepare and consider a report showing the audited financial results of the council, council subsidiary or regional subsidiary (as the case may be) for the previous financial year compared with the estimated financial results set out in the budget presented in a manner consistent with the Model Financial Statements.

Last date for a copy of the annual report to be submitted to both Houses of Parliament and the SA Local Government Grants Commission.

 

 

Key Dates proudly sponsored by
LG Solutions

LGsolutions  

 


Hints & Tips

Financial Management Group Website Update

As mentioned in our last newsletter we would like to keep members informed of the recent changes that have occurred on our website (www.salgfmg.com.au). The Home page “Latest News” of the FMG web site has a comprehensive list of all updates that have occurred in the last six months.

Below is a list of the recent alterations that have occurred within the website:

16/10/14
Resource Library > Service Provision > Asset Management
New –  CPA Guide to Valuation and Depreciation

22/08/14
Resource Library > Conference /Workshop Presentations
New –  Michael Pascoe Presentation (AGM Meeting)
Please note that Conference Presentations can only be accessed by members that have firstly logged into the FMG web site.

23/07/14
Resource Library > Service Provision > Asset Management
New –  SALGAG – Accounting for accumulated depreciation on revaluation (June 2014 Position)

Resource Library > Financial Reporting > Financial Management & Reporting
Replaced - Model Financial Statements 2014

23/06/14
Focus on Finance - June 2014 eNewsletter is now available for your reading pleasure:
New - Focus on Finance - June 2014

12/06/14
Resource library > Service Provision > Costing
New – Methodologies of Cost Recovery for Local Government

10/06/14
Resource Library > Service Provisions > Asset Management
New - Local Government Financial Sustainability Guidance Paper – AASB13 Fair Value Measurement

To assist members to keep in touch with the recent changes on the web site this listing will continually be updated, documenting any amendments.

LG Price Index
The LG Price Index continues to be updated by the South Australian Centre for Economic Studies each quarter, with the 12 months ending June 2014 showing an increase of 2.3% split between the expenditure components as 2.2% recurrent and 2.4% Capital.

To visit the South Australian Centre for Economic Studies and view the complete LG Price Index data, click Here

 

 

Hints & Tips proudly sponsored by
UHY Haines Norton

uhy  

 


Shellharbour City Council turns to TechnologyOne for future-proof software

Shellharbour City Council has purchased TechnologyOne's enterprise solution to reduce costs, improve efficiencies and future-proof its operations.

"We originally set out to purchase a strong asset management product that integrated into our existing TechnologyOne Financials product, but we quickly identified the benefit of an enterprise-wide solution," said Group Manager Information & Customer Services Harin Perera.

"We come from a non-integrated, best-of-breed approach and what we wanted was a tightly integrated, future-proof product.

"We were struggling to deliver online services and mobility with our current suite of products, and were conscious that it wasn't even on the road map for a lot of those vendors. A transition to the cloud is also firmly in our strategy moving forward, and we needed to find a partner who could work with us to deliver that.

"Council has an objective to replace all our desktops with laptops to have a truly mobile workforce. With mobility built into its products, an ability to deliver cloud-based solutions, and continuing significant investment into future-proofing its products, TechnologyOne's software really supported that vision."

The power of a single, integrated enterprise solution
Mr Perera said Council is anticipating cost and time savings by shifting from a best-of-breed to an enterprise approach.

"We will see significant cost benefits by consolidating products from multiple vendors into a single, integrated solution. We also expect time savings, as we will use mobile technology to automate many manual processes and reduce transaction time across the enterprise," he said.

"We already have finance, asset managers and maintenance people working within the one system and delivering services to the community in a much more efficient fashion."

On time, on budget implementation
Shellharbour City Council has gone live with TechnologyOne Human Resource & Payroll, and Asset Management - including Mobile to an initial group of 17 devices.

"We have rolled out phase one of mobile asset management, rollout to the full 70 devices will happen over the next three months," Mr Perera said.

"With just the limited number we've rolled out, Mobile Asset Management is already allowing our asset people to better monitor their service levels. We expected a lot of push back on mobile devices and its very pleasing to say that takeup has been good."

The first phase implementation came in on time and on budget, due to a strong collaborative relationship between TechnologyOne and Shellharbour City Council, as well as Council's dedication to the project. The second phase of the enterprise solution will be implemented in 2015.

"We found the OneCouncil approach was a very efficient and agile implementation approach. It certainly sped up implementation, and it gave us a good set of proven practice business processes," Mr Perera said.

Enterprise software, incredibly simple
Council is now using TechnologyOne's Ci Anywhere product, which was released in February 2014 and is the current generation of the company's Connected Intelligence (Ci) platform. Ci Anywhere provides a simple and easy way forward to embrace smart mobile devices and new concepts.

"We hadn't really changed our systems over the last ten years and we wanted to introduce something new that was really leading edge," Mr Perera said.

"We've rolled out Ci Anywhere to a small group in a limited fashion, and they already can't wait to get their hands on the full product. It's refreshing to see a vendor that is actually pushing the industry into the future."

TechnologyOne Executive Chairman Adrian Di Marco said Shellharbour City Council will gain a competitive advantage by using TechnologyOne's cutting edge technology.

"We are seeing more and more organisations switching to TechnologyOne after abandoning our competitors' business models, which are outdated, obsolete and lack accountability," Mr Di Marco said.

"As well as benefiting from the power of a single, integrated enterprise solution, Shellharbour City Council has bought into a solution which adapts and evolves, positioning them well to harness the full value of smart mobile devices and other emerging technologies.

"Ci Anywhere's support of smart mobile devices offers unprecedented flexibility to mobilise our customers' workforces, and its beautiful design and ease of use truly raises the bar for enterprise software."

 

technologyoneFor further information please contact Peter Fulton, Regional Manager on 8373 8520 or visit www.TechnologyOneCorp.com/LocalGovernment.

 


MEMBERS PROFILE – SIMON ZBIERSKI

Simon Profile Photo  Campbelltown City Council Logo 

Simon began his career in Local Government at the City of Playford after applying for a trainee accountant role. While it turned out the position was as a trainee Records Officer, it provided him with a great overview and understanding of the many services provided by Council. With a vacancy within the Finance team due to a staff member going on maternity leave, Simon was able to secure a Finance Officer role. While still finalising the CPA Program, he was able to put into practice some of the theory he had learned from his studies.

Simon remained within the Playford Finance team for a total of 7 years, before applying for a position at the City of Campbelltown. This opportunity offered a step up in responsibility and the ability to work for the community that he lived in. With his first child arriving 2 weeks after he started, the closeness to work was also an added advantage. He has now been employed with the City of Campbelltown for the past 10 years.

Moving to a smaller Council enabled Simon to undertake a greater variety of tasks, therefore increasing his level of skill and knowledge in areas he previously had little hands on experience with.

"A great thing about working for a smaller Council is the range of tasks you can be exposed to on a daily basis. While there are the standard finance duties such as annual financial statements, budgets and long term plans, there are also opportunities to work more closely with other departments in a number of ways to help improve their business."

"Working at a smaller Council also means that there are less resources available to perform tasks that are required from an operational and legislative perspective. This has meant that we have tried to find ways to streamline our processes to 'free up time'. In my time at Campbelltown, a number of processes have changed significantly to make us more efficient, especially using new technologies to automate previously manual tasks."

While a senior member of the Finance team at Campbelltown, an organisational restructure enabled Simon to take on the role of Manager Finance, which is a role he has to this day.

Simon has been a general member of the FMG since joining the Finance team at Playford and became a member of the Executive Committee in 2010. In 2013, he assumed the role of Vice President, before becoming President this year.

In his spare time, Simon enjoys spending time with his young family and catching up with friends for a few quiet drinks. He also tries to maintain his fitness playing touch football and social basketball. As an avid Crows member, he enjoys watching his team play on a weekly basis, especially at the new Adelaide Oval. He hopes that 2015 sees a great improvement in the fortune of his team!


Demystifying Risk Management

We understand that local government faces an ever changing "landscape" that presents challenges - both risks and opportunities. How those risks and opportunities are managed can make all the difference to achieving the council's vision and objectives.

Most councils face similar challenges:

  • Meeting community needs and expectations
  • Adapting to changing population demographics
  • Balancing competing stakeholder priorities
  • Managing major infrastructure assets
  • Delivering services in a financially sustainable way
  • Building ethics and integrity across council
  • Complying with legislative and regulatory requirements.

Risk management does not need to be complicated but it is important to build a tailored risk management process that identifies risks, assesses the potential impact of the risks, develops strategies to manage the risks and implement those strategies. This process is continuous and each step informs the next step of the process.

Prioritisation is critical to the risk management process to focus efforts and direct resources to those areas of highest potential impact to the council. It's unrealistic to expect you can manage all risks. Understanding the organisation's risk "appetite" and setting priorities is critical.

Implementing a risk management system does not need to be complex, it just needs to be built from key risk management principles that are tailored to suit the organisation. Key tips for success:

  • Build risk management principles into planning processes – it is an effective way to, not only proactively manage risk, but also identify where there are potential opportunities – the "flip side" of risk. Sometimes looking at it differently may present with an opportunity to deliver more value to the community.
  • Use the same risk management principles at all levels of council to integrate strategic, operational, project and tasks level risk managements. This helps to develop a common understanding of and "language" for risk across the organisation. It's also more efficient to have one approach.
  • Promote horizontal and vertical communication across the council about how risks are being identified, assessed and managed. This will assist to strengthen risk management knowledge and skills and support contiguous improvement of the risk management process.

Risk management is not a mystery to most people – we do it all the time when we weigh up different options. It can seem complicated but it doesn't need to be. It's about identifying what may stop you from (a risk) or help you to (an opportunity) achieve the council's vision or objectives and, then, working out how to best manage those things. Risk management is about making choices rather than taking chances.

BDOFor further information please contact Madeleine Vezis, Associate Director, Ph 0414 977 378, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or visit www.bdo.com.au 

 

 


Conference & Workshops 4-5 December 2014

about-usA Recipe for Success
Venue: National Wine Centre, Adelaide
Date: Thursday 4 & Friday 5 December

The South Australian Local Government Financial Management Group will be holding its annual two day event on 4 & 5 December 2014 at the National Wine Centre in Adelaide. The event will be facilitated by Lisa McAskill, one of South Australia's most engaging and respected TV presenters.

Day 1

Will be a workshop discussing the following topics:

  • Session 1
    • Model Financial Statements 2015 – David Maxwell, Coalface Software Solutions
    • 2013/14 In Review – Auditor's Perspective – Tim Muhlhausler, Galpins
    • Overview of Financial Benchmarking Results – Alan Rushbrook, LKS Quaero
  • Session 2
    • A Solution for Fees & Charges – John O'Connor, LG Solutions
    • Control Track Tool – What's New – Pascal Marrot-Castellat, Control Track
    • Costing Principles – Getting it Right – David Hope, Skilmar Systems

Dinner – 25 Years in Office!

Following the Day 1 workshop, there will be a dinner to celebrate 25 years in office! Guests can expect a fun filled night and best of all, the dinner is FREE to those attending either the workshop, conference or both! The dinner will also be held at the National Wine Centre in Adelaide.

Day 2

Will be a conference discussing the following topics followed by networking drinks. Our keynote speaker is Annabel Crabb, Chief political writer for ABC online and Walkley Award winning journalist with over 15 years covering national politics for 13. Annabel will be providing a presentation on our current political environment.

  • Future of Local Government – Wendy Campana, Local Government Association of SA
  • Spotlight on Council Performance: Victoria's New System of Reporting – Amelia Chapman, Department of Transport, Planning & Local Infrastructure and Mark Davies, Financial Performance Solutions
  • Panel Session – "Compliance: it's no use just grumbling" – facilitated by Sean Keenihan, Norman Waterhouse Lawyers
  • Insights from the Committee for Adelaide "Creating a sustainable and globally-relevant state" – Mary Patetsos, Committee for Adelaide
  • A Case Study – Resilience, the Ability to Bounce Back – Kym Williams, BRS and Nicola Tinning, City of Unley
  • Our Current Political Environment – Annabel Crabb

Costs (including GST)

Day 1 Workshop
FMG Members $130
Non-Members $155

Day 2 Conference
FMG Members $300
Non-Members $355

Dinner
FREE if attending 1 or both of the events above.

We would like to encourage all members and non-members to come along to this event.

To register, please click here.

Cancellation from the event must be received in writing five (5) working days prior to date of the conference or refund will be forfeited. Substitutes are welcome.

For further information please contact Patricia Coonan, Events Coordinator, SALGFMG on 0408 801 026 or via email on This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..


Finance Teams achieve improved efficiency with the MAGIQ Performance Suite

Finance teams across Australia are choosing to partner with NCS Chameleon to efficiently manage their reporting and budgeting requirements using the MAGIQ Performance software suite.

MAGIQ Performance is a sophisticated suite of reporting, budgeting, financial statements, financial and strategic planning and business analysis software.

magiq logoUsed by more than 300 organisations, including 120 Councils throughout Australia and New Zealand, the software helps Finance teams to deliver accurate business data for improved planning and better decision-making.

In South Australia, fifteen organisations from the Local Government, Healthcare and Enforcement sectors are using the MAGIQ Performance Suite.

MAGIQ Performance dramatically reduces the time taken to gather and produce budgetary and reporting data. This allows the Finance team to spend more time on the more valuable strategic analysis and planning tasks, which lead to more informed business decisions.

Colin Lillywhite, CEO NCS Chameleon believes the continued success of the software in the Local Government market reflects the strong need for software that delivers Council's excellent value, while also being very easy to implement and use.

"We understand Councils often have limited budgets and resources to implement and manage their software applications. We have a great deal of local government knowledge in our team and we're very experienced at working with Finance Managers to ensure they are up and running and delivering value across Council very quickly," said Colin.

Key features of MAGIQ Performance include:

  • Highly graphical, easily understood corporate dashboards delivering business data anytime and anywhere, via the desktop, tablet or phone
  • Best practice activity based budgeting and rolling forecast to optimise planning cycles and increase accuracy
  • Multi-dimensional slicing and dicing, drill down and easy Excel interface for easy exploration and analysis of your data
  • Full transaction drill down to your chosen finance system to easily understand and communicate budgets, reports, plans and forecasts
  • Easy user personalisation including individual reporting dataset tabs; hierarchy charts; alerts and dashboards to ensure widespread user take-up
  • Low IT resource requirement allowing the finance team to manage the solution without the need for IT support

ncs chameleonFor more information on how MAGIQ Performance can improve efficiency at your Council please call our friendly team today on (03) 9468 9401 or visit our website at www.ncschameleon.com.au.

Contact Us

PO Box 255 Smithfield SA 5114 
Tel: 0408 801 026 
Email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Login Form


Copyright © 2024 South Australian Local Government Financial Management Group Inc. All rights reserved.
This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.