Filing your Tier 4 performance report with Charities Services

Every registered charity files an annual return with Charities Services each year. For a Tier 4 charity, that means an annual return plus a performance report prepared under the Tier 4 (NFP) Standard issued by the External Reporting Board (XRB).

When it's due

Within six months of your balance date (the last day of your financial year). If your year ends on 31 March, it's due by 30 September. If it ends on 30 June, it's due by 31 December. If you can't make the deadline, you can ask Charities Services for an extension.

Can you use Tier 4?

You can report under Tier 4 if all of these apply:

• your operating payments for the year are under $140,000
• they were also under $140,000 in at least one of the last two years (if you've been operating that long)
• the charity doesn't have “public accountability” (it doesn't hold money for other people as its main activity, like a credit union)
• you keep your accounts on a cash basis

Operating payments don't include buying long-life assets such as equipment or vehicles.

Two ways to file

1. A full performance report and an annual return. You prepare the performance report as a document (usually a PDF, often using the XRB template), then complete the annual return form online and upload the report with it.

2. The combined annual return. Tier 4 charities with simple finances can fill in a single online form that combines the annual return and the performance report. It's only available online, and there's no room for extra detail such as a breakdown of grants by funder. If you want to include that, use option 1.

What the performance report contains

1. Entity information: the charity's name (including any other names it uses) and its legal form, for example a charitable trust board or an incorporated society.
2. Statement of service performance: your main activities this year, with numbers where you can (for example 52 sessions held, 1,240 parcels given out) and last year's numbers alongside.
3. Statement of cash received and cash paid: all money in and out of your bank accounts, grouped into the standard categories, with last year's figures.
4. Notes: how the report was prepared and GST, plus significant assets and liabilities, related party transactions, and corrections of past errors where they apply.

Amounts are rounded to the nearest dollar.

Approval

The report must be approved by the people who govern the charity (for example the trustees or the committee). It must show the date it was approved, who approved it, and their signatures. Electronic signatures are fine. Charities Services suggests two signatories as best practice.

Filing

Log in to your charity's account at charities.govt.nz and start the annual return. You'll re-enter some figures from your performance report and confirm details such as your officers. Filing online is quicker and cheaper than email or post. A filing fee may apply.

You only need an audit or review if your own rules (trust deed or constitution) or a funder require one. Tier 4 charities aren't required to have one by law.

How we can help

Connect Xero and we'll prepare the report in the official format: a print-ready PDF and the completed XRB Excel template. If you use the combined online form instead, you also get a list of every value to enter, in the same order as the form.