Don Burnside, Finance and Audit Officer. Email: don.burnside@iinet.net.au
Profit and Loss, 1 January to 31 December 2020
The Society operates on a calendar year, and the audited accounts for 2020 were accepted at the recent AGM. As shown in the Profit and Loss Table below, in 2020, the Society made a small loss of $845. As 2020 was a ‘non-conference year’, this is a satisfactory result.
The major income items were membership subscriptions ($19,758), payments for special issues of the Journal ($19,985), and sponsorship for the special issue from the 2019 Canberra Conference, from the Australian Council for International Agricultural Research ($10,000), which enabled that issue to published as Open Access.
The main expenses incurred in 2020 were payments to CSIRO Publishing ($36,364) for publishing the Journal, maintenance of the Website ($4,738), and professional fees for bookkeeping and audit ($3,750).
| ITEM | GST Excl |
Comments |
| INCOME | ||
| Membership Income | $19,758 | In 2019 was $21,036, but that included some payments for 2020 |
| Total Conference income | $6,009 | remnant of income from ARS 2019 in Canberra |
| Journal income (special issues and CSIRO dividends) | $34,943 | One Australian special issue ($10,000), one Chinese Special Issue ($9,985), ACIAR sponsorship ($10,000) and copyright income ($1,774), and 5% institutional subscriptions ($3,184) |
| Interest income | $1,504 | |
| miscellaneous income | $20 | Donation to Crowd Funding Account |
| TOTAL INCOME | $62,234 | |
| EXPENSES | ||
| Bank service charges | $213 | includes Merchant fees |
| Transaction costs | $559 | eWay for handling membership payments |
| Professional fees | $3,750 | $1,950 for Audit, $1,800 for bookkeeping |
| Council costs | $1,214 | Communications via Zoom for PC and Council meetings |
| Donations | $500 | to ESA for bushfire rehabilitation work |
| Travel grants | $2,000 | Provided to a member in 2020, returned in early 2021, as it could not be used because of Covid-19 |
| Corporate costs | $160 | ASIC annual fee |
| Honoraria | $2,500 | Honorarium paid to Chair of Publications Committee for 2019-2020 |
| Journal expenses | $40,364 | Four payments to CSIRO Publishing (three normal half-yearly payments ($9,091 ea) to CSIRO-P, one payment for OA of the 2019 conference SI ($9,091), plus honorarium ($4,000) |
| Newsletter costs | $2,500 | Honorarium for Editor |
| Website expenses | $4,738 | Routine payment to Blue Platypus ($483), payments to Uncapped Creative ($1,620), Word Fence ($135), honorarium ($2,500) |
| Social media costs | $2,854 | Honorarium $2,500 plus $354 for boosting Facebook posts |
| Adjustments from 2019 | $1,728 | Adjustments from 2019 to 2020 |
| TOTAL EXPENSES | $63,079 | |
| PROFIT/ LOSS | -$845 |
Balance Sheet at 31 December 2020
The Society’s Balance Sheet at 31 December 2020 (see below) showed total equity at the end of the year to be $173,861.
Included in this amount are two term deposits totalling $150,436 that will mature during the year. Unfortunately, in the current environment the interest from these term deposits is less than one per cent, which is still better than if the funds are retained in the day-to-day savings account (currently returning 0.01%).
This favourable financial position is a direct result of the significant profits made from the ARS Biennial Conferences held in Port Augusta in 2017 and in Canberra in 2019. The Council is very grateful to the Organising Committees for both conferences for their efforts in delivering these profits.
Some of these funds will be used in 2021 to provide seed funding for the 2021 joint DCQ/ARS Conference in Longreach in October this year, and for the XIIth International Rangeland Congress in Adelaide in June 2025.
Having this financial reserve also enables the Society to invest in activities that promote the Society’s and members’ interests, such as Travel Grants, and improvements to the Society’s publications. It also provides a buffer against whatever ‘ill-winds’ the Society may have to face in the future!
| Balance of Accounts at 31 December 2020 | Actual |
Comments |
| Operating Cheque Account 8347 | $559 | |
| Conference Cheque Account 8363 | $336 | |
| Savings Account 8721 | $19,303 | |
| Membership Account 3504 | $1,237 | |
| Crowd Funding account | $20 | Was to be used to raise funds to support Indigenous people attending XIth IRC in Nairobi |
| Term Deposit | $100,000 | Maturity May 2021 |
| Term Deposit | $50,436 | Maturity November 2021 |
| Total cash | $171,890 | |
| Accounts receivable | $1,971 | GST |
| Total equity | $173,861 |