Regions
Northern Territory corporations
The Territory has the densest concentration of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander corporations in the country, and the hardest operating conditions. We work with NT corporations remotely, from Adelaide — which is worth saying plainly before anything else.
We are not local, and that should be your call
There are good accounting firms physically in Darwin, Katherine and Alice Springs. If your board wants someone who can walk in the door, that is a legitimate reason to use one of them and we will say so.
What we offer instead is depth in CATSI Act reporting and CFO-level support, delivered remotely. Most of this work — bookkeeping, reporting, board reporting, audit at the smaller tier — genuinely does not require anyone to be in the room. Some of it does, and we will tell you which.
What the Territory landscape actually looks like
Four land councils cover the NT, each a statutory authority: the Central Land Council in Alice Springs for the southern half, the Northern Land Council for the Top End, the Tiwi Land Council for Bathurst and Melville Islands, and the Anindilyakwa Land Council for Groote Eylandt and Bickerton Island. The Central and Northern Land Councils are the native title representative bodies.
Underneath them sit a very large number of corporations, most of them small, many remote, and a good proportion running on grant funding with conditions attached. It is a market of small corporations with real compliance obligations and thin administrative capacity — which is a different problem from the one a mid-sized urban not-for-profit has.
Art centres are their own discipline
Central Australia has a concentrated art centre sector, supported from Alice Springs by Desart, which has backed art centres for over twenty years across Central Australia and into the APY and Ngaanyatjarra Lands, the Barkly and the Pilbara. Desart also developed SAM (Stories Art Money), the artwork management system most art centres run on.
Art centre bookkeeping is genuinely harder than ordinary corporation bookkeeping and it is the sub-sector where the most goes wrong — see bookkeeping for art centres.
The audit problem, and a way through it
Finding an auditor is a real constraint in the Territory, and boards are often told flatly that they need a registered company auditor. That is true for large corporations and for any corporation with income of $5 million or more. Below that tier the Registrar permits a wider group — including CPAs, CA ANZ members and IPA members.
For a small remote corporation that has spent months looking, that distinction can be the whole answer. We audit at that tier for corporations we do not otherwise act for — see audit services and whether you need an audit at all.
Working across distance
- Arrangements built to tolerate intermittent connectivity, not to assume it away.
- Documents in batches where that is what is practical.
- Structures a new coordinator can pick up — turnover is high and the books should survive it.
- Board reporting a non-financial director can read, because that is most NT boards.
Frequently asked questions
Are you based in the Northern Territory?
No. We are in Adelaide and we work with NT corporations remotely — cloud accounting, documents sent through, video meetings. There are good firms physically in Darwin, Katherine and Alice Springs, and if being able to walk into an office matters to your board, that is a fair reason to use one of them. Most of this work does not require it.
Can you work with corporations on very poor connectivity?
Yes, and it shapes how we set things up. Where a community has intermittent internet, the arrangement has to tolerate batches of documents rather than assuming real-time cloud access, and it cannot depend on one person being online at the right moment.
Do you work with art centres?
Yes — it is a distinct kind of bookkeeping and we have a page on it. Artist payments, consignment stock and grant funding running at once, on top of an artwork system that has to reconcile to the ledger.
Our corporation is small and remote and we cannot find an auditor. Any help?
This is common in the Territory and often the problem is a misunderstanding. Boards are frequently told they need a registered company auditor when, below the $5 million tier, the Registrar permits a wider group. That can be the difference between finding an auditor and not — we can audit at that tier for corporations we do not otherwise act for.