Documents Withheld by Previous Treasurer

Obligation to maintain records

It was on 3 February that I became aware of the scope of Chess Victoria’s obligations. Chess Victoria is obliged to maintain adequate and accurate accounting records of financial transactions (Associations Incorporation Act 1981 (‘AIA81’), s. 30A). Accounting records are defined to include all documents triggering recognition of accounting entries or explaining how accounts are made up (AIA81, s. 1). Relevant documents are defined to include records, no matter how compiled, recorded or stored (AIA81, s. 1). The adequacy of records in terms of retention period can be gauged by the obligation to keep financial statements made to members for seven years (AIA81, s. 30(3), (3A), (3B) and (4A)).

Request for records

Accordingly on 3 February 2010 I made written (email) request to the previous treasurer for all treasury-related documents in his possession, including all electronic documents and records up to eight years old. He has not acknowledged or otherwise responded to this request although we have since had other email correspondence.

Prior to 3 February the previous treasurer provided to me specific documents in response to specific requests from me for information. These requests were triggered by anomalous information on MYOB. However, the previous treasurer did not accommodate all of my specific requests for treasury-related information. Four notable instances of his professional silence are:

• the 2009 balance sheet item ‘undeposited funds’ was $1,403, yet the bank deposit made on 2 October 2009 was for only $932 and some subsequent deposits from 22 October had been stripped of descriptions for some of their components: please explain the difference of $471

• [$150 of the $471 missing from above was explained by a deposit slip error once the bank gave me on 22 January a reprinted bank statement for the period 30 September to 2 October; it appears that the previous treasurer had earlier requested this odd two-day bank statement and then withheld it from me]


• the 2009 balance sheet item ‘cheque account’ was $13,716, yet the bank statement at 30 September showed only $12,815; the major contributing factor was revealed by MYOB to be an outstanding deposit of $1,530 on 3/10/2008 which was never banked; hard copy bank reconciliation statements prior to 30 November 2009 show no record of such an undeposited amount; a trial reconciliation report printed on 14/11/2009 but run as at 28/11/2008 also showed nil outstanding deposits; this suggests that the 3/10/2008 deposit of $1,530 never existed but was invented, recorded and subsequently purged in the fortnight prior to the November 2009 AGM: please explain

• a journal entry recognising undeposited funds of $180 dated 16/10/2009 contained an internal cash payment of $240 against an inactive 2002 revenue account; this had the effect of ‘disappearing’ $240 of cash belonging to the transaction; cash received was acknowledged to a number of schools; the true destination of the $240 is probably revealed by the journal entry description, which identifies the recipients as a ‘VK’ for $100 and ‘DH’ for $140; presumably these mean Victor Kildisas and David Haache, two current committee members: please explain.