As most HC readers will know – I have a concern about the...

As most HC readers will know – I have a concern about the misleading reports of the cash positions in the Quarterly Cash Flow Reports.
In the Quarterly Cash flow reports – APG secretary Nick Gaston will tell you APG has so much cash at the end of quarter balance date - and a few months later the audited (Half yearly & Full Year) report comes out, and shows the cash position is considerably less.

In the recent Quarterly Report for 30/6/17 - Nick Gaston stated that Cash = $502k.
Further down in the report, he clarifies that this is comprised of Bank Balances = $502k.
At the end of August, Preliminary Final Report for 30/6/17 came out - Nick Gaston again states the Cash = $503k.
At the end of October, the Annual Report (audited) states that for 30/6/17 Cash = $494,440

So again, we have the audited report pointing out that the Cash Position in the unaudited report, put out by Nick Gaston was overstated by around $8k.

So I rang Nick Gaston, we had a short conversation, that went like this.
Question: Why does the Quarterly show cash = $502k , while the audited Full year report shows cash = $494,440.
Answer: “ $502k is close enough” ..... “ this is acceptable for accounting standards”
Question: Why would you estimate cash? Surely it’s just a matter of looking at the bank statement. That’s what the auditor does.
Answer: “It’s more complicated than that. There are other categories of cash”
And then before I could ask – what other category of cash - he ended the call.
I was amazed that a company secretary would think that “close enough” was acceptable when reporting to shareholders. The auditor can state the cash position to the dollar - but the company secretary as satisfied that an $8k error is close enough.

How can shareholders investors have any confidence in the APG board when they allow this misleading statement of the cash position to happen in every Quarterly report.
And remember back to the Quarterly Cash Flow statement for 31/12/2015, where the error was really huge - Nick Gaston said APG had Cash = $326,000, but a few months later the audited Half Year Report came out which showed APG really only had Cash = $51,554.


My question for the AGM (preferably to Colin Iles) is: Why is APG counting something as cash in the unaudited reports, that is not counted as cash in the APG audited reports ??