The yearly Scheme reports and their due dates

The three reports at a glance

A recognised club makes three Scheme reports every year, all counted from the end of its financial year. One goes to the Registrar of Motor Vehicles (the Registrar); two go to the Issuing Body, the Federation of Historic Motoring Clubs SA (the Federation).

The first is a condition of keeping recognition, listed among the club’s duties in clause 2.1j. All three rely on the same two sets of records: who is financial, and which log books the club has issued.

Start with your financial year

The Code counts every deadline from the end of the club’s financial year, not its membership year or the calendar year. Many clubs use the same date for both, but not all do, so check before you put dates in the diary.

Your constitution or rules of association should state the financial year. If it does not, the period your annual accounts cover is the practical answer. Once you know the year end, the due dates follow:

These are the latest dates. Nothing in the Code stops a club reporting earlier.

What to gather before you start

All three reports come from the same records, so gather them once. Before the financial year ends, make sure you can lay your hands on:

• The membership list with each member’s status at the year end, and the date each lapsed, resigned or expired membership ended.
• The vehicle register, showing which members own Scheme vehicles. Clause 2.1g already requires the club to keep records of all financial members and their Scheme vehicles.
• The log book register, with every book issued, replaced or cancelled during the year and the dates.
• Last year’s reports, as a guide to format and as a check that nobody has been missed or counted twice.

If these records live in several places (a treasurer’s spreadsheet, a registrar’s notebook, a secretary’s email), reconcile them before drafting. Errors are most likely where two lists disagree.

Report 1: non-financial members, to the Registrar

Within two months of the end of its financial year, the club must give the Registrar a report detailing members, with Scheme registered vehicles, who are no longer financial members of the club (clause 2.33).

That is the full extent of what the Code says about the content. It does not prescribe a form, a layout or a list of fields. The Code’s contacts table lists the Number Plates and Historic Vehicles team, DIT.PlateEnquiries@sa.gov.au, for the submission of financial member reports. If you are unsure what they want included, ask them before the deadline.

Who belongs on the list

Deciding who to include is where most of the thinking goes. The Code does not define the period the report covers, so the club has to apply the words sensibly:

• Members whose fees have lapsed and who own a Scheme vehicle. When a member stops being financial is set by your constitution, which is covered in the guide to financial members.
• Members who resigned during the year and owned a Scheme vehicle. A resigned member is no longer a financial member, and including them gives the Registrar a complete picture.
• Members who were expelled, for the same reason.

Life and honorary members, or any type the constitution deems financial, stay off the list unless their membership has ended.

The timing trap for 30 June clubs

If your financial year and membership year both end on 30 June, the report falls in the middle of renewal season. On 1 July many members will not yet have renewed, but that does not make all of them non-financial for the report. Whether a member is still financial in the weeks after the renewal date depends on your constitution, including any grace period it allows.

A practical approach, and a club choice rather than a rule, is to draw the list close to the deadline, after the club’s renewal follow-up is finished, and note in the minutes the date the list was taken. That way the report reflects members who have actually lapsed rather than members who are a few weeks late paying. The lapsed members guide covers a fair follow-up process.

If no one has lapsed

The Code does not say whether a nil report is needed. Sending a short note stating that no members with Scheme vehicles became non-financial is a sensible option: it shows the club met the duty and leaves a record.

Report 2: the Logbook Declaration, to the Federation

The club must give a completed Logbook Declaration form to the Issuing Body within two months of the end of each financial year (clause 2.30). The form can be downloaded from the Issuing Body’s website, www.fhmcsa.org.au.

The Code does not describe the form’s contents, so use the current version from the Federation’s website each year and fill in what it asks. Download it fresh rather than copying last year’s, in case it has changed.

The Logbook Declaration shares its due date with the report to the Registrar. Preparing both at the same sitting saves pulling the records together twice.

Report 3: log books issued, to the Federation

Within three months of the end of the financial year, the club must send the Issuing Body a report of the log books it issued to its members (clause 2.32).

Again, the Code does not prescribe a format. The register the club keeps under clause 2.39 holds what such a report would naturally draw on: each log book’s number, the member, the vehicle and the date issued. If the Federation supplies a template or has a preferred layout, use it.

Report the books the club actually issued to members during the year, including replacements for books that reached three years or were lost. If the club’s register is kept up to date as books are issued, this report is a matter of filtering by date. If it is not, it means going back through a year of paperwork. The guide to log book rules covers how to keep that register.

When the facts change after you report

Records keep moving after a report is sent. A member on the non-financial list may pay a week later, or a cancelled log book may turn up in the post.

The Code does not set out a process for correcting a report already sent. A sensible option is to tell the recipient in writing when a change matters to them, for example when a member reported as non-financial is financial again, and to keep a copy with the original report. Changes that only affect next year’s figures can simply be carried into next year’s reports.

A calendar for a 30 June year end

For a club whose financial year ends on 30 June, the season runs like this. The steps between the deadlines are suggestions; only the deadlines come from the Code.

For other year ends, shift every row by the same number of months. The renewal season checklist fits these steps around renewals for clubs with a 1 July membership year.

Keep a copy of everything

Keep each report, the date it was sent, and any reply. Clause 2.39 requires clubs to keep Scheme administration documents, including membership records and minutes, for five years, and clause 2.40 allows the Department to audit those records. A folder for each year with the three reports and their sent emails answers most audit questions in a minute.

How MemberCrew helps

MemberCrew produces the yearly reports for the Registrar and the Federation in one click, from the same membership and log book records the committee uses all year. Because financial status and log book issues are recorded as they happen, the reports reflect the club’s records on the day you run them. The club checks each report and sends it itself; MemberCrew does not lodge anything with the Registrar or the Federation. See the Scheme in MemberCrew.

For the full set of club duties, see the guide to the Conditional Registration Scheme.