Good morning, everybody, and welcome to our 2022 annual general meeting. Welcome to those of you here in person, especially some of our team who've made it here and to those of you online. Due to the nature of online, we have no apologies, but I'd like to acknowledge our former Chair, Ross Keenan, who I know is in front of a screen, watching us, and Bryce Henderson, who is also our auditor, who is also watching online. For those of you don't know, I'm Simon Bennett. I'm a recently appointed Chair, and it's my pleasure to chair this meeting. Today, we talk through the statutory requirements of the annual meeting. I'll give you an overview of the state of the business.
Jason Cherrington, our CEO, who you heard from last year and has now had a full year in the business, will also give you an update. We'll seek your support to appoint a couple of directors and to reappoint the auditors. At the end, of course, we will be happy to answer your questions both for those in the room and online. To the formalities. Patrick, our company secretary, has confirmed to me that the notice of the meeting has been sent to all shareholders and other persons entitled to receive it. Further, our board is happy with the quality and the timeliness of the financial statements and the group's annual report, which once again was distributed simultaneously. Secondly, a quorum.
We have more than five shareholders in the room, so I can confirm as per the constitution that we have a quorum. As of end of day Monday, our proxies, we had seven million shares voted by proxy. In my pocket, I have another 18 odd million from Mr. Hull, which will be added to the tally. I'd like to thank you all for your participation in today's meeting, and particularly those of you who have come in person. My fellow directors and I intend to vote all discretionary proxies we have in favor of the resolutions set out in the notice of meeting, and we'll support all resolutions put forward. Tiny bit of admin. For those of you online, you're welcome to raise questions at any time. You can do that throughout the meeting.
Click on the button below the screen, but as is practice, we will answer those questions at the end of the meeting. Those of you in person, if you've got a question, we'll try the old, tried and true method. Put your hand up, and we'll get a mic to you. If you can just give us your name before you ask the question. If we run out of time and can't answer any questions or if you ask me something too tricky to answer, then we'll get back to you after the meeting as soon as we can. In terms of the online portal, anybody here who's having any problems, you can ring 0800- 200- 220. So the business.
Firstly, let me introduce my director, Simon Hull, beside me, who you know very well, founder of AWF and a strong supporter of the business. Win Lasaama, who founded Madison and continues to support the business. Our one of our new directors, Richard Stone, who will talk to you later as he is gonna address you asking for your votes. Let's see if this works all right, but we have a couple of directors online as well. There we go. Nick Simcock from Wellington, who's also standing for reappointment and will talk to you later in the meeting. Last but not least, there we go, Laurissa Cooney, who heads our Audit and Risk Committee very ably and I think is with us from sunny Bay of Plenty.
Morena.
Morena. To the business. The board is proud of the achievements of the stakeholder team in the past 12 months. I mean, obviously it hasn't been an easy year. Challenges of lockdowns, border closures, absenteeism due to sickness and isolation. Jason and his team have really rolled their sleeves up and taken an absolute business as usual approach to the business. I really wanna thank the team, nice to see you here today, many of you, for your dedication and determination. The team's ensured we've been agile at all times, looked after our candidates and clients to ensure that we could fulfill the important role we play in the New Zealand labor market and economy.
At a time where labor shortages are high on the board agenda of boardrooms all around of the country, we've continued to partner and deliver innovative solutions to our clients while offering growth, support, and other options for our candidates. Our people-first approach has delivered a solid financial result despite the many challenges. Our balance sheet is in very good shape. We've continued ably. I don't know where Tony, our CFO, has disappeared to, but we've really managed our debtors and working capital particularly well. Bank debt now at NZD 30 million is as low as it's been since, I think, 2015 when we did the capital raise. Our reported leverage ratio was 1.5x , and that's debt to EBITDA. Really, I'd suggest that we've got a pretty conservative balance sheet at this time.
At the same time, I've been really pleased that we've returned to a full year of dividends, interim and final, after a year where we ceased the final and interrupted the interim, during the COVID times. We expect to build on these dividends as we move forward. Our businesses and our social enterprise have strong plans in place for the year ahead. Importantly, though, our board has signed off on a three-year strategy with three key goals around optimization, expansion, and diversification, and we look forward to Jason expanding on these goals shortly. As a board and as a business, we're optimistic about our future. Of course, we face the same challenges as many businesses in a difficult labor market and challenging macroeconomic environment.
Our very services offer tools to solve many of the problems for our clients, and hence we anticipate strong ongoing demand. I'll close now, but I reiterate my thanks to the team and assure you, our shareholders, of our commitment to the business and our confidence in the future. Now I'll move to agenda item two. I note the consolidated financial statements for the year ended 31 March 2022. We should also note, as with the published accounts, that we had a final dividend of NZD 0.056 a share, giving us a total of NZD 0.121 a share. For any questions on dividend management operations of the company, we will handle those later on in the agenda in general business. On to agenda item three.
First time, I think, to present this CEO report, Jason Cherrington, who, as I said, has been with us for a year and has got his feet firmly behind the desk. Here we are, Jason.
Thank you, Simon, and good morning, all. I think it's globally now, the phenomenon of hybrid engagement is pretty common. It's great to see a combination of people in the room attending today in person. I chatted to some of you this morning, so very nice to meet you. Also, with a fantastically capable tech team at the back of the room enabling our shareholders to participate online. I guess regardless of the medium, I'm delighted to be able to address all of you today.
As Simon mentioned, I've been in my role now for just over 12 months, and I thought I'd start by summarizing my thoughts around last year, as we take a trip around each of the individual businesses, talk about some of the key performance metrics of that year, highlight some of the strategic initiatives that form part of our Accordant business plan, and then update you on how we're traveling in FY 2023 thus far. As we look to, I guess, compound our current efforts over a sustainable period of time and look to grow our profits with confidence. As I reflect on FY 2022, I think it's fair to say that demand for our services coming into the fiscal did not just continue as before, but actually in many cases, hiring intentions increased, and across many of the sectors that we support.
The shortage of available labor, increase in client demand, the broad ongoing effects of border closures, and the growing great resignation phenomena that I'm sure you've all read about now, all took center stage. While we weren't immune to those factors, I think it's fair to say that we navigated through both the challenge and the opportunity, with purpose and in good heart, and in fact, we continue to do so. In the first quarter of last year, AWF had started to show some green shoots of recovery post the first pandemic. In the white-collar segments, our ability to meet what was exceptional demand was, on the whole, being realized.
Both Madison and JacksonStone & Partners demonstrated robust year-on-year growth, and Absolute IT had begun their journey of redefining their strategic imperatives and aligning resource to meet the exponential growth that we've seen in the tech sector in New Zealand and globally, and especially in the contracting space. As you'll no doubt recall, on the seventeenth of August, New Zealand entered another lockdown period, quite an extensive one. Despite moving into the new COVID framework nationally, Auckland remained in red restriction until the end of December. Obviously, we then had Omicron as we entered into January. While all areas of the economy once again braced for challenge, I think in our world of recruiting, the blue-collar sector felt the biggest impact, therefore culminating in a challenging period for AWF.
As we highlighted in the annual reports, the business saw a 70% reduction in demand pretty much overnight for what we'd class as our regular field employees. However, I'm really pleased with the way in which the AWF team, led by Fleur, responded positively. We looked to quickly seek out and support essential service demand. We supported our clients with their own absenteeism, and looked, you know, quickly to trade our way through the period, I guess, positively and with significantly less government-wide support than we'd taken the previous year. We also took the opportunity at that moment to capitalize on our onboarding process and the digitization of it. Allowing candidates to complete that process in a fraction of the time, going paperless, and improving the overall experience. Well done to Kerry Fleur, and the team.
While the effects of border closures, therefore, including the significant drop-off in working holiday travelers continued through that summer period, the underlying performance of AWF suggests probably a more robust business than the FY 2022 segment profit suggests. On reflection, and especially as we entered into a period of Omicron variants, I'm pleased we took a really positive approach to RAT testing as part of our health, safety, and well-being. Combined with our business continuity plans, this helped keep the wheels turning not just in AWF, but actually across all of our businesses. Technically, we flattened the curve of absenteeism, and we kept our people, and to some degree, their families safe. Health and safety in that regard continues to play a key role, as you will, I'm sure, all know.
The gains we've made during that year in our approved ACC accredited employer status, along with the sheer volume of safety engagements that are taken in the year, are just a few examples of this in authentic practice. Turning to Absolute IT, much has been said around the great resignation, offshore talent loss, and scarce skills capability that we currently face in the market. However, the tech sector really has been experiencing these challenges longer than many others. Digital transformation plans in New Zealand remain at an all-time high. Flexible working solutions have created additional workload in that space, and the fight for tech talent has reached new levels of financial compensation. In this environment, Absolute IT had to reposition priorities, look at their current capability and approach, and then during the year, make sure they adapted to meet clients' and candidate need.
I guess FY 2022, you know, to some degree, felt like a year of transition in many ways for the Absolute IT business. While the impact of that work was not felt in that year, I'll talk a little bit later about the resulting effect in the current financial period so far. JacksonStone continued its trajectory of great growth with a record year of financial performance, a performance delivered not just through the final earn-out period, post-acquisition, which you'll recall was November of last year, but consistently month-on-month thereafter. Strong, relevant relationships, great market presence and awareness of their brand, exclusive work, and the ability to execute on the opportunities in front of them all combined to significant effect. Contracting growth, interestingly, in that market has also been quite significant over the last 12-18 months.
I guess it's really been a story of ongoing success now three years on from first acquiring the business. I think what it also highlights is our ability to seek, acquire, maintain, and importantly, grow, a business via acquisition, something for us to consider as we go into the next 12-18 months. Madison, I guess, in some ways benefited the most from New Zealand's pandemic response, where a contingent capability was required at certain times and through several national projects. This sweet spot of demand played to Madison's strengths of credibility, resourcing effectiveness, and frankly, the capability just to get stuff done.
Really impressive to witness and provided a really solid outcome, and also despite the fact that the impact felt from a significant reduction in students and working holiday visas affected their usual temporary workforce placements that can turn into permanent placements. Last and certainly not least, The Work Collective under the dedicated leadership of Donna Lynch has expanded its reach and its awareness beyond the blue-collar space. With social impact programs increasing at pace across many organizations, I feel the foundations built last year really do provide a great platform to now scale. We've also seen greater engagement from all of the other brands around The Work Collective, and their respective clients' interest, unsurprisingly, has increased in this area.
I guess while the resulting net profit results of NZD 3 million is hard to compare with the prior year for many reasons, as Simon Bennett suggested, a more relevant benchmark being FY 2020 at NZD 2.7 million. I am pleased that the complexity and to some degree, pathfinding through the year, those activities not only retained market share but actually saw our top-line revenue grow at circa 8%. We also placed 1,500 board candidates over that year. Our ACC-accredited employer status improved for the second consecutive year in a row to tertiary. Our efforts were recognized by receiving two industry awards from five finalist placements. Now, when I talk about awards, sometimes these things can feel like they're self-congratulating.
If you think of a marketplace where we're short on talent demand, where you wanna put a beacon on top of the building and say, "This is what good looks like," and demonstrate, you know, our organization and how and where we play in the market as a leader, I think those are good things to show the rest of the organizations, you know, around New Zealand. Our progress in developing our own capability technically and our digital journey continued also, as did our digital marketing capability, which increased quite significantly, and our brand awareness initiatives with it. Finally, I'm also pleased that the combined efforts over the last 18 months have enabled the return of our dividend payment to shareholders.
Turning to this year, the team and I were pleased, as Simon mentioned, that the board had approved our three-year strategic plan, which enables a refreshed approach to deliver on some today's core business while we continue to evolve the tomorrow business. While each individual business has its own strategic business plans relevant to its market and opportunity, at group level, our plan is focused on three specific areas of holistic opportunity that cover the entire organization. Number one, optimization.
Through various initiatives, ranging from better data literacy and understanding the information we hold and how we use it, to learning and development for our people, we look to capitalize on what we have today to make the journey for our clients, our candidates, and our people highly effective, and what I think is really important, the experience really enjoyable, as we focus on return to profit in the near term. Secondly, expansion, so a medium-term impact that focuses on broadening capability and reach into our clients' journeys, enabling greater awareness of our value proposition through partnerships and programs, and increased awareness of both Accordant and the relevance of their capability within the group, both internally and externally out in the market.
Then finally, diversification, which is a long-term value creation focus that combines new revenue streams with adjacent service capability relevant to where the market opportunities reside. Of course, with expansion and diversification comes the opportunity to revisit our growth via acquisition criteria. With many learnings over the last few years, the health of our balance sheets, and what I feel will now be an acceleration of opportunity in the market per se, we're likely to progress work streams in that regard further this year. Talking about this year, how are we doing so far? Well, I'm pleased to report that we're seeing a positive start to the year. Madison have begun well as we innovate and continue to do so to deliver on key project work relative to the pandemic response and beyond.
This ongoing investment innovation really means our staff feel enabled to do their jobs well with access to some of the best recruitment tools, and our clients feel the resulting benefit. Within AWF, the immigration opportunity remains key, and having secured our new immigration accredited employer status, we've been matching offshore talent with opportunity onshore and expect to see a positive impact during Q3 this year. When you add in the expected working holiday visa numbers and international student numbers, it kind of feels like supply will increase and to some degree tackle demand. It's also interesting that temporary to permanent placements continue in this space as well. Labor restraints are still the number one impacting factor, and we are cognizant of being well prepared in order to move swiftly as more labor becomes available in the market.
JacksonStone, through permanent and robust in-contract performance, are experiencing a very strong start again to FY 2023. All sectors continue to be busy, including private, nonprofit, and of course government, where they move ahead with some of the major reform works that have been planned. I'm also delighted that we've appointed a new dedicated GM to lead our growing Māori practice in Rochelle Russell. While this capability resides within JacksonStone, the focus is to expand and realize opportunities across the entire group of businesses. As mentioned earlier, Absolute IT's new strategic approach is live and being executed upon, and we've already started to see double-digit growth in contracting placements. While the aggressive battle for tech talent continues, we look to demonstrate why our services are more relevant now than ever in the exclusive and retained service areas.
Consistent candidate management is ascending quite quickly now, and in this sector it's a critical path for success. I guess we're spending the right amount of time and energy to ensure we drive fresh thinking in this area. More personally, I've been able to spend significantly more time this year, now I have the freedoms that we've all enjoyed of late, in front of clients, candidates, and indeed our own people, while joining government and industry-led forums to ensure that our voice is present. I think it's fair to say we really do have a unique responsibility and position in the market to improve the employment landscape in New Zealand for all.
My sense is that despite talks of high inflation, labor shortage, and how did we end up here, endlessly debated, many organizations are fighting against the headwinds and are determined to succeed. I think in all regards, our relevancy to help them achieve those outcomes by doing what we do best remains our key focus, and doing what is within our control with real purpose. In that regard, our people continue to work hard and smarter where possible to tackle the tight labor market, and deliver for our clients. I think it's been really gratifying again this year to see, in the first quarter, a recognition in three regards, three more industry awards, AWF for excellence in safety and well-being culture, The Work Collective for excellence in social purpose, and Absolute IT for candidate experience.
Think what I said before, safety, well-being culture, excellence in social purpose, and candidate experience. These are probably all areas that I'd say we wanna be the market leader in, so I'm pleased that we're making impacts already this year. I think in closing, I'd like to recognize not just the energy, capability, and effectiveness of my executive team over the past 12 months, but I think more so the resilience and the dedication that they and their respective teams have demonstrated during the extended lockdown period and beyond into this year. I've said many times now that being your employer of choice is not something we take for granted, and it's that human-centric approach that I believe we take in all that we do that really does make our group stand out.
I'd like to thank Ross for his support last year, and also thank Simon and the board for their ongoing meaningful supports of our business. With a continued focus on sustainable earnings growth and consistent dividend return, I'm confident we have the right team in place to execute on our plans whilst positively navigating the economic winds around us. That's all from me for today. Thank you, and now back to Simon.
Very good. I sort of feel like that's an applause-worthy presentation. Thanks, Jason. Ross always used to joke that he was bringing the new young guy through, and that was me, but I'm sort of old school now with paper, and Jason's on iPad. I hope that gives you some insight into the business. I mean, I guess at high level, it's we're all reading about these labor shortages and I think that gives you some insight into the opportunities for us in this market that we play. We will now move to the resolutions, which are outlined in the notice of meeting. Sorry, this is a bit tedious. For those of you here, you just need to tick a box.
If you're joining remotely, you can cast your vote using the electronic voting card, which you see online. To vote, you click Get Voting Card within the meeting platform. You'll be asked to enter your shareholder or proxy number to validate, and then mark your voting card in the way you wish to vote, for, against, or abstain. Once you've made your selection, then please click Submit Vote. Of course, you can refer to the virtual meeting online guide or use the helpline, as I mentioned earlier, if you have any problems. For those of you in the room, use your pen or pencil and click and tick, and we will collect those once we've finished formal business.
The voting will remain open until five minutes after the conclusion of meeting and the results will be announced via the NZX. For your information, each of these resolutions set out in the notice of the meeting is an ordinary resolution, and as such, must be approved by a simple majority of the votes cast. The outcome of proxy votes will be displayed, for your information, on all the resolutions. We'll now move to the resolutions for director elections and the first resolution one that we see on the screen there, Nick Simcock. Nick will hopefully, technology willing, address us shortly. Or he may not, but he might. There we go. Hi, Nick.
Tena koutou katoa. Nick Simcock here. Shareholders, I'd like to offer myself up for re-election as an independent director. I joined the Accordant board in 2018 after 15 years of, as a managing director for an international recruitment and consulting firm in various global and regional roles. Having been exposed to leading industry practices globally, my experience working with Accordant over the last few years has shown me that we really are a world-class business in lots of ways. I personally have a great amount of pride in our role of in providing solutions that address the structural challenges in the employment market here, in making an impact by growing and shaping our workforce for the current and future needs of New Zealanders.
The work we do with our work, with The Work Collective, our social enterprise, is innovative and a sign of our commitment to our community. It's something we should be very proud of, too. Over the last several years, the business has navigated some significant challenges, which we've heard about, and it's really proved to be highly adaptable and resilient, with a strong culture, leadership team, and highly committed people that we should be proud of, too. We've managed a smooth transition from Ross to Simon as chair and the induction of Jason, our now not so new CEO, into the business. We really are in a unique position, I think, to capitalize on some of the growth opportunities in the next cycle. With your support, I would like to continue to be part of the board that helps navigate that. Ngā mihi katoa.
Now, Simon, hand back to you.
Hey, thanks. Thanks, Nick. Nick was appointed to the board effective January 1, 2018, and as we've mentioned, he's required to offer himself up for re-election. For your information, of the proxies received, 79.03% are in favor of his resolution. Probably more noteworthy, none are against his election. If you've got any questions around the motion, submit them online now or save them for the end of the meeting. We can address them. You can vote now for, against, or abstain. Now we will move from Nick onto Mr. Richard Stone, who's with us here today, and he will speak to you briefly.
Good morning to those of you who are here in person and those that are online. I'm Richard Stone, and I'm also keen to offer myself for re-election to the board. I joined the board earlier this year, so I'm relatively new, but I brought to the board a range of governance experience from a range of other organizations. Possibly of more relevance, I was one of the founding director shareholders and was the chairman of JacksonStone & Partners. That business, I think, was the culmination for me of 35 years continuous exposure to the industry.
I think what it's enabled me to do is bring a first-hand and direct insight in terms of some of the challenges that this industry deals with, the challenges of building and strengthening client and candidate relationships. I think if I look back at the JacksonStone business, it was a business that has just gone from strength to strength, including under Accordant ownership. I think probably what I would also offer is that I've seen first-hand, and I think I have a unique experience, the competence and the skill of the Accordant team to enable a new acquisition to be seamlessly integrated into the business. I think I need to extend a thanks particularly to Simon Bennett, who was the face of Accordant as we went through that process.
As somebody who's been the owner of a now subsidiary business, we haven't had a moment to question whether that was the right thing for us to do, and it's been made all the better by the capability within the Accordant family. Of course, I've seen the challenges of the last couple of years, and what I've seen is the extraordinary resilience and innovativeness and adaptability of the Accordant team to address issues that Jason's talked of, COVID and skill shortages. It gives me enormous confidence that the group is well-placed to both meet the challenges that are in front of us and also capitalize on the opportunities. With your support, I hope I can play a role in assisting achieve those.
Thank you very much, and, I hope I have the opportunity to continue to work with you. Thank you. Thank you, Simon.
Thanks, Richard. That's a bit of Groundhog Day. That's the same drill really. Richard was appointed January 25th 2022, as he'd mentioned, and as per listing rules, required to offer himself for election, 78.84% of the proxies are in favor of the resolution. Again, if you've got questions, you can ask them online or we can address them at the end. Please select for, against or abstain. We'll move now to agenda item four, to authorize the directors to fix the auditor's remuneration. Proxy votes received 79.3% are in favor of this resolution. Look, we're really pleased to advise the continuation of our relationship with Deloitte and I mentioned him earlier, he's not here, but really grateful to Bryce Henderson.
It was a difficult 2022 for everybody and they were not excluded from that. He worked really well with us, and we're grateful. Also acknowledge Tony and his team. The finance team is doing a cracking job in the business, giving us decent information that we can trust. Thanks also to Laurissa, sorry you couldn't be here today, for your leadership of the audit function on behalf of the board. Look, if you can vote for that again, for, against or abstain as per the other resolutions.
The next agenda item 5 to note the reappointment of Deloitte and on behalf of the Audit and Risk Committee, I'd like to thank Deloitte again for their ongoing good quality service, and work and, you know, especially in the face of that pressure they've been under as well with workforce issues. Agenda item 6, just an update on the employee share scheme. It's unchanged from last year. Ross talked about it. We loan senior team members money so that they can buy shares. They, we set the board sets the strike price, a time that they will vest and they can benefit from not only some dividend flow, but also hoping for a rising share price. That takes us to agenda item 7, general business and questions.
I guess the way that we will handle that maybe is we'll go to the room first for any questions, and then we'll look online and see how we go.
Morning.
I'm just gonna get a mic to you. Thank you.
Just hold the mic closer to you please.
Right. Do you have a dividend reinvestment plan? If not, would you consider one?
Just a bit closer. Just a bit closer to you please. Thank you. The question was do we have a dividend reinvestment plan and would we consider one? We actually do have that as a tool, and we have used it in the past. We're not utilizing it at the moment and we don't feel as if we need to at the moment. It's open to the board to utilize it if we see a need for it in the future.
Thanks. I'm Bruce Farquhar for the [New Zealand Shareholders'] Association. You talk of further acquisitions. You seem to do that quite well. What are the gaps you see in your current portfolio, and would it not be better to do those in-house rather than go out to another?
Thanks, Bruce. Yeah, I mean, good question. I'm wondering whether Jason or I should answer that. I think that you saw some of the answer in the room today when Richard Stone spoke. Look, you can't. I'm not gonna mention Richard's age, but you know, we engage with businesses that have got deep roots in the market, deep experience. We have got great talent inside of our different brands, but they're different services that the different brands offer. Certainly prior to acquiring JacksonStone, we didn't have a presence at senior levels. We think it's been really good for the business. We've seen JacksonStone grow, but we've also seen some leverage across the other brands also.
I think it was a two-part question that's the why. Of the areas that we might participate in, we haven't got any presence in health, and JacksonStone's very Wellington-centric, and quite public sector-centric. Somewhere 80% public sector. We see good opportunity at the senior end of town, possibly more private sector-based and health.
Thanks.
No more in the room. Oh, one more.
Just regarding the JacksonStone Māori recruitment initiative, can you give us more detail on that?
Sure. Jason, I think you might work there.
Sure. Yeah, I mean, it first, I guess it's not new so far as our focus within that specific area of the market, but we do believe that we can do more, and should be doing more in that regard. Part of this is making sure you have the right individuals leading those areas that can credibly and authentically, I guess, grow, engage in that market and grow. I think we have that in the appointment that we've made. There is a flow, a significant flow of business into JacksonStone within that space already.
It kind of felt like it was a natural place to almost incubate, I guess, and then grow it to a stage it would ultimately break out of the greenhouse of JacksonStone across the rest of the business. Part of that plan is to do exactly that, accelerate. I think having that key lead building on the platform that's already there is something that we'll see grow over the next 12-18 months.
Thanks, Jason.
What's the objective?
And-
What is the objective of this?
Well, it's quite a good question, but a big question. Look, we want to be. We look at the market, and we assess where we can add value. In the end, we monetize that. I mean, we do some great purposeful work across all of our businesses and social enterprise. We play where we think that we can make the most impact. I mean, as you will no doubt read in the, you know, the mainstream news media, I mean, there is a significant drive and there's significant work in the Māori economy. There are big workflows. We only need to look at Three Waters, Health New Zealand or New Zealand Health, and, you know, with the, you know, specific Māori agencies.
We feel as if we need to have some specialization as well, and we think we'll do a good job, but we also think that we will enjoy that opportunity. Okay. We might see what we've got online.
Mr. Chair, we received one question in advance of the meeting today, and that question comes from Mr. James Christopher Cone. The question. How, e.g., with regards to what stream of payments, does the restatements on pages 68 to 70 cause an increase in receivables?
That's an easy one. It's good that people are reading the financial statements. Finally, I'm gonna see to get the new guy to answer that one.
It's a technical question, right? Yeah. I mean, I'll give you the technical answer 'cause it is a technical question. The clarifying interpretation of how software as a service is accounted for changed. That means that any qualifying software is capitalized as a prepayment and then written off over the useful life. Prepayments are categorized under trade and other receivables. Retrospective at the 1st of April 2020 was NZD 75,000. That was reclassified as a payment, reducing down to NZD 15,000 at the 1st of April 2022, and then nil at the 31st of March 2022. That's the technical answer.
I'll give you my layman answer, which is software as a service was reclassified, and the way in which we account for it, Tony and the team have flowed through, and that is the resulting impact.
I mean, it's numpty nonsense from our friends in IFRS. I can say that because Bryce Henderson, our auditor's not here, and Laurissa is not in the room. I mean, it is the joys of IFRS, so. Shereen, we've got any more questions here in the ether?
There are no further questions at this stage.
Okay. Great. All right. Well, look, Thanks, Jason. Thanks to the wider team. I mean, we're a big group of people inside of our businesses, but also the contractors, temps, that work for us. You know, we engage with thousands and thousands of people every year, and we're grateful for everybody's support. Thank you to the shareholders who have come here today. We appreciate your support also, and to those of you that could be with us online. In terms of the next time you'll hear from us, we will announce, as we've done every year, towards the end of October. Thank you very much. On that note, I will wrap things up.