CFO's report
George Kapitelli FCPA
CFO
CPA Australia remains committed to being a financially sustainable professional membership organisation, ensuring the ability to continually invest in enhancing outcomes and delivering greater value for its members.
Achieving this requires the delivery of reasonable profits and enhancement of a strong balance sheet to support ongoing investment in our operations, processes, and systems.
Financial sustainability underpins our ability to provide high‑quality services, deliver positive member outcomes, and progress the strategic priorities set out in our 2022 to 2027 strategy.
It is my privilege to share my insights into our financial performance and strategic initiatives.
As Chief Financial Officer (CFO), I am pleased to present CPA Australia’s financial performance for 2025. The organisation has continued its positive, sustainable trajectory, and we can reflect on another successful year in which our financial position has strengthened. A high‑level overview of the financial results is provided in Table 1, with full details available in the accompanying Financial Statements and notes.
Financial highlights
The comments below are drawn from the overview of financial results.
Revenue growth
Total revenue increased by $8.7m year‑on‑year, driven by strong membership growth and increased participation in professional development activities. The successful CPA Congress on the Gold Coast, together with the return of an international Congress in Malaysia, contributed to this uplift. Member events continued to expand through new seminars and initiatives delivered across the year. Investment income also performed strongly in 2025.
Cost focus
We maintained disciplined cost management through a targeted year-on-year cost growth plan of $4.5m. This approach supported an improvement in our net surplus. Areas of cost increase were largely attributable to economic inflationary pressures and increased member engagement activities that strengthen connection and community across our membership.
Profitability
Our combined efforts in revenue growth and cost control resulted in an improved financial outcome:
- net operating surplus of $15.2m (after depreciation and finance costs), with $13.2m reinvested in strategic initiatives designed to sustain long‑term organisational performance and deliver enhanced member value
- total comprehensive net income of $5.1m, compared with $8.1m in 2024, primarily reflecting lower investment valuation gains and reduced foreign exchange translation gains.
Strategic initiatives
In 2025, CPA Australia continued to invest strategically to advance member services and education quality. Key priorities included:
- progressing the Learning Evolution Program
- implementing the new CPA Australia App
- developing our AI strategy
- enhancing cyber security, including the roll-out of multi‑factor authentication (MFA) internally
- delivering website and CPD diary enhancements.
Financial sustainability
The 2025 operating surplus before strategic project expenditure of $15.2m enabled continued investment in initiatives critical to the organisation’s long‑term growth. Together with strong cash reserves of $80m and an investment fund of $104m, CPA Australia remains well positioned to support ongoing strategic investments to benefit members.
Table 1: Overview of financial results
| 2025 ($'000s) |
2024 ($'000s) |
Variance ($'000s) |
|
|---|---|---|---|
| Total revenue | 195,411 | 186,753 | 8,658 |
| Total expenses (including depreciation and finance costs) | (180,213) | (175,712) | (4,501) |
| Net surplus/(deficit) excluding strategic project investment | 15,198 | 11,041 | 4,157 |
| Strategic project expenditure | (13,176) | (10,402) | (2,774) |
| Net surplus/(deficit) before income tax, FX and investment-mark to market | 2,022 | 639 | 1,383 |
| Other income (income tax, FX, investment-mark to market) | 3,103 | 7,426 | (4,323) |
| Total comprehensive Income/(loss) for the year | 5,125 | 8,065 | (2,940) |
Geographical performance
Table 2 (Financial performance by location) highlights the importance of all global regions to the overall sustainability of CPA Australia.
The 2025 total expenses include both the direct costs incurred within each region such as local employee salaries, event expenses, and facility leasing and a share of central corporate costs, which are distributed to each region based on an activity-based allocation method.
Each region generates a reasonable direct margin (revenue less direct cost) that makes a positive contribution to central corporate costs and contributes to overall financial sustainability.
Table 2: Financial performance by location
| Location | 2025 total revenue ($'000s) | 2025 total expenses ($'000s) 1 |
2025 surplus/(deficit) before tax ($'000s) | 2024 surplus/(deficit) before tax ($'000s) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Australia | 127,922 | 116,975 | 10,947 | 12,474 |
| New Zealand | 4,434 | 4,662 | (228) | (177) |
| Europe | 1,738 | 1,961 | (223) | (383) |
| ASEAN group 2 | 21,815 | 25,799 | (3,984) | (4,356) |
| Greater China | 31,684 | 32,519 | (835) | 282 |
| Other overseas | 7,818 | 7,884 | (66) | 92 |
| Total 3 | 195,411 | 189,800 | 5,611 | 7,932 |
1 Total expenses includes operating expenses, depreciation and finance costs, strategic project expenditure, FX and revaluation of investments, in line with the overview of financial results on page 125.
2 ASEAN group consists locations where we have a physical office: Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore and Vietnam. All other locations are covered in other overseas.
3 Due to rounding totals may not equal.
Our focus is to ensure that CPA Australia remains financially sustainable while we continue to invest in member services and improve our member value proposition.
I thank the CPA Australia team for their efforts in creating this continued sustainable financial position.
I also offer my sincere thanks to CPA Australia’s members and hope that you continue to be as proud of our designation, as I am.