Manaaki Tech
Practical support for organisations that want to strengthen their finances, manage risk, stay accredited, and keep improving - without the corporate price tag.
We work alongside small businesses, community organisations, and social service providers - the kind of organisations doing important mahi for their communities, without a full finance team behind them. We are deliberately small and deliberately senior, and where a job needs a specialist we are not, we bring in the right one.
We do not do your bookkeeping or file your returns. We work alongside whoever already does - reviewing the numbers, explaining what they mean, and helping you plan.
We take what your bookkeeper or finance officer produces and tell you what it actually says - what is working, what is drifting, and what needs a decision.
Turning the numbers into something a board can govern from, rather than a spreadsheet nobody reads.
Building the budget with you, testing the assumptions, and giving you something you can hold people to.
Rolling forecasts so you can see the tight months before you are in them.
New services, new sites, funding applications, scenario testing - a clear picture before you commit.
We know what funders and government agencies expect, and how to report against contract conditions. This is judgement about what a funder needs to see, not form-filling.
A fresh set of eyes on where you actually stand.
Not every organisation needs a full-time finance lead, and most of the ones we work with could not fund one. Virtual CFO support gives you that seniority part-time instead - someone who reads the numbers with you, helps you prepare for the board meeting, sees the tight months coming, and is on the end of the phone when a funder asks something you have not been asked before.
It works alongside whoever already does your bookkeeping and filing. We are not replacing them, and you do not need to change anything to get started.
Our minimum is 10 hours a week, roughly two hours a day. Below that we cannot know your organisation well enough to be worth the money. The estimator will price it for the hours you need.
What we do not do: bookkeeping, GST and PAYE filing, or year-end tax returns. Plenty of people do that well and cheaply, and we will happily work alongside yours.
Sensible controls, current policies, and a board that can see clearly. Nothing over the top - just what is needed.
How your organisation identifies, assesses, and treats risk, built on policies kaimahi actually follow. Written to ISO 31000:2018, with a risk register template your team can use. We build it, refresh it, or review it and tell you honestly whether it holds up.
The working tool behind the framework: the risks you face, who owns each one, and the controls in place. We build it, refresh it, or review it and flag any gaps, an outside view that is hard to get internally.
A register written at a desk is a list. Written in a room with the people who carry the risks, it is a register. We run leadership and board sessions separately: kaimahi know what goes wrong, and your board needs to know what it is accepting.
Everyday HR, finance, and IT policies, plus those your board operates under. We build what is missing, refresh what has drifted from how kaimahi work, or review what you have and tell you honestly where it holds up.
You tell us what your controls are meant to be; we test whether that is what actually happens. You get working papers you can hand to an assessor, and a report with findings rated by significance and a management response column for your team.
A plan built from your risk register, reviews through the year, and findings presented each time to whoever needs to hear them. For organisations whose funders are starting to ask who checks the checking.
We will come and talk your audit and risk committee, your board, or your senior leadership team through what we found. Each group hears it differently, and we prepare for the room we are in.
Segregation of duties, approval thresholds, bank access, and fraud-prevention basics.
The right structures so your board and leadership team can do their best mahi, including finance committee and audit committee support.
A comprehensive plan so your kaupapa keeps going when things get tough.
Financial controls and delegations - approvals, thresholds, bank access, segregation of duties.
Sensitive expenditure - travel, hospitality, koha, credit cards, gifts, personal use of assets.
Revenue and funding leakage - under-claimed contract milestones, unbilled services, rent arrears and vacancy loss.
Payroll and Holidays Act - leave calculations, timesheets, allowances, historical liability.
Contract and funder compliance - are you delivering what the contract says, and is the reporting accurate.
Restricted and tied funds - whether money given for a purpose was spent on that purpose.
Procurement, conflicts and gifts - supplier selection, related parties, the interests register.
Case file and service delivery - sampling against your own standards, the way an assessor would.
Sensitive expenditure, revenue leakage and Holidays Act compliance are where we most often find something worth fixing. Revenue leakage in particular tends to pay for itself.
Usually we are testing controls your own people designed, which raises no issue at all. The exception is where we have written the policies or built the risk register ourselves, because then we would be testing against criteria we wrote. In that case we limit our testing to the areas we have not touched, or help you find an independent reviewer, and we say which in the report. Our internal audit work is advisory - it is not an assurance engagement and it does not replace your external statutory audit/review.
Helping social service organisations get accredited - and stay accredited - without the overwhelm.
We will walk you through what is needed, identify gaps, and help you get everything in order.
Stay on track between reviews so nothing slips through the cracks.
Mapped to the requirements you are actually assessed against.
Getting your files review-ready.
We work with organisations assessed by Te Kāhui Kāhu against the Social Sector Accreditation Standards - the framework behind MSD, Oranga Tamariki, Ministry of Justice and Social Investment Agency contracts - and with providers certified against Ngā Paerewa under the Health and Disability Services (Safety) Act.
If you sit under both, we can handle both. Most consultants do one or the other.
If your organisation has a housing arm, registration with the Community Housing Regulatory Authority as a Class 1 Social Landlord is a separate regime again. The five performance standards cover governance, management, financial viability, tenancy management, and property and asset management - and financial viability is the one applications most often stall on. It is also the one we are best placed to build. We prepare the application and the evidence; CHRA decides on registration. The application also covers tenancy management and property and asset management, which sit outside the financial side - our small team will work alongside yours to get those parts done too.
We get you ready for assessment. We do not grant accreditation, issue certification, or audit. Te Kāhui Kāhu grants accreditation on behalf of its partner agencies. Certification against Ngā Paerewa is issued by HealthCERT after an audit by a Designated Auditing Agency you engage separately.
Where you are heading, and what it takes to get there.
Turning intent into a plan with numbers attached.
For a new service, a new site, or a new market.
Scenarios, funding requirements, break-even.
Find the bottlenecks, and suggest straightforward fixes.
Too many spreadsheets? We will help you find simpler ways to get things done.
Reviewing what is working, what is not, and making changes that stick.
Weighing up India? See our NZ-India FTA services.
We are a small, senior team - and that is by design. You get people who have done this work before, without the big-firm overheads, and where a job needs something outside our own bench we bring in the right specialist rather than pretending we do everything. We work flexibly around your needs, whether that is a one-off project or ongoing support.
We start with a conversation to understand what you need and what matters to your kaupapa.
We agree on what needs doing, how, and what it costs.
We roll up our sleeves and get the work done - no fuss.
Every price is fixed and agreed before we start, and we never bill by the hour. Rather than a list that cannot know your situation, the estimator asks a few questions, then emails you a figure broken down line by line.
Our prices exclude GST, and exclude travel and accommodation. Where the work needs us on site, travel is charged at cost on top of the fee and agreed with you in writing beforehand.
Work out your priceWe work with organisations that care about their communities and want to do things well - they just need the right support to make it happen.
Owner-operators and growing teams who need solid financial foundations.
Charities, social service providers, and community groups who need help with finances, accreditation, and running things well.
Tell us a bit about your organisation and what you need help with. We will get back to you promptly.
Get in touch