Jonathan Kirkpatrick pleaded guilty when he appeared in the Auckland District Court today and was remanded for sentence on October 6.
He was arrested earlier this month and charged with offending between January 2003 and May this year.
At an earlier appearance his lawyer Russell Fairbrother told the court Kirkpatrick would take "full responsibility for his actions".
Police alleged Kirkpatrick used false invoices in the name of companies Eventure and Halsey Consulting to obtain funds from AUT and falsified records and tampered with AUT's accounting system.
Kirkpatrick is the former partner of former Labour MP Tim Barnett.
He has a first class honours degree in theology from the University of London, an MBA from the University of Otago and was ordained as a priest in London in 1985.
In 1996 he was made the 10th Dean of St Paul's Cathedral in Dunedin, working with the country's first female bishop, Penny Jamieson.
