Scalable, flexible, extensible SBR

While the initial focus of SBR is to reduce the burden faced by businesses reporting regulatory financial/payroll information to the ATO, ASIC, APRA and the state revenue offices — SBR functionality (due for release in July 2010) is able to be extended to reduce the burden for businesses reporting to other government agencies.
When I mentioned this during a recent presentation to senior executives, they were particularly interested in the fact that (from a technical perspective) the SBR solution provides Australia with the following offerings and related capabilities, each which can be re-used for other reporting requirements.

1. SBR taxonomy and taxonomy development/harmonisation expertise — initially, the SBR taxonomy is a collection of reportable terms that are associated with accounting and related concepts.
   The flexibility of the SBR taxonomy’s modular design approach and built-in development capability enables it to readily incorporate terms used by other sector — and the skills and expertise Australia developed while reducing (by more than 70%) the number of unique in-scope terms may be re-used to satisfy further government reporting.
2. SBR authentication solution — a single secure sign-on that enables business to use one credential – the AUSkey – for interacting on-line with government rather than maintaining separate credentials (e.g. user ids, PIN/passwords, digital certificates) for interaction with each agency.
   While developed as part of the SBR initiative, the balance between usability and security was a key design principal that has already proven to be readily portable to other online government services.
3. SBR core services — the SBR program’s electronic gateway between business software and participating agencies, which was designed to maximise performance of all interactions (e.g. submitting a report) and preserve existing business-to-agency relationships.While initially used for financial/payroll reporting purposes, SBR core services are readily scalable – meaning the SBR solution has the capability to support many more users (agencies, businesses and their intermediaries) and applications and the required skills and experience now exist.
4. SBR web services — the way business software and agency software interact with each other.SBR web services were designed in a generic, re-usable way that addresses current-scope and potential future SBR requirements. Using just four web service message types – List, Prefill, PreLodge and Lodge – a business can satisfy any obligation that they have to report to government. Currently this includes State and Territory payroll tax returns, ASIC financial statements, and some key ATO forms including the activity statement (BAS), fringe benefits tax returns, PAYG, and tax file number declarations – with more to come.

The Australian Government has recently agreed to consider further extensions of SBR functionality and has tasked the SBR Program Board, through consultation, with identifying other areas of business to government reporting that would benefit from SBR. So if you have any comments about the SBR architecture and/or views regarding which sectors SBR functionality should be extended to — now’s a great time to join the conversation by posting your comments to this SBR blog.

Helen Austin
SBR Chief Architect