SBR at small business gathering in Canberra

Late last week a representative from the SBR program addressed the Council of Small Business of Australia Council Meeting (COSBOA) where representatives of the retail, milk bar, independent contractors associations and the Tasmanian Small Business Council gathered in Canberra.

High on the agenda was support for small business.  SBR is well placed to support small business by reducing the business to government reporting burden.  SBR does this by:

• utilising business software to prefill government forms;
• enabling financial reporting to be a by-product of natural business processes;
• allowing reports to be sent electronically in real-time to the agencies in SBR (this is done through SBR-enabled accounting/payroll/financial software); and
• providing AUSkey, a single secure online sign-on used to report via SBR to the agencies involved. 

Attendees viewed a dynamic online Business Activity Statement (BAS) demonstration, which showed how businesses can save time preparing and lodging BAS and other key government forms such as TFN declarations and PAYG with pre-filled forms from their SBR-enabled software using the single, secure sign-on AUSkey.  No more rekeying. Instant acknowledgment.  With SBR, businesses use AUSkey to report to government, rather than juggling multiples user ID’s and passwords reporting to SBR agencies like State/Territory revenue offices and the ATO.

To date, more than 255,000 AUSkeys have been issued to around 160,000 Australian businesses.

COSBOA members expressed interest in a number of aspects, including whether Mac supported AUSkey (it does) and the use of pre-fill.

To find out more, or to view the online BAS demonstration, visit the SBR website (http://www.sbr.gov.au) and contact your accounting/financial/payroll software developer to ask what their plans are to SBR-enable the products you use.