Standard Business Reporting

SBR at small business gathering in Canberra

SBR — Wed, 01 Dec 2010 05:28:24 +0000

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.

SBR leadership changes

SBR — Mon, 22 Nov 2010 23:24:39 +0000

Paul Madden, Program Director of SBR, has been appointed as a Deputy Secretary with the Department of Health and Ageing.

Greg Divall, who has been the SBR Program Manager for over two years, will continue to manage Australia’s SBR program in partnership with business, reporting professionals, software developers and participating Australian, state and territory government agencies. There are also very credible SBR operational support teams operating within the ATO that are geared for support, performance and availability. All other agencies have support processes to deal with incoming reports from SBR.

Under Paul’s leadership, Australia’s SBR solution moved from concept – to reality. He ensured SBR was designed, built and delivered on time, within budget, and in a manner that involved extensive consultation with SBR stakeholders located across Australia and beyond to ensure it met the needs of both its users and software developers that would support it.

Paul leaves SBR on 3 December 2010, hands to Greg, the task of sustaining what the SBR program has delivered so far, gaining the required take-up levels, and developing approaches to expand SBR for other agency reporting requirements. SBR will continue to be governed by the SBR Steering Group and Board.

SBR Australia to chair International Standards Advisory Group

SBR — Thu, 11 Nov 2010 01:13:29 +0000

SBR Australia has been appointed to chair the newly formed XBRL International Government/Regulator Special Interest Group. The group’s focus is to provide strategic advice to XBRL International and to represent the interests of Governments/Regulators that have invested in and are now reliant on XBRL for regulatory reporting. The group has attracted senior representatives from various government agencies/regulatory bodies from various countries including the Netherlands, United States, Singapore, China, Taiwan, Japan, Brazil, Poland, Belgium, France, India and the United Arab Emirates.

In addition to endorsing the Charter and electing SBR Australia as Chair at its inaugural meeting in Beijing, the group received an overview of the future activities of the XBRL Standards Board, as well as the XBRL Best Practice Board, as well as getting an overview of each countries experience and implementation of XBRL. The main focus of the group will be to provide feedback and advice on the strategy work from these two boards and to share information and knowledge on the implementation of XBRL and other standards.

SBR uses XBRL, an international business reporting language, to provide the single, harmonised reporting language which includes all of the information requirements across all forms used to report to the agencies in scope. The incorporation of the SBR reporting language and other services in businesses accounting systems, allows them to report directly to the agencies in scope, with a single secure sign-on, AUSkey, via their own accounting systems.

More information on SBR can be found at www.sbr.gov.au or email us for more information.

SBR case study: Sydney Accounting Practice

sbr — Thu, 04 Nov 2010 05:09:20 +0000

The SBR program has released a short case study about a Sydney-based accountant (Peter Polgar). The case study, which explains why Peter is an early adopter of SBR and speaks about his experiences using SBR thus far, is the first of a series that will be released over the coming months.

Join the blog and share your experience using SBR.

AUSkey hits 200,000 milestone

sbr — Fri, 15 Oct 2010 04:17:37 +0000

The popularity of AUSkey continues to grow in Australia’s business community, with more than 200,000 AUSkeys now issued to around 130,000 Australian businesses.

Developed as part of Australia’s standard business reporting (SBR) initiative, AUSkey is the single key for businesses to report directly to government using SBR-enabled software, and access a range of government online services. To find out more about AUSkey, visit the ABR website <<www.abr.gov.au/auskey>>.

Nationally, businesses have already used their AUSkey to send reports through SBR as well as access secure on-line services with the Australian Taxation Office, and state and territory revenue offices. Businesses can already use their AUSkey to send reports to ASIC, and next year will be able to use it to access their secure portal services.

The number of commercial software developers integrating SBR into their software continues to grow. Seven companies have now tested and self-certified their SBR-enabled products, with ongoing additional product announcements by software developers expected.

SBR take-up is expected to increase progressively over a 4 year period to 2014, as software developers progressively release SBR-enabled products into the market. To find out more about SBR, including how to find SBR enabled products, visit the SBR website <<www.sbr.gov.au/About_SBR/Products_available.aspx>>.

Accountants keen to implement SBR

gregdivall — Wed, 13 Oct 2010 22:56:24 +0000

This Tuesday, I presented to around 100 accountants at the CPA Congress in Victoria, talking about how SBR will streamline business processes. The group was interested in how they should implement SBR in their businesses. The presentation covered the benefits SBR offered in the preparation of reports for government – especially the ability to pre-fill much of the information directly from their accounting or financial systems.

I was very happy to be able to tell the group that the government side of SBR was ready to accept SBR lodgments and that the number of SBR-enabled products continues to grow, with the full list available at: www.sbr.gov.au/About_SBR/Products_available.aspx

The best way to get ready to use SBR is to ask your software provider about their plans to SBR-enable your products and register for an AUSkey at www.abr.gov.au/auskey

It was a very positive and productive exchange.

Greg Divall

SBR Program Manager

AUSkey celebrates milestone

sbr — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 00:34:56 +0000

In less than three months, more than 105,000 AUSkeys have been issued to Australian businesses. Using AUSkey with SBR enabled software (which will progressively become available over the coming months), allows you to report directly from your own accounting/payroll/financial software without having to sign-on to each individual agency.

Since SBR went live on 1 July 2010, there’s also been increased interest in SBR e-updates — a free email service for the business community to stay in touch with the latest SBR news.

To find out more about SBR, visit the SBR website (www.sbr.gov.au).
To find out more about AUSkey, including how to register, visit www.abr.gov.au/auskey.
To share your experiences using SBR (including AUSkey) with others, submit a comment to this blog.

SBR blog in caretaker mode

sbr — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 00:56:52 +0000

In the period preceding an election for the House of Representatives, the Australian Government assumes a caretaker role and the Australian Public Service (APS) follows what are known as the Caretaker Conventions.

Throughout the caretaker period, the SBR blog will remain open for your use.

An important part of the conventions is that Australian Government resources, including online resources such as this blog, are not used to communicate political material. Accordingly, during the caretaker period, we will be taking extra care to ensure that any comments posted to this site complies with the SBR blog’s conditions of use, particularly the requirement that there be no political comments (e.g. reference to candidates, fundraisers, support for political parties).

Comments on posts to this blog that are made by a Minister are now closed. This measure is not designed to prevent the public from becoming involved in the election process, but instead aim to preserve the apolitical nature of the APS.

Throughout the caretaker period, please continue to share with the program and other readers of this blog your experiences implementing SBR so we can all continue to learn more about SBR together.

Scalable, flexible, extensible SBR

helenaustin — Mon, 05 Jul 2010 01:40:40 +0000

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.

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.
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.
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.
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

SBR is now open for business

paulmadden — Wed, 30 Jun 2010 22:26:57 +0000

Standard Business Reporting (SBR) is now open for business, offering Australian businesses, accountants, bookkeepers, tax agents and payroll professionals a quicker and simpler way to complete and lodge reports for government.

In coming months, businesses, accountants, bookkeepers, BAS agents, tax agents and payroll professionals will have access to a quicker and simpler way to complete and lodge reports, through their financial accounting and payroll software, with various government agencies.

With SBR-enabled software, businesses will spend less time and effort gathering, analysing and re-keying information.

SBR has worked in partnership with 12 government agencies, software developers, the business community and reporting professionals to deliver SBR on time and within budget.

I thank all the staff for their hard work and dedication to delivering on a program which will provide significant future benefits to Australian businesses. I also thank software developers, businesses and reporting professionals who have contributed their time and creativity to the design, development and delivery of SBR and look forward to your ongoing support.

To find out more try our new online demonstration on our website on www.sbr.gov.au or join the blog.

Paul Madden
SBR Program Director