Frequently asked questions

What is Standard Business Reporting?

Standard Business Reporting (SBR) is an Australian Government initiative to reduce the business-to-government reporting burden. This major whole-of-government project streamlines business-to-government reporting through the provision of online reporting tools that will save business time, money and effort. Led by Treasury, SBR has been co-designed by 12 Australian, state and territory government agencies in partnership with software developers, business and their accountants, bookkeepers, tax agents and payroll professionals.

How does SBR work?

SBR uses an international business reporting language called XBRL, which has been used to harmonise the information requirements across forms used to report to the agencies in scope. It allows business to report with a single secure sign-on, AUSkey, directly to government agencies via accounting systems that will automatically populate forms from information held within business systems as well as information from agency systems.

When will SBR be available?

SBR-enabled software is now available.Software developers will continue to progressively SBR-enable their products and take-up by business is expected to escalate over the next three years.

What are the benefits of SBR for the business community?

SBR offers a quicker and easier way for businesses to complete their government reporting requirements, freeing up valuable time for other business activities. SBR is simplifying business-to-government reporting by:

removing unnecessary or duplicated information from government forms;
using business software to automatically pre-fill forms;
adopting a single reporting language, based on international standards and best practice;
making financial reporting a by-product of natural business processes;
providing an electronic interface to agencies directly from business software, similar to an electronic postal system, which will also provide validation and confirm receipt of reports; and
providing a single secure online sign-on, AUSkey, for users to report electronically to all of the agencies involved.

I’m a reporting professional, can I still share information between my clients using SBR?

Yes. Your software’s current up-load facilities that allow you to share information between yourself and the business will still be possible. SBR is based on a common reporting language using a technology known as XBRL (eXtensible Business Reporting Language), which has been developed by accountants for accounting information.

XBRL will enable businesses to share financial information more readily with third parties (e.g. financial advisors, bankers, investors) when required.

How will SBR save time and reduce errors?

SBR-enabled software will:

remove unnecessary and duplicated information from government forms, and reduce the need to enter the same data multiple times;
make financial reporting a by-product of natural business processes. Reporting information will be pre-populated from underlying financial and payroll records, reducing the need for manual data entry; and
enable lodgement of reports directly from your accounting software without logging onto separate portals and systems and re-keying information already held in your system.

What is the current scope of SBR?

SBR is focussing on financial reporting first as this affects most businesses. Led by the Treasury, participating government agencies include Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC), Australian Taxation Office (ATO), Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA) (from July 2011), all eight state and territory government revenue offices and the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) (Taxonomy only). Examples of the forms in scope include the business activity statement (ATO), financial statement (ASIC) and payroll tax (state and territory revenue offices).

While the current scope of SBR is business-to-government financial reporting, there is broad potential for SBR methodologies to ease reporting burdens in other sectors once SBR has been delivered and bedded down.

Who will be affected by SBR?

Key stakeholders for SBR are the participating government agencies, software developers, business and their reporting professionals including accountants, bookkeepers, tax agents and payroll specialists. SBR will be available to all businesses that report online using any of the forms in scope.

What funding is the Government committing to the SBR initiative?

The Government has committed $73.2 million over five years. This funding ensures the sustained operation and maintenance of the initiative developed over the last four years. The commitment provides $2.6 million in 2010-11 for payment to the states and territories to maintain and operate the SBR system. Development costs of $243 million over the period 2006-7 to 2009-10 have previously been appropriated.

Will most financial software will be able to support SBR?

SBR is currently working with many developers of accounting and payroll software. The SBR website provides technical information including online documents, schemas, specifications, tools and services that can be used to start developing products that are SBR-enabled.

Where can I find a list of SBR-enabled software?

The SBR Software Products Register contains a list of software products which have been developed by software developers who have provided a declaration to the Commonwealth that their product has been tested against the testing materials and produced the same results.

Do I have to use SBR?

Adoption of SBR is voluntary, and no legislative changes will occur as a direct result of the initiative. SBR is an additional channel to existing agency channels. It is not mandatory for businesses or their reporting professionals to use SBR, so it is expected that agencies will maintain existing channels for the foreseeable future.

What is the SBR Software developers kit?

The SBR Software developers kit (SDK) provides information for the design, build and implementation of SBR-enabled software. The SDK comprises: a suite of implementation support products available to software developers; the technical context and an SBR report index. The SDK guide also contains a checklist of the key steps that software developers need to consider during their implementation of SBR. For more information contact sbr@treasury.gov.au

What are SBR Core services?

Core services include a number of capabilities (generally IT-based):

the standardisation of reporting terms
development of a reporting taxonomy using XBRL
the standardisation of relationships between accounting terms and information reportable to government
the mapping of reporting rules and relationships to a business's accounts within an accounting/recordkeeping system
the development of SBR core services
connecting government agency systems to the core services
education and two-way communication with business, software developers and reporting professionals.

What is AUSkey?

AUSkey is the single secure sign-on for agencies participating in the SBR program. For businesses, this will mean a single credential for dealing with all participating agencies online rather than the handful of user IDs and passwords they use today. Additional benefits include an improved experience over existing authentication systems including faster registration and easier ongoing maintenance.

AUSkey can be used to:

login to participating government online services
lodge reports directly to government through your SBR-enabled business, financial and payroll software (for more information on standard business reporting go to www.sbr.gov.au).

AUSkey is portable and can be used on various machines from any location.

AUSkey will be the only security credential that you will be able to use with SBR-enabled software.

For more information about AUSkey, or to register for AUSkey, go to www.abr.gov.au/auskey
Frequently asked questions about AUSkey

What is XBRL?

XBRL (eXtensible Business Reporting Language) is an open standard mark-up language optimised for business information, including but not limited to financial and accounting information. It is a variant of XML (eXtensible Markup Language) and adopts the same syntax and related technologies (XML Schema, XLink). XBRL is the optimisation of XML to represent business and financial data. It is an international collaborative project with professionals from accounting, financial services and government.

Will government agencies maintain all existing reporting channels?

SBR is an additional channel to existing agency channels. It is not mandatory for agency clients to use SBR, so it is expected that agencies will maintain existing channels for the foreseeable future. While this is a question for each agency, it is expected that SBR will become the predominant channel for some agencies in the next four years. Channel strategies for the agencies will reflect this once SBR has been implemented.

What is the SBR Taxonomy?

Taxonomy is the practice of classification. In the SBR context, the taxonomy is a collection of reportable terms and their association with accounting and related concepts. It is, essentially, the language used to enable business software to send reports to government agencies.

The SBR Taxonomy is based on international accounting standards and best practice. In the development of the taxonomy, participating agencies undertook a process of rationalisation/harmonisation. The process identified, defined and labelled every element of data that is reported to agencies for each form in scope. Duplicate items with disparate names were harmonised under one label. Similarly, items with the same name, but disparate definitions, were identified and uniquely labelled.

Are other countries implementing SBR programs?

The Netherlands has led the way with SBR, but many other countries, including New Zealand and Singapore, are considering or implementing SBR. Australia and New Zealand have a formal Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to ensure alignment between the SBR AU and SBR NZ taxonomies. See the International page for more information.

I’m a small/medium business, what is SBR going to do for me?

Small/medium businesses will:

save time and effort in gathering, analysing and rekeying information - spend less time and effort reporting to government;
satisfy reporting obligations directly from accounting/financial recordkeeping systems - SBR reduces the need for organising and re-keying of data, making it easier for business to prepare and lodge their own reports, and reduce errors;
use an AUSkey to access secure government on-line services - SBR provides an electronic interface that enables businesses and reporting professionals to report to government agencies directly from their accounting software;
be certain that reporting obligations have been dealt with and received by government - SBR provides real time validation of reports and a receipt;
have ready access to more up-to-date financial performance information - with tagged data, business will also be able to share their financial information with third parties more easily (e.g. financial advisors, bankers, investors); and
be able to provide more accessible financial data to investors - the single reporting language will support better access to potential investors because the business’ financial statements can be more readily analysed, and compared.

I’m a large business, how is SBR going to work for me?

Large business will benefit from SBR because:

SBR uses XBRL and has developed a taxonomy that harmonises information being reported across the forms for the 12 participating agencies;
application of the taxonomy in a large business will see much of the information mapped against the taxonomy just once – but used in many reports;
large businesses will get early access to some pre-filled forms for the recurring taxes through their accounting/payroll software, which they will be a able to send online via SBR to the agencies, and use an AUSkey to sign these;
for some of the more complex reporting requirements faced by large businesses, the benefits of implementing SBR are potentially significant, but the work that needs to be undertaken by those businesses will involve the mapping of the SBR Taxonomy to financial data in their systems. This will allow the required reporting information to be aggregated for financial statements for ASIC, reports for APRA, and trial balances and profit/loss statements required for completion of income tax returns for the ATO. The principle of the benefits is that if the financial data is mapped once, it may be used for various reports at a point in time, or for the same reports across different periods; and
financial statements provided in XBRL can be used for useful comparison and benchmarking with other businesses nationally and internationally.

SBR has developed a methodology for the implementation of SBR in large businesses and is piloting this right now.

Case studies from the pilot are expected to be published in July 2010.
If you are required to file disclosures with the US SEC, get some experience with XBRL through SBR to be ready for the SEC requirements.

I’m having technical problems trying to lodge my report from my software.

Some accounting and payroll software providers have enabled new functionality so that clients can lodge some government reports direct from their software. This functionality is provided by the Standard Business Reporting (SBR) Program.

If you are experiencing technical problems with your SBR-enabled software:

If there is an error message provided, please follow the instructions.

If the error message does not answer your query, please:

Contact your accounting or payroll software provider; or
If your software is reporting a problem with the SBR component, you can contact the SBR Service Desk on 1300 488 231 (between 8.30 am and 7.00 pm AEDT) or via email at SBRServiceDesk@ato.gov.au.
If you are experiencing technical problems using your AUSKey, contact 1300 AUSKEY (1300 287 539).
If you are experiencing a technical problem with an agency’s portal, including logging on to that portal using your AUSkey, you need to speak to that agency. Your call will be directed to its internal technical staff.
For information about agency reporting obligations, you need to speak directly to the relevant agency.

To find out more about SBR, go to www.sbr.gov.au or contact SBR at sbr@treasury.gov.au

How can I find out more about SBR?

Teach yourself, subscribe to e-updates, contact the SBR Program office at sbr@treasury.gov.au or join the SBR blog .

To ensure your business is SBR ready, talk to your accountant, tax agent or financial and accounting software provider to find out what SBR-enabled products they will be offering.

Last updated 6 July 2010