SBR Taxonomy
In the SBR context, the taxonomy is a collection of reportable terms and their association with accounting and related concepts. It is the language used to enable business software to send reports to government agencies.
The SBR Taxonomy is based on international standards and best practice. In developing 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.
Major components
There are two major components in the SBR Taxonomy: the SBR Definitional Taxonomy and the SBR Reporting Taxonomy.
SBR Definitional Taxonomy (previously SBR AU Taxonomy)
The SBR Definitional Taxonomy contains a complete set of harmonised data elements and associated definitions for information to be exchanged between business and government under SBR. Like a dictionary, the SBR Definitional Taxonomy uniquely defines each data element, with each equivalent to one of the individual pieces of information sought on a government report.
SBR Reporting Taxonomy (previously SBR AU Reports)
The SBR Reporting Taxonomy reflects the specific message interaction for each agency report supported by SBR. This is achieved by importing and re-using data elements and their associated definitions from the SBR Definitional Taxonomy. Like words from a dictionary, individual entries from the SBR Definitional Taxonomy list are combined to define the complete content of each agency report. There is at least one taxonomy report (and sometimes several) for each agency report/form supported by SBR.
The SBR Reporting Taxonomy provides sample schemas which define: what data elements are needed on each report; how the data elements should be structured for the report; what optionality is required for each data segment and data element; and what rules and validations should apply. This will include report schemas, sample instance documents, business rules, validation rules, messages and message guides.
Find out more
SBR has developed learning materials to help business, reporting professionals, software developers and the public understand more about SBR. See the Learning modules including 'Harmonisation, XBRL and the SBR Taxonomy' and 'Mapping to the SBR Taxonomy'.
Read more about the SBR taxonomy and see the References and links and the SBR Large Business Methodology.
Last updated 12 July 2010
