An Australian Government Initiative - Standard Business Reporting
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Overview

SBR is an Australian Government initiative that responds to demand by Australian businesses and intermediaries for government to reduce the reporting burden. Every state and territory government is involved in the SBR and the Council of Australian Governments (COAG) have recently added SBR to the national reform agenda.

SBR also responds to calls from the accounting/finance community for government to take a position on the international Extensible Business Reporting Language (XBRL).

SBR will reduce the compliance reporting related workload.  For example:

  • for in-scope financial reporting forms, SBR will standardise terminology, utilise accounting/record-keeping software to automatically pre-fill forms, and provide a single secure way to interact with participating agencies
  • significant savings in time and effort in compiling and sending financial reports are expected, as well as a great reduction in re-work caused by errors.
  • there will be less need to check data, more confidence in the data generated, direct correlation to financial accounts, and you will have the ability to report in real time
  • greater efficiency in reporting means that capacity for productivity in other areas grows.

SBR will open up opportunities for enhancing the range of value-added services you can offer your existing and potential clients.  For example:

  • opportunities for real-time financial performance analysis will be greatly enhanced, allowing intermediaries to provide contemporary advice to clients - for example, on financial viability and investment matters
  • opportunities for more automated financial statement and other standard accounting reports for your clients
  • data will be generated more quickly, with more reliability and will be more easily comparable, allowing more detailed advice to clients and easier participation in the international business
  • clients currently suffering from reporting burden will be seeking advice on how to take advantage of SBR, including mapping their own systems to the SBR Taxonomy
  • there are also opportunities to pass on cost savings to clients - thereby gaining a competitive edge by being an early adopter of SBR - and enhance your image as a provider of value-added services to business.

You and your clients need to get ready to implement SBR prior to its 2010 release.

  • SBR for financial reporting is scheduled for 2010, and prior to that there will be a range of pilots and trials.
  • SBR will be working in partnership with the business community, intermediaries and software developers to develop the solution
  • SBR will be voluntary, but given the benefits, and the support of the software developers and intermediaries, it is expected that the use of SBR will grow

You and your clients need to tell the suppliers of your accounting/record-keeping software that you want your software to support SBR reporting.  We also suggest you:

  • talk to your professional or industry association about how it will support you with moving to SBR and XBRL
  • learn more about XBRL by contacting XBRL Australia
  • talk to your financial institutions and ask them whether they are using XBRL and becoming SBR-compliant
  • Contact SBR about how to participate in the solution design.