Benefits to government

SBR offers substantial benefits, mainly to business and reporting professionals, by reducing the burden of business-to-government reporting. There will also be some delayed flow on benefits to the public sector. For government, benefits will be realised over a longer period of time, as the take-up of SBR increases. SBR is a voluntary program which will be used by businesses and reporting professionals on the basis that they find it to be more efficient. As such public sector benefits will accrue as the take-up rate gradually increases and peaks at year four (2013/14). The following benefits are expected to be realised, but will affect each agency differently, and the full value of benefits to government will not accrue until the majority of businesses and reporting professionals are using the SBR functionality.

SBR aims to improve the quality of data submitted to government, eventually reducing ongoing administrative costs. Government agencies are expected to benefit from:

reduced costs in dealing with unintentional non-compliance
reduced cost of data exchange among government agencies
improved collaboration among government agencies
a faster and more consistent way to resolve business reporting queries
more efficient and effective revenue collection and regulatory monitoring
increased electronic reporting leading to a reduction in paper lodgements with potential savings downstream associated with scanning, storage and re-keying of information
consistent data feeds into an improved policy development and implementation process.

Benefits to the economy

The implementation of SBR is expected to boost business productivity and economic growth. Once fully implemented, SBR is expected to save Australian business approximately $800 million per year. Anticipated benefits include:

increased business output. A reduced reporting burden will give businesses more time to focus on commercial activities. In addition SBR will allow access to up-to-date financial performance information allowing for better business direction, growth and investment decisions.
management of reporting creep. SBR’s taxonomy and processes to govern the introduction of new reporting information will reduce the chance of individual agencies adding additional and unnecessary reporting items.
more efficient markets. By adopting high standards for electronic financial reporting, participants in Australian markets will have access to international quality standardised financial data.
innovation in the private sector. SBR’s taxonomy is based on open standards allowing innovative private sector companies to create SBR compatible systems. For example, auditing could be made considerably faster and more detailed with a system designed to use interactive data.