Standard Business Reporting (SBR) is open for business today, offering an easy electronic way lodge forms and reports to participating government agencies.
SBR reports include the Business Activity Statement, Pay as You Go reports and Tax File Number Declarations (Australian Taxation Office), and payroll tax returns (State and Territory Government revenue offices), making government reporting requirements easier for accountants, bookkeepers, tax agents and payroll professionals.
Minister for Finance and Deregulation, Lindsay Tanner MP, and the Minister for Financial Services, Chris Bowen heralded the introduction of Standard Business Reporting as taking Australia one step closer to a seamless national economy.
“From today businesses and reporting professionals using SBR-enabled software will be able to pre-fill and complete government forms directly from their own accounting system and lodge electronically to participating government agencies using the single secure sign-on AUSkey,” Minister Bowen said.
“In just over five weeks over 51,000 AUSkeys have been issued, to over 36,000 Australian businesses. AUSkey is positioned to be the single key to access government online services.”
AUSkey has been co designed with businesses, accounting professionals, software developers and government agencies as a key component of SBR.
“Using SBR-enabled software, businesses will spend less time and effort gathering, analysing and re-keying information and will be provided with an electronic receipt for their transaction in real time,” Minister Tanner said.
Reckon, who sell the accounting package QuickBooks have committed to delivering Standard Business Reporting across their accounting suite. Over 400,000 registered QuickBooks users in Australia will be able to access the advanced SBR technology to perform BAS lodgements.
The software company has also announced that current QuickBooks Advantage, Subscription and QuickBooks Online users will be able to access the SBR
application at no additional cost.
“Our SBR-enabled QuickBooks is planned to be released to a selected number of our Accredited Partners later this month. This group will validate the product in real world use before we release it to customers generally,” says Reckon Limited’s Business Division CEO Gavin Dixon.
