Standard Business Reporting (SBR) is an Australian Government initiative designed to reduce the business-to-government financial reporting burden. This follows on from a number of other initiatives including the Electronic Lodgment Service (ELS) that has been in place for several years. ELS will be replaced by SBR-enabled reporting in the near future.
A critical part of any financial electronic lodgment process is the ability to uniquely identify each business or individual. For the Australian Taxation Office, this is the function of AUSKey. This software key needs to be managed as a unique item for each business and needs to be secured and closely managed by the business owners.
Realising that this is a critical security concern of business owners and accountants, GovReports is designed to provide the owner of the AUSKey with the most secure and transparent means to manage the placement and use of each AUSKey and the reporting transactions conducted with it.
The process of accessing the GovReports website is secured via SSL and the content is secured on a separately managed website with industry standard security functions. The uploading and management of the AUSKey file remain under control of the identified owner, or their delegate, at all times. The ‘Cloud’ location is secured and under management of GovReports. The physical location is always maintained within the jurisdiction of the Australian Privacy controls.
The Owner of the key, or their delegated authority, often their accountant, is now able to manage the use of the key through the GovReports secure website. The AUSKey can be updated, changed, or deleted as the Owner wishes. Access to the AUSKey can be password protected and this password can be changed through the website, but is not stored as part of the AUSKey file itself. The GovReports website securely manages the backup and redundancy of the clients content. There is no longer a reliance on the Business Owner to secure or backup the critical content like the AUSKey or the BAS statements.
The GovReports website is designed to be a secure intermediary for the reporting process between the client and the ATO. Once the client has uploaded the business reporting for processing, GovReports takes care of the posting of the data to the ATO. Should the ATO’s SBR website be slow at processing due to load, or be inaccessible for any reason GovReports will schedule the posting to the ATO when it next becomes available. The exact details of the posting are available from the GovReports interface. This allows the client or the business owner the ability to upload the business reports at their most convenient time, knowing that, whatever happens to the ATO website, they are free to continue with their work, while having full control over the interaction with the ATO through GovReports.
Business documents are now stored securely in the cloud services of GovReports and are available anywhere, at any time. They are backed up securely and also are provided with version control so that all modifications can be reviewed online at any point of the submission process.
About the Standard Business Reporting initiative
SBR is an Australian Government initiative that is designed to reduce the business-to-government reporting burden. Initially focused on financial reporting, with other more general reporting processes to be included in the future.
SBR was co-designed by Australian, state and territory government agencies, software developers, businesses and their accountants, bookkeepers, tax agents, special interest groups, and other business intermediaries.
GovReports
GovReports is dedicated to provide government reporting lodgment solutions for businesses and or accounting professionals. As the only vendor today offering Standard Business Reporting (SBR) using cloud technology, GovReports is delivering a reliable, faster and cheaper way of financial reports lodgement. GovReports is a founding SBR Partner.
