Standard Business Reporting (SBR) provides governments and businesses with an unequivocal, cost-effective, secure and adaptable method for the exchange of business information between organisations in a reporting chain based on open standards.
In 2009 Standard Business Reporting (SBR) was effectively launched, covering innovative public-private governance councils, working groups.
In cooperation with representative bodies of businesses, intermediaries and several ministries, the XBRL standard could now be phased in as the standard for cross domain government reporting.
Instead of bringing benefits to individual regulators, by setting up point-to-point digital exchanges, SBR is a platform for digital reporting across society. With increasing regulations and oversight, and shorter reporting time lines, digitization of the reporting supply chain is a necessity. Regulators can manage their data definitions better, and can react quicker to incoming reports. SBR is a set of standardised technologies that are applied for reporting according to standardised machine-to-machine processes.
SBR was designed to facilitate the exchange of reports; from business-to-regulators, or government-to-government. SBR allows for the construction of smart data dictionaries (XBRL taxonomies), including data validation rules, and the exchange of structured information in reports (XBRL). A gateway specification exists for machine-to-machine data exchange, which allows public regulators, and private organisations to set up their own reporting hub. Every software vendor can adapt their software to interact with these gateways and report in a standardised way. Currently, more than 11 million reports are exchanged yearly, and the number is growing.
To improve decision-making, you need reliable data: with SBR, the Dutch government and the businesses in the Netherlands have come to an agreement on the way accountability information is being reported. This leads to an undisputed set of financial information.
- Reducing administrative burden, freeing up resources for economic growth for companies: with SBR, similar data sets are being used for similar data definitions, so companies can deliver the requested information with the proverbial click of the mouse. This leaves them with more time to focus on their business.
- Financial transparency increases integrity in society: by definition, SBR contributes to this trust and confidence. With a system based on the standardization of data definitions, processes and technologies, it delivers a huge contribution to the unambiguous interpretation of financial facts and figures. This enlarges the financial transparency considerably and enables speedier data processing & analytics.
- Standardization is the most important element for e-society: due to the underlying agreements SBR can count on broad support among participating organisations and all these parties comply with them strictly. Standardization offers all participating organizations advantages in effectiveness and efficiency.
- Public and private partners are stepping up together to strengthen e-society: within SBR, public and private parties are working closely together, focusing on the entire chain instead of looking just at their own responsibilities. Based on an efficient governance structure, they make the e-society possible in the Dutch business world.
The key principle of SBR is to standardize on data definitions, processes and technology. SBR is not tied to a specific technology, but rather adopts proven, widely used, open technologies which support the exchange of structured data, data definitions and enable the unequivocal design and definition of processes. Currently, SBR uses technologies such as SOAP, BPMN and XBRL.
Clearly, within SBR, technology is an enabler, not a goal by itself.
The use of technologies like XBRL makes SBR extendable from the heart: every participating regulator is allowed to re-use existing, and propose new data definitions for the shared (or private) data dictionary and reporting model.
SBR is part of the Dutch generic digital infrastructure (GDI). The GDI provides government bodies with the basic digital platform to help them organise their primary processes. By jointly developing and using these generic services and facilities, government organisations do not need to reinvent the wheel, and the platform can be managed more efficiently. As a result, the government as a whole will generate savings in time and money, freeing up resources that can instead be used for customised projects or new initiatives. Thanks to the common use of the GDI, people experience coherence in the government’s services, and a uniform way of communication.
The GDI consist of four elements: identification and authentication; interconnectivity; data; services. In its implementation, SBR uses building blocks from the GDI that are also being used for other services.
SBR is a methodology in which all stakeholders determine a common set of standards, preferably open standards. To avoid vendor lock-in and monopolies, and to stimulate the private sector to offer innovative and competitive products and services, the SBR project does not create or prescribe any software, but merely agrees on standards (standards level the playing field).
With well-defined “touch point” standards, anyone can join, compete and innovate. SBR only uses standards that are admitted by international standardization organisations, or by the national Standardisation Bureau.
SBR is an open and free-to-use methodology. All underlying standards are open, royalty free standards.
In close cooperation with private stakeholders, the Dutch government has implemented the digital reporting framework Standard Business Reporting. SBR is based on commonly accepted data and process standards. SBR now accommodates the exchange and processing of tax filings and financial reports on a large scale in the Netherlands.
SBR was initiated by four ministries (Interior Affairs, Economic Affairs, Finance and Justice), with several agencies (Tax Administration, Central Bureau of Statistics, Chamber of Commerce) in a direct role. Right from the start, private sector associations and companies were also involved in the decision-making bodies and the working groups. We will elaborate on the governance structure under the next section.
Organisations involved in the SBR Governance: ministery of Interior Affairs, ministery of Economic Affairs, ministery of Finance, ministery of Justice, ministery of Education, Nederland ICT (representing software vendors), VNO/NCW (representing all businesses), Trade organisations (representing tax advisors and accountants), Big-5 (representing the major accountant organisations), FRC (representing the banking sector)
SBR is unique because of three key principles:
- Standardize on data definitions, processes and technologies throughout the information chain cross domain;
- Cooperate between the public and private sector, and set up an appropriate governance structure;
- Adapt processes, laws and reporting frameworks if necessary in order to maximize efficiency.
More specific, SBR brings to the public administrations:
- Higher quality of data by standardising data definitions
- Uniformity by standardised processes throughout the government
- Possibilities for benchmarking
- Transparency in financial reports
- Efficiency by reuse of data and reuse of IT building blocks
- A positive image through the public private partnership and using SBR internally
- An impulse to participate in the digital developments
Standard Business Reporting is based on well-known open standards that are in use by many other countries today.
The specific approach of the Netherlands – setting up public-private governance, defining process definitions, among others – is well documented and easily transferred.
Currently, Australia is also implementing Standard Business Reporting, and a number of governments are very interested in the approach (e.g. Denmark, Sweden, Finland, Canada, Taiwan, Poland, Slovenia, USA).