The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) is seeking a vendor for a new taxonomy application as part of a simplified business reporting initiative led by the federal Treasury.
The ABS is one of a number of government agencies, including the Australian Tax Office (ATO) and the Australian Securities and Investment Commission (ASIC), taking part in Treasury's Standard Business Reporting (SBR) initiative, a project launched in August last year aimed at reducing the regulatory reporting burden for Australian businesses.
In a contract worth up to AU$500,000 the ABS is seeking the provision of a taxonomy -- or classification -- development environment as part of the initiative, which would embed various eXtensible Business Reporting Language (XBRL) taxonomies into the SBR program.
"At this stage we're looking for an off-the-shelf solution, but we're obliged by the government's procurement process to go to open tender and give everyone the opportunity because of the figure attached to the contract," said an ABS spokesperson.
The spokesperson added that the tender also includes options for "consultancy services" such as training in the use of XBRL, review of existing taxonomies and software modifications.
The Treasury is hoping that the SBR project -- to be completed by 2010 -- will enable local business software developers to embed requirements from standard government forms such as Business Activity Statements into their applications to allow them to be auto-filled and electronically submitted when required.
It will also include a streamlining of log on procedures to allow businesses to send their financial reports to various government agencies through one secure portal, rather than through separate systems run by each agency.
Documents accompanying the tender also state that other Commonwealth agencies may "piggy back" on to "any resulting contract from this market approach".
Tender offers will remain open until the end of the year to allow for extensive testing of the application.
