The Department of Industry, Science, Energy and Resources has released a reporting template for large Australian businesses to record the times they take to settle accounts with small businesses.
Under the Department’s Payment Times Reporting Scheme, the large businesses are required to report their payments online twice a year.
The Department said the Scheme, which commenced in January this year, aimed to improve payment times for small businesses.
“Large businesses can now use the template to help prepare for their reporting to the Scheme,” the Department said.
“The reporting template comes in three parts,” it said.
“The main data component of the report template will be a .csv file; there will also be a word file for the report signatures and associated declarations; the third document is the instructions that provide clear definitions and validation requirements.”
The Department said the new template was available on its Payment Times Portal website and businesses didn’t have to log into the Portal to access it.
Large businesses registered in the Portal could access a partially pre-populated version of the template once logged in however.
“Until 30 June 2021, large business can test uploading a draft Payment times report in the portal,” it said.
“Fill in the templates with example or draft data, then upload to test if the system will accept the data.”
The Department said that after 1 July, data from any uploaded reports would be published on the Payment Times Register.
