8129.0 - Business Use of Information Technology, 2007-08 
Quality Declaration
Quality Declaration ARCHIVED ISSUE Released at 11:30 AM (CANBERRA TIME) 20/08/2009
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EXPLANATORY NOTES
7 Together these two sub-populations (of ABN units and TAUs) make up the ABSBR population, from which the BCS sample is taken. 8 The current economic statistics units model was introduced into the ABS in mid 2002, to better use the information available as a result of The New Tax System (TNTS). For more information please refer to Information Paper: Improvements in ABS Economic Statistics - Arising from the New Tax System, (cat. no. 1372.0). SCOPE AND COVERAGE 9 The businesses that contribute to the statistics in this release are classified:
10 The scope of the estimates in this release consists of all business entities in the Australian economy, except for:
SISCA 6000 Rest of the world ANZSIC06 Division A Agriculture, forestry and fishing ANZSIC06 Division O Public administration and safety ANZSIC06 Division P Education and training ANZSIC06 Groups 624 (Financial asset investing) and 633 (Superannuation funds) ANZSIC06 Groups 854 (Religious services) and 955 (Civic, professional and other interest group services) ANZSIC06 Subdivision 96 Private households employing staff 11 The frame for the BCS is a subset of the ABSBR and includes employing businesses only. These are defined as those businesses which register for the ATO's Pay As You Go Withholding (PAYGW) scheme. It is not unusual for some of these 'employing businesses' to have zero employment at various times during the reporting period. The frame is updated quarterly to take account of new businesses, businesses which have ceased employing, changes in employment levels, changes in industry and other general business changes. Businesses which have ceased employing are identified when the ATO cancels their ABN and/or PAYGW registration. In addition, businesses with less than 50 employees, which did not remit under the PAYGW scheme in each of the previous five quarters, are removed from the frame. The estimates in this publication include an allowance for the time it takes a newly registered business to be included in the survey frame. SURVEY METHODOLOGY 12 The sample design for this survey is complex due to serving dual purposes: collection of characteristics data for the ABS BLD and production of point in time estimates for a range of non-financial business characteristics. While there are scope differences between the BLD and point in time estimates, the intention is to maximise the number of businesses selected for which data collected can contribute to both purposes. More information about releases for the BLD is provided in Explanatory Note 25 below. For more information about the survey design or methodology for the BCS, please email your query to innovation.technology@abs.gov.au. 13 Collection of data included in this release was undertaken based on a random sample of approximately 9,500 businesses using a mail out questionnaire. The sample was stratified by industry and an employment based size indicator. All businesses on the ABSBR identified as having 200 or more employees were included in the sample. The 2007-08 BCS was dispatched in early November 2008. 14 The sample design of the 2007-08 BCS does not include state or territory as part of stratification design. The loss of state or territory stratification has had an impact on the quality and breadth of state or territory estimates that are able to be released from the BCS. REFERENCE PERIOD 15 The reference period for most of the characteristics items included in the 2007-08 BCS is the year ended 30 June 2008. Financial data relates to the most recent financial year ended on or before 30 September 2008. DEFINING "INTERNET COMMERCE" 16 In the BCS (and previous BUIT surveys), the ABS uses the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) narrow definition of e-commerce transactions when collecting data on Internet orders and Internet income. The narrow definition is "an Internet transaction is the sale or purchase of goods or services, whether between businesses, households, individuals, governments, and other public or private organisations, conducted over the Internet. The goods and services are ordered over the Internet, but the payment and the ultimate delivery of the good or service may be conducted on or off-line" (i.e. the commitment to purchase is made over the Internet). 17 Internet income is defined as income resulting from goods and services ordered over the Internet where the commitment to purchase is via the Internet or web. Excluded from these measures are orders, payments or transactions for which the commitment has been made using other arrangements, such as face to face. The ABS collects these data by asking businesses to estimate what percentage of their income from sales of goods and/or services can be attributed to orders received via the Internet or web. The estimated value of Internet income is derived by applying the percentage to business income from sales of goods and/or services. This method of collecting Internet income has been put in place to address reporting errors previously observed when the actual dollar figure was requested. BUSINESS COUNTS IN THIS RELEASE AND COMPARABILITY WITH OTHERS PUBLISHED BY THE ABS 18 Estimates of the number of businesses operating in Australia can be derived from a number of sources within the ABS. They may relate to a particular point in time or may be presented as an average annual figure. However, these estimates will not always show the same results. Variations will occur because of differing data sources, differing scope and coverage definitions between surveys, as well as variations due to sampling and non-sampling error. More information about business counts can be found in the information paper A Statistical View of Counts of Businesses in Australia (cat. no. 8162.0). 19 The BCS is not designed to provide high quality estimates of numbers of businesses for any of the output classifications (for example, employment size or industry) and the number of businesses in this publication are only included to provide contextual information for the user. A more robust source of counts of Australian businesses is available from Counts of Australian Businesses, including Entries and Exits, Jun 2003 to Jun 2007 (cat. no. 8165.0). OUTPUT CLASSIFICATIONS 20 For output purposes, businesses are classified to employment size ranges based on actual data reported in the survey. For other output the classification is drawn from information held about the business on the ABSBR. Data using different output classifications not used in this release may be available upon request, e.g. employment size group of 5 or more persons. AVAILABILITY OF STATE/TERRITORY OUTPUTS 21 As indicated in Explanatory Note 14, state/territory is not included in the stratification for sample design and, therefore, the BCS sample is generally not representative of the business population in each state or territory. Statistical techniques are applied to adjust for the lack of representation. However, the sample available for some states/territories is not sufficient for this adjustment to improve quality substantially. In particular, the volatility of estimates for all but the larger states is high. State/territory outputs are, therefore, subject to more than the usual sampling error (as measured by standard error) and the quality is highly variable from year to year. Comparisons over time are not advisable. For the 2007-08 BCS, ABS assessment of data quality concluded that data will only be made available for the states/territories where the sample is considered to be reasonably representative. On this basis, outputs are not available for Tasmania, the Northern Territory and the Australian Capital Territory. UPCOMING RELATED RELEASES 22 An upcoming ABS data release from the 2007-08 Business Characteristics Survey is:
MOST RECENT RELATED RELEASES 23 The most recent ABS release related to demography of Australian business is: 24 The most recent issues of other ABS releases on the use and production of information and communication technologies (ICT) in Australia are:
Patterns of Internet Access in Australia, (cat. no. 8146.0.55.001) Household Use of Information Technology, Australia, (cat. no. 8146.0) Information and Communication Technology, Australia, (cat.no. 8126.0) Internet Activity, Australia, (cat. no. 8153.0) Use of the Internet on Farms, Australia, (cat. no. 8150.0) Summary of IT use and Innovation in Australian Business, (cat. no. 8166.0) BUSINESS LONGITUDINAL DATABASE - CONFIDENTIALISED UNIT RECORD FILE 25 The primary outputs from the BLD will be a suite of Confidentialised Unit Record Files (CURFs). The BLD design is comprised of panels (or waves of businesses) with each panel representing the entire population of in-scope small and medium businesses at the time of initialisation. Each panel is surveyed for five years. The first CURF is due for release in October 2009 and will contain confidentialised unit record information for Panels One and Two (with 3 and 2 years of characteristics and financial data, respectively). The CURF will be made available via the Remote Access Data Laboratory which can be accessed via the ABS website. ABS WEBSITE 26 Other information relating to Information Technology (both supply and demand), innovation and characteristics of business can be found on the ABS website <www.abs.gov.au>; see the Innovation, Science and Technology Home page under Themes/Industry. Readers can also subscribe to the Innovation and Technology Update (cat. no. 8101.0). ROUNDING 27 Estimates of proportions have been calculated using unrounded figures, but are shown in the tables rounded to one tenth of a percentage point. Where figures have been rounded, discrepancies may occur between the sum of the component items and the total. Figures presented in the commentary have been rounded to the whole percentage. GLOSSARY 28 A glossary of the terms used in this release can be found under the theme pages for Innovation, Science and Technology. COMMENTS 29 The ABS welcomes comments and suggestions from users regarding business characteristics including IT and innovation statistics. These comments should be addressed to the Director, Innovation and Technology Business Statistics Centre, Australian Bureau of Statistics, GPO Box K881, Perth, WA, 6842, or email innovation.technology@abs.gov.au. Document Selection These documents will be presented in a new window.
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