12.3 Statistical Business Register#
12.3.1 What is an SBR?#
Narrowly defined, a statistical business register (SBR) is a set of businesses, including all the characteristics of those businesses required to provide frames for business surveys. More broadly interpreted, an SBR is these data together with the procedures, systems and human resources that support their use. In operational terms, it is a regularly updated, structured database that contains organizational, administrative and statistical units describing businesses in a country or region, that is maintained by a dedicated staff, supported by a purpose-built software system and that is used by an NSO to create frames for business surveys and sometimes as a direct source of counts of businesses by type, size, geography, economic activity, etc.
Chapter 12.2.1 — Description of Register-based statistics provides an overview of the key elements of a well-designed SBR, detailed in the subsequent subsections. Indications of how current SBRs may fall short of this standard are also provided.
Primary role and benefits of an SBR
The primary role of an SBR is as the source of frames for business surveys. In this context, to be of good quality, the SBR should contain all the businesses relevant to the surveys that use it together with accurate and up to date information about these businesses required for them to be stratified, samples and contacted.
The reasons why having an SBR as the common source of business survey frames is better than for each individual survey to create and maintain its own frame are that:
an SBR facilitates the application of common standards and classifications, for example the International Standard Industrial Classification of All Economic Activities Revision 4 (ISIC Rev 4) across all business surveys;
an SBR harmonises the surveys to which it provides frames in terms of coverage and units, thus facilitates the integration of the resulting business statistics;
an SBR is effective; it provides well defined and better coverage than individually constructed survey frames, are likely to do; and
an SBR is efficient; it ensures that data on key characteristics (such as main economic activity, location, turnover, and number of employees) are collected once only and shared across surveys; this saves resources and allows survey staff to focus on collection and analysis rather than frame preparation.
Sometimes the SBR is used simply as an input for frame development by a survey that maintains and augments its own local copy of the SBR for its own purposes. This is certainly not ideal practice but is done where the facilities for updating the (central) SBR are poor or difficult to control.
Creation and maintenance of an SBR
An NSO can construct the sets of units within an SBR in essentially two different ways: first, by field enumeration, typically during the course of an economic census; and second by using registers created for administrative purposes by other government departments and agencies. Maintenance of these units is by use of data from administrative sources and data from statistical sources.
Economic census as the basis of an SBR
Use of an economic census as the basis for an SBR was once a common practice in all NSOs, and even now it is used in a number of countries. For example, according to the AfDB’s SBR Guidelines (🔗), Botswana, Mozambique, Uganda, and Zambia have all developed an SBR from an economic census within the last decade. However, the approach is no longer used by countries with well-developed SBRs for the following reasons.
First, an economic census is very expensive even if its scope is restricted to businesses with identifiable premises. The numbers of businesses and costs are even further increased if businesses operating from households without visibility are also covered. Thus, an economic census can be conducted at best every five or ten years. Thus, well-developed NSOs consider a suite of annual surveys based on a register-based list to be much more cost-effective.
Second, an economic census produces a point in time list of businesses. The small businesses located during area enumeration are volatile in the sense that they may go rapidly in and out of production, or ownership, or change their activities or addresses. Thus, to be really effective as a source of survey frames over the years until the next census, the list has to be constantly updated.
Third, the only means of updating the list is by a full-scale ongoing enumeration operation. NSOs cannot afford to do this, so the list becomes steadily more out of date, resulting in survey samples containing inactive or untraceable units.
Nevertheless, in some countries, there is a case for conducting a periodic economic census and/or area enumeration in order to conduct surveys of the informal sector.
Administrative input data
Administrative data are data collected by an administrative source (meaning a government department or other agency) primarily for administrative (not research or statistical) purposes, such as taxes, annual permits, etc. Administrative data should provide most of the data about the small businesses contained in the SBR and a starting point for obtaining and maintaining data about large businesses. The reason for using administrative data is that they provide comprehensive coverage of registered businesses, they are constantly updated, and they are essentially free to an NSO.
In a country with good access to administrative data, collectively, these data determine the coverage of the SBR and hence of the survey frames it provides. In countries where access to administrative data is limited, statistical data may have to be used to provide adequate coverage.
The quality of administrative data is an important consideration.
Close coordination between an NSO and the administrative source is imperative to ensure the administrative data are well understood and that there are no surprise changes in the data flow or content.
Legislation, a memorandum of understanding, a service level agreement, or similar arrangement, and the use of a common identification coding system, facilitate data flow and data sharing.
Statistical input data
Statistical input data refer to data collected by statistical processes undertaken by an NSO. They are used to complement the administrative input data about businesses in an SBR by providing extra information about:
the organizational structure, and appropriate reporting arrangements, for very large complex businesses, which are obtained by profiling, i.e., research and discussion with those businesses; and
characteristics of businesses that are not available from the administrative data or are not current; these characteristics may include economic activity code, turnover, employment or other size code, current operation status (active, inactive, out of business), and contact details.
Informal sector
Businesses that are not registered with any of the sources used to create the SBR are typically small. In the national accounts, they are referred to as household unincorporated enterprises. Those that produce market output may be defined to constitute the informal sector. Information about them cannot be obtained from surveys based on the SBR. This is an important limitation in the scope of the SBR, and of the surveys based on it, especially in developing countries where the informal sector’s contribution is relatively large.
Data for the informal sector can be obtained by economic census based on area enumeration, or as a by-product of a population and housing census, or using a household-based survey in which a sample of individual households is asked about the businesses that (i) they conduct and (ii) they have not registered with any of the administrative sources used to construct the SBR.
This is further discussed in Chapter 12.4 — Frames for informal sector surveys.
SBR Outputs
The primary output of the SBR is a periodic (typically quarterly) common frame which is a snapshot of the active units in the SBR as of a given date, from which individual survey frames are extracted and business statistics generated.
In addition to providing survey frames, the SBR has other purposes.
First, it is a potential source of business demographic statistics; Second, it facilitates measurement of the response burden imposed on businesses by surveys; and Third, it provides a framework within which unit-level data from different surveys and administrative sources can be brought together.
Furthermore, the SBR system can readily be extended to include sample selection (from the survey frame) and generation of the corresponding sample control file used in subsequent conduct of a survey. Such an extension ensures a smooth interface between these functions.
SBR Processes
Figure 10 summarises the SBR inputs, processes and outputs, and their interactions in a fully developed SBR. The central block labelled SBR Database is often referred to as the live register. The data it contains is continually being updated based on data from administrative and statistical sources.
Administrative data sources may include tax registration data, VAT transaction data, income tax data, employer pay-as-you-earn data, company registration data and license data. To avoid the risk of duplication, it is best to use only sources having a common identification scheme or known to have mutually exclusive coverage. Updating should be fully automated, with only small numbers of incoming data records flagged for manual verification to ensure that SBR staff are not overwhelmed.
Statistical data are obtained as feedback from sample surveys and censuses that have derived their frames from the SBR and from SBR operations, including profiling of large businesses, SBR quality improvement surveys of smaller business and ad hoc investigations. Again, to the extent possible, such input is automated.
Periodically (typically quarterly) a snapshot, is taken of the SBR database. It provides a stable basis for analysis as the live register continues to evolve. It is sometimes referred to as a frozen frame. Numbers of units by industry, size code region, and numbers or units for which characteristics are missing, are derived and used in planning future SBR operations.
Periodically (typically quarterly or annually) a common frame, is derived from a snapshot, including only those units that are marked as being active and that include sufficient information to be stratified for sample selection and contacted if selected. The common frame provides the basis from which survey frames are extracted. It may also provide the basis for the publication of business statistics.
Fig. 13 Typical SBR inputs, functions and outputs#
A sample is selected from each survey frame, a sample control file and embryonic survey database are created, and the survey conducted with data being feedback to the SBR, as noted above. Based on the survey control files, response burden can be monitored.
The SBR Database may also be used as a means of linking other administrative and statistical datasets.
SBR Units Model
Figure 11 indicates a typical SBR units model, i.e., a view of the types of units used in describing the SBR, its inputs and its outputs. The units are in three groups:
organizational units – comprising legal units that are businesses (companies, partnerships or sole proprietors), groups of legal units defined by ownership and control arrangements, and operational units into which (large) businesses organize themselves, such as divisions, branches, plants, and outlets;
administrative units – such as income tax unit, value-added tax (VAT) unit and employer/pay-as-you-earn (PAYE)) unit; these are the units that businesses use in responding to the various administrative requirements; usually (but not always) there is one unit, or no unit, of each type associated with a business; and
standard statistical units – comprising (in this particular model) a three-tier hierarchy (enterprise group, enterprise and establishment) that the NSO uses to represent businesses in a standardised way for sample selection and data collection purposes. Some NSOs may use a different and possibly more complex model.
Fig. 14 Typical SBR Units Model#
12.3.2 Conceptual framework for SBR#
As described in Chapter 10.4.1 — System of National Accounts (SNA), 2008 SNA is the core element of the conceptual framework and most important harmonizing and integrating mechanism for economic statistics. It defines the notion of economic production activities in which institutional units in their role as enterprises engage. The definition of an enterprise is very broad. It includes commercial enterprises, (comprising corporations and unincorporated household businesses) and it includes non-commercial enterprises (comprising non-profit institutions and government units). It includes enterprises in the informal sector, and even households producing goods for their own consumption (which are not included in the informal sector).
The 2008 SNA and the International Standard Industrial Classification of All Economic Activities, Revision 4 (ISIC Rev 4) note that an enterprise, particularly a large enterprise, may be engaged in a range of different activities at a set of different locations. In such a case, the classification of a large enterprise to a single activity at a single location will result in a blurring of detail. This will constrain subsequent analysis of any datasets that include data collected from the enterprise. Thus, it is recommended that large enterprises are divided into smaller, more homogeneous producing units that can be more precisely classified and that collectively represent the enterprise as a whole. Dividing an enterprise into its various economic activities at its various locations (in a process referred to as profiling and further described below) results in a set of establishments, each of which refers to a particular activity at a particular location. An enterprise may alternatively, or as well, be divided simply by its economic activities into kind of activity units (KAUs) or by its geographic locations into local units.
The 2008 SNA also refers to conglomerates of enterprises – enterprises that belong to an intercorporate ownership group. The behaviour of an enterprise may depend on its role in a group and this needs to be taken into account in defining the survey reporting arrangements. (For example, though part of the ownership structure, an enterprise may be a “shell company” with no production activities and hence out of scope for a production survey.) Thus, where appropriate, enterprises are associated with an enterprise group. The process of dividing enterprises into establishments and/or grouping them into enterprise groups is commonly referred to (though not in the SNA) as profiling.
In summary, the SNA provides the basis for defining the set of standard statistical units by which all businesses large or small can be modelled. Figure 11 indicates a particular three-tier hierarchical model (enterprise group, enterprise and establishment) that is in accordance with the 2008 SNA and is often used in practice. A common alternative is a three-tier model containing enterprise group, enterprise, and kind of activity unit. More complex models can be defined based on the 2008 SNA, for example, including kind of activity unit, local unit and establishment, but are rarely used in practice.
12.3.3 Administrative data inputs for SBR construction and coverage#
As previously outlined and indicated in Figure 10, a well-developed SBR is created and updated based on administrative data and statistical data.
The first step in constructing an SBR is to select the primary administrative data source. This should be the source that most nearly provides the target SBR coverage and content. Figure 11 indicates the typical options, for example, business income tax data, VAT data, and business registration data.
As no single source is likely to provide all the coverage and content provided, data from the primary source are typically supplemented by data from secondary administrative sources. However, although there are a wide variety of possible administrative sources, combining them can be difficult. There is a serious risk of duplication unless the sources share a common identification numbering system, or they are known to be mutually exclusive. Thus, the introduction of a common identification numbering system should be promoted. In its absence use of record linkage techniques based on name, address and other characteristics to identify potential duplicates has been tried but rarely proved satisfactory. Thus, an SBR is typically based on a small number of carefully selected administrative sources that can be used in combination without risk of duplication. Jointly these sources determine the coverage of the SBR.
It is convenient and perfectly in accordance with the framework for the definition of the informal sector in Resolution II of the Fifteenth International Conference of Labor Statisticians 1993 (ICLS93) (🔗) to define the resulting coverage of the SBR to be the formal sector and all other enterprises producing goods or services for sale or barter to be the informal sector.
Assuming that administrative sources provide adequate coverage, field observation by NSO staff should not be used to further expand coverage, first, because it is an inefficient use of resources, but mainly because the additional enterprises found by this method are likely to be transient and mobile and hence not worth trying to maintain in the SBR. Furthermore, the extra coverage that is obtained is difficult to quantify, i.e., it is difficult to explain precisely what coverage is still missing.
While the use of administrative data may be impractical in countries where the NSO is unable to access such data or where they are of very poor quality, the aim should always be to maximise use of administrative data as they are constantly updated, and they are essentially free to the NSO.
12.3.4 Statistical sources to supplement SBR content#
Although administrative sources provide the enterprises that define SBR coverage, they are not sufficient to maintain an SBR. They are typically deficient in one or both of two basic ways:
They do not provide the information required to divide large complex enterprises into establishments;
They do not provide current values of all the enterprise characteristics and contact information that are required to produce up to date survey frames. Characteristics required include activity status (active, inactive, defunct, etc.), economic activity code, and size measures (turnover, employment, assets, etc.). Contact data include name, physical address and geocodes, postal address, e-mail address, contact person(s), etc. Whilst administrative sources may provide current values of many characteristics; they may not provide values for all, or the values provided may not be current.
Profiling
As previously noted, to collect data from large enterprises efficiently and at an appropriate level of detail, large enterprises need to be divided into establishments and/or grouped into enterprise groups through a process commonly known as profiling. The first step in profiling is a desk study to identify, as precisely as possible, all the legal units belonging to an intercorporate ownership group and their inter-relationships. This is the basis for developing a first draft of the organizational structure and how it might be best represented in terms of the SBR units model (typically enterprise group, enterprise and establishment) for the purpose of collecting data. The second step is face-to-face contact with senior staff (typically the chief accountant or secretary) in the leading enterprise in the group to review and update the draft organizational structure and reporting arrangements. The final step is to create the corresponding statistical units in the SBR.
Evidently, profiling requires very high-level contact with the enterprises involved and is resource-intensive. Therefore, it is only worth doing for very large complex enterprises for which the identification of appropriate reporting arrangements is absolutely vital. Thus, only a very small number of enterprise groups are defined, and only a small number of enterprises are divided into multiple establishments.
Feedback from business surveys
To supplement and update what is received from administrative sources, current economic activity code, size measures and contact information are obtained as feedback from the units responding to business surveys that have drawn their frames from the SBR. Typically, the first page of a business survey questionnaire asks for verification or updating of contact information, and other parts of the questionnaire provide updated size measures and perhaps indications of changes in economic activity.
SBR Quality Improvement Survey
Survey feedback alone is insufficient to fully maintain the SBR as not all SBR units are included in surveys. Indeed, some are excluded precisely because there is insufficient information about them to determine if they are in scope for a survey, to sample them if they are, or to contact them if they are selected in the sample. To obtain this information, through its field staff, the NSO typically conducts ongoing special-purpose SBR surveys, referred to as nature of business surveys or SBR quality improvement surveys.
12.3.5 SBR snapshots and common frames#
Live register and snapshots
As previously noted, the central block in Figure 10, labelled SBR Database, is often referred to as the live register, as the data it contains are continually being updated based on data from the various administrative and statistical input sources. It is possible to extract survey frames directly from this. However, as the database is constantly changing, many NSOs prefer to take a regular point in time snapshots of the SBR and use these as the basis for developing survey frames. Snapshots may also be used for SBR backup purposes, for analysis of SBR counts and content quality, and for direct production of statistics, as elaborated in the following paragraphs.
A snapshot of the entire SBR (live register) is the starting point for deriving SBR counts such as:
numbers of enterprises by activity status (active, temporarily inactive permanently inactive, defunct, etc.); and
numbers of enterprises, by region and by economic activity;
data quality measures such as:
number of enterprises with no activity code;
number of enterprises with no turnover size code; and • number of enterprises with insufficient contact data to be able to locate the business.
Common frame
A common frame, also referred to as a frozen frame, is a subset of a full SBR snapshot obtained by selecting only those enterprises:
that are active during, or at the end of, a specified reference period; and
that contain sufficient information for the enterprise to be identified for inclusion/exclusion in the frame for any business survey being conducted for the given reference period.
A common frame is the starting point for extracting the frame for each survey conducted for the specified reference period. Use of this single dataset as the basis for defining the coverage of all surveys ensures consistency of the corresponding survey frames.
12.3.6 Generation of survey frames and samples#
Survey frames
The frame for an economic survey should be a subset of the common frame, comprising the set of statistical units that match the specification of the survey target population and are active during the survey reference period, together with the characteristics that will be needed for the survey.
For example, the frame specification for a sub-annual manufacturing production survey may require all establishments that are active, have a manufacturing ISIC code, and have five or more employees.
Sample Selection and Sample Overlap Control
Given that the SBR is the source of survey frames, it is vital that the SBR frame extraction software interfaces nicely with the sample stratification and selection programs and initializes the sample control files and the input databases in which the survey data will be stored. Incorporating these functions within the SBR environment ensures they are well harmonised.
From the survey frame, a sample can be selected in accordance with the sample specification. For example, the sample specification for the above sub-annual manufacturing production survey may require that the sample includes all establishments with one hundred or more employees and a five per cent sample of all remaining establishments in each ISIC group. (Sampling is further discussed in Chapter 9.2.4 — Survey design).
The sample selection mechanism may include a requirement for the sample (to the extent possible) to avoid an overlap with the sample for another business survey or to have a specified overlap with that survey or with the previous cycle of the survey itself. This is best handled within the SBR environment.
12.3.7 Producing statistics directly from the SBR#
The SBR is a source of business demographic statistics, i.e., counts of enterprises and of their births, deaths and changes by industry, size institutional sector, region, etc. Subject to quality considerations, these can be published.
Usually, the counts are based on the common frame so that they refer to a specific point in time and they do not include businesses that are not known to be active or for which key characteristics are missing. The aspects of quality that need to be considered are:
the numbers of enterprise not included in the counts because due to missing data items in the SBR (for example ISIC code) that are not included in the common frame; and
period to period changes in counts due simply to changes in SBR operations (for example cleaning up a backlog of enterprise with no activity code) and not to changes in the economy.
12.3.8 Other functions of the SBR#
Data linkage across administrative and statistical data sources
The SBR is ideally placed to facilitate linkage of data at individual unit level across administrative and statistical data sources (subject to confidentiality provisions). For example, if business income tax is a data source for the SBR, then it is easy to link data from income tax returns (and the accompanying financial statements) to the data for the same business obtained via a production or employment survey.
Respondent Burden Monitoring
It is useful to be able to list all the surveys to which any given enterprise has to report within any given year and the status of those reports. It is also informative to measure the respondent burden imposed on enterprises by individual surveys and by all surveys in total. These functions are most efficiently handled through the SBR.
12.3.9 Sources of further information#
Guidelines on Statistical Business Registers, 2020 UNSD
The UNSD Guidelines on Statistical Business Registers (🔗) were originally published by the UNECE in 2015 and subsequently revised by the United Nations Committee of Experts on Business and Trade Statistics in collaboration with the United Nations Statistics Division. As of June 2020, a white cover version prior to official editing is available.
The main objectives of the Guidelines are to:
provide practical guidance on core issues of establishing and maintaining an SBR;
clarify typology, concepts and definitions, including for statistical units;
provide guidance on the use of administrative and other sources for the establishment and updating of an SBR;
provide guidance on how to use an SBR in its own right for the production of statistics and how information from the SBR can be combined with information from other statistical registers, administrative sources or surveys to produce new statistics; and
provide guidance on the role of an SBR in the modernisation of statistical production and services.
The Guidelines are consistent with the 2008 SNA and its European version. They are targeted at SBR management and staff members, business survey staff, and staff dealing with the administrative authorities that deliver data to the SBR. They provide guidance in the form of a broad range of concepts and explanations that need to be interpreted within each particular national context.
Guidelines for Building Statistical Registers in Africa, 2014, AfDB
The design, development, and introduction or enhancement of an SBR is so important that it typically constitutes a core goal in the five-year national strategy of most if not all African NSOs. Thus, in response to requests from NSOs, the African Development Bank (AfDB) prepared the Guidelines for Building Statistical Registers in Africa (🔗). They detail all the essential elements of an SBR. Although produced with African countries in mind, the Guidelines are equally applicable to developing countries on other continents. They are consistent with the UNECE SBR Guidelines as they were input to the drafting of the latter.
The general objectives of the Guidelines are to provide:
a general background to the need for an SBR and the concepts on which it is based;
a description of the functions of an SBR;
detailed information on SBR development and implementation; and
a starting point for harmonization of SBRs across African NSOs.
The Guidelines are directed, first and foremost, at economic and labour statistics practitioners in NSOs and policy analysts in development, economic, and labour ministries and central banks. In addition, they may be useful to a wide spectrum of other users, including:
SBR managers and staff – by detailing SBR concepts and creation and maintenance procedures, and SBR quality and performance measures;
business survey managers and staff – by providing the basic concepts on which an SBR is based and describing the production of survey frames from the SBR;
business statistics dissemination staff – by providing the basic concepts, including what data are included in the SBR and how these data may be published;
staff responsible for communications with other organizations in the national statistical system and with international organizations – by providing the basic concepts;
staff responsible for respondent relations – by defining and enabling calculation of the individual and cumulative respondent burden associated with business surveys; and
NSO senior managers – by providing the basic concepts, quality and performance measures, and suggestions for quality improvement.
European business statistics methodological manual for statistical business registers — 2021 edition, Eurostat
The Regulation (EU) 2019/2152 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 27 November 2019 on European business statistics, repealing 10 legal acts in the field of business statistics, sets out a common framework for the European business statistics, including the Framework of the European Statistical Business Registers.
The Manual aims to explain the reasoning behind the provisions of the Regulation as regard the Framework of European Statistical Business Registers, which includes the National Statistical Business Registers, the EuroGroups Register and the exchange of data between them (European business statistics methodological manual for statistical business registers — 2021 edition - Products Manuals and Guidelines - Eurostat 🔗). It aims to provide the extra information required for the correct and consistent interpretation and implementation in all countries and can be used as a tool to identify and recommend best practices.
Statistics Canada Business Register
The Statistics Canada Business Register (BR) is Statistics Canada’s continuously maintained central repository of baseline information on businesses and institutions operating in Canada. As a statistical register, it provides listings of units and related attributes required for survey sampling frames, data integration, stratification and business demographic statistics.
The BR provides the statistical sampling frames for the 200+ business survey programs administered by the organization. It also serves as a central hub for data integration in the compilation of cross-cutting statistics obtained through record linkage. Finally, it is used to compile business demographic indicators, including the detailed counts of enterprises within industries and provinces that comprise the Canadian Business Counts product (further described below), which is released semi-annually.
Statistics Canada Business Register - Population
The BR maintains a complete, up-to-date and unduplicated list of all businesses in Canada that have a corporate income tax account, an employer payroll deduction remittance account, a Goods and Services Tax account, a partnership account, or a registered charities account. Persons reporting any of the various types of business income on personal tax forms are also included.
The complex portion of the BR represents approximately 1% of the total active businesses on the database and accounts for approximately 52% of the total economic activity in Canada. The simple portion represents approximately 99% of the total active businesses on the database and accounts for approximately 48% of the total economic activity in Canada. The focus of manual intervention is on the complex portion, while automatic updates from administrative sources are made on the simple portion.
Statistics Canada Business Register - Data sources
The BR is updated by:
data from Canada Revenue Agency (CRA);
profiling of large and medium sized businesses (in the complex portion);
survey feedback - changes and corrections to BR frame data are transmitted regularly by survey collection areas during the collection of economic survey data; and
research tools such as the internet, provincial gazettes, trade and business publications and newspaper clippings.
Statistics Canada Business Register - Error detection
Editing of BR records is an on-going process that is performed daily by staff in various divisions with different roles across Statistics Canada. The Administrative Data Division takes in the CRA data and performs consistency checks and pre-processing activities. The Statistical Registers and Geography Division (SRGD), as the main manager and maintainer of the BR, then uses the data to build the register. Enterprise profilers and statistical officers on-staff in SRGD perform on-going verifications and updating of data. Industrial and other subject-matter economists working in the many survey program divisions also contribute to the maintenance of the frame. Given the significant number of editors, editing of BR data is controlled through an internal interactive system that ensures coherence and proper routing of editing tasks.
Statistics Canada Business Register - Disclosure control
Statistics Canada is prohibited by law from releasing any data including data based on the BR that would divulge information obtained under the Statistics Act that relates to any identifiable person, business or organization without the prior knowledge or the consent in writing of that person, business or organization. Some confidential data can be released for statistical or research purposes with the authorization of the chief statistician. Only government bodies can receive authorization from the chief statistician, permitting them to receive confidential data that identifies individual units (company names, addresses, etc.). Private companies are not permitted to receive this kind of data.
Statistics Canada Business Register - Demographic data
Canadian Business Counts (🔗) provides counts compiled from the BR of active business locations according to variables, such as geography, business activity and employment size. It is not advised to use this product for time-series analysis involving comparisons across reference periods because of data accuracy considerations.
Coverage error. The BR is largely based on the Business Number (BN) that is collected and assigned by Canada Revenue Agency. Therefore, the quality of the data is dependent upon the quality of the information submitted by Canadian businesses when applying for their BNs.
Under-coverage. The BR is subject to a fluctuating number of unclassified BN records, and outstanding work and unassigned workloads within Statistics Canada.
Australian Bureau of Statistics Business Register
The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) Business Register (BR) is a list of organizations that undertake economic activity in Australia. The data on the ABS BR is primarily sourced from the Australian Business Register (ABR), maintained by the Australian Tax Office (ATO), and via ABS profiling of large and/or complex businesses.
The scope of the ABS BR is all organizations with an active Australian Business Number (ABN) on the ABR, undertaking productive activity in Australia’s economic territory. The relatively insignificant economic activity of organizations that fall below the threshold for needing to register for an ABN (i.e., annual turnover of less than \(75,000 or \)150,000 for non-profit organizations) and that have chosen not to apply for an ABN, remain outside the conceptual scope of the ABS BR.
The characteristics and structural relationships of organizations on the ABS BR are described using the ABS Economic Units Model. The model defines organizations by enterprise group, type of activity, location and legal unit. It enables organizations to provide data to the ABS at suitable levels of detail according to their size and complexity.
The ABS BR provides a frame for most ABS economic surveys, thus enabling a consistent, coherent, point-in-time picture of the Australian economy. Data are extracted from the ABS BR on a quarterly basis, producing the Common Frame. Subsequently, survey frames are extracted from the Common Frame. The unit record information on the ABS BR is not available for release outside of ABS.
How the ABS BR is maintained
The ABS BR is a dynamic database that is updated daily via profiling activity and updated monthly using ABR and other ATO data.
The ABS profiles large, complex and economically significant organizations and structures them in accordance with the model. These groups are collectively referred to as the Profiled population. The remainder of ABN registrants is assumed to have a simple structure comprising a single legal entity represented by a single enterprise group. These units are collectively known as the Non-profiled population. The two populations are mutually exclusive and cover all organizations in Australia that have registered for an ABN.
ABS BR - main outputs
The main outputs derived from the ABS BR are:
survey frames for use in ABS economic data collection;
information to support ABS economic survey processes including data editing;
a dataset that is the main input to the annual publication Counts of Australian Businesses, including Entries and Exits (🔗) (cat. no. 8165.0). This publication provides data relevant to users interested in understanding businesses that actively trade in goods or services.
aggregate business structure reports for internal analysis and research and to meet client requests by Australian and state government agencies and industry associations at the aggregate level; and
infrastructure to support the use of administrative-economic data.
Philippine Statistics Authority Statistical Business Register
The Philippine Statistical Authority (PSA) maintains a List of Establishments (LE), where the establishment is defined:
as an economic unit which engages, under single ownership or control, that is, under a single entity in one or predominantly one kind of economic activity at a single fixed physical location.
A Frozen LE is usually generated over the January to February period. From it survey frames are extracted, each according to its particular scope and coverage. Frames are provided to Annual Survey of Philippine Business and Industry, the Quarterly Survey of Philippine Business and Industry, the Labor Turnover Survey, the Occupational Wages Survey, the Integrated Survey on Labor and Employment, the Survey on Information and Communication Technology, and other establishment-based surveys.
An Annual LE is generated every June 30 and is the basis for the tables of establishment data disseminated to users.
The PSA updates it LE through the conduct of its Updating of the List of Establishments (ULE) operation. The ULE is a continuing activity undertaken primarily to provide an updated and reliable frame for the establishment- and enterprise-based surveys and census.
The updating activity involves:
capturing “new” establishments and determination of their characteristics for inclusion in the LE;
updating the characteristics of those establishments already listed in the LE; and
tagging establishment records with the proper code reflecting their operational (activity) status as of the time of updating.
A comprehensive ULE is a nationwide undertaking which involves door-to-door canvassing and conduct of inquiry on the basic characteristics of establishments in the country. It is undertaken during the census reference year, that is, a year prior to the conduct of the Census of Philippine Business and Industry. A tablet-based inquiry form was utilized for the first time in 2018 Comprehensive ULE (🔗).
During intercensal years ULE operations cover only selected or growth areas, group of units with common characteristics, or group of industries with special concerns. The coverage depends mainly on the availability of resources and what is needed. Updating is usually supplemented by information from establishment’s reports to surveys undertaken by the PSA, including the Census of Agriculture and Fisheries, which the SBR supports.
The LE is also updated from administrative data derived from the Central Bank, the Bureau of Internal Revenue, the Bureau of Customs, the Philippine Economic Zone Authority, and Securities and Exchange Commission. This is not all done on a regular basis; it depends upon what has been provided to PSA or can be found and downloaded by staff.
Profiling is undertaken to distinguish enterprises and establishments, and group of enterprises as well as to trace duplicate establishments. It is an effective method of identifying the units within an enterprise that are not yet captured in the LE. Ideally, profiling should involve input from the enterprise being profiled. Unfortunately, this does not happen. Instead, profilers use the information that they can gather from the enterprises’ websites and other trusted sources.
Business Register of the Statistical Institute of Jamaica (STATIN)
STATIN BR - Overview
The Business Register (BR) of the Statistical Institute of Jamaica (STATIN) (🔗) is a structured list of establishments operating in Jamaica. It currently has approximately 12,300 establishments, organized by industry and assigned an activity code based on the 2005 Jamaica Industrial Classification (JIC). It is designed to:
serve as a sampling frame for establishment surveys;
consistently classify statistical reporting units, i.e., establishments;
serve as a data source for compiling demographic information about businesses.
As of 2020 STATIN is working with Statistics Canada on the Project for the Regional Advancement of Statistics in the Caribbean (PRASC) (🔗) to improve the BR through review and redesign.
STATIN BR - Coverage and Scope
The BR covers privately operated businesses employing one or more persons. Establishments engaged in agriculture and entities in Central Government are not in scope. The BR covers both formal and informal businesses and contains the following variables:
name of the establishment; year of commencement; type of organization;
legal form of this establishment; type of ownership;
business contact information; contact person information;
economic activity; total number of employees.
STATIN BR - Maintenance
The BR is maintained through a programme of continual updating of business records. The process includes the following:
Identification of business prospects (potential establishments for inclusion on the BR) from the internet, newspaper, telephone directory, etc;
Administration of the Central Registry of Economic Units (CREU) questionnaire via a survey that is designed to provide updated information on businesses on the BR as well as initialize business prospects;
Updating of records on the BR based on survey feedback (including CREU and other routine establishment surveys) and administrative records.
Business Register (Tanzania Mainland) in the Tanzania National Bureau of Statistics
TNBS BR - Overview
The Business Register (BR) of the Tanzania National Bureau of Statistics (TNBS) formerly known as the Central Register of Establishments (CRE) is a list of establishments operating in a single location with fixed premises. The variables included in the BR are:
name of the establishment; physical location (region, district, ward, street);
postal address including telephone; email and fax numbers; main industrial activity;
size group, ownership of establishment; registration status; number of people engaged by sex;
nationality of the owner of the establishment; turnover; and source of initial capital investment.
TNBS BR - Purpose
The BR provides a comprehensive inventory of establishments in Mainland Tanzania. It is used as a basis for generating or obtaining sampling frames for establishment-based surveys in the country.
TNBS BR - Population and Coverage
The BR covers all sectors of the economy and economic activities as stipulated in ISIC Rev 4. It includes all legal establishments, regional headquarters and rural and urban parts of some districts with a large number of businesses in all regions of Tanzania Mainland.
TNBS BR - Data Sources Used to Update the BR
BR updating is a continuous exercise done mainly by the regional statistical offices under the direct supervision of the Department of Field Operations. Data are obtained from the physical visits to new establishments and from administrative records from tax, license, pension fund and other registration authorities, including the Tanzania Revenue Authorities, Business Registrations and Licensing Agency, the Ministry of Health, Community Development, Gender, Elderly and Children, and the Ministry of Education and Vocational Training.
The BR is also updated using data collected from economic surveys, including the Employment and Earnings Survey, Annual Survey of Industrial Production, and Tourism Statistics Survey.