Preparing for the 1 October 2011 TTR form changeover
If your business provides a designated service that involves the transfer of physical currency or e-currency of AUD10,000 (or foreign equivalent) or more, your business must submit a threshold transaction report (TTR) to AUSTRAC.
From 1 October 2011, reporting entities will be required to provide additional details within TTRs - when an individual other than the customer of a designated service conducts a threshold transaction, reporting entities will need to report details of that individual (this is in addition to the requirement to report details of the customer of the designated service).
Is your business ready to start reporting details of individuals conducting transactions?
If your business does not have systems, procedures or staff in place to collect details of individuals conducting threshold transactions, it will need to do so by 1 October 2011.
What is happening on 1 October 2011?
On 1 October 2011, AUSTRAC will be replacing the current (December 2008) versions of the paper and electronic TTR forms with new (October 2011) versions. These new versions contain extra questions in relation to the individual(s) conducting the transaction.
What does your business need to do if it uses paper forms to report TTRs?
Before 1 October 2011, AUSTRAC will send out new TTR forms to businesses who report using paper forms. If you do not receive the new paper forms by 20 September 2011, please call the AUSTRAC Help Desk 1300 021 037 or email help_desk@austrac.gov.au.
For threshold transactions that take place on or after 1 October 2011, you will need to use the October 2011 version of the TTR form.
From 1 October 2011 onwards, if your business needs to report a threshold transaction that took place before 1 October 2011, you have two options:
Option 1 - Use the December 2008 version of the TTR form
Option 2 - Use the October 2011 version of the TTR form, however:
- do not complete Question 12 'How was the transaction conducted?'
- do not complete Part B (i.e. Questions 13-23, relating to details of the individual(s) conducting the transaction)
- do not select either of the following two options as the 'recipient' for Question 34:
- 'Individual conducting the transaction listed in Part B'
- 'Organisation (Q14) represented by individual listed in Part B'.
What does your business need to do if it uses AUSTRAC Online to report TTRs?
Data entry
The current data entry TTR forms will be automatically replaced with the October 2011 version of the forms on 1 October 2011.
To simplify the TTR form changeover process for your staff, by close of business on 30 September 2011 reporting entities are requested to finalise and submit any outstanding incomplete reports, reports awaiting approval and reports returned by AUSTRAC.
From 1 October 2011 onwards, if your business needs to report a threshold transaction that took place before 1 October 2011, you can use the October 2011 version of the TTR form, however:
- do not complete Question 12 'How was the transaction conducted?'
- do not complete Part B (i.e. Questions 13-23, relating to details of the individual(s) conducting the transaction)
Report validation will guide you as to which sections you are required to complete, based on the transaction date.
Spreadsheet
The current online spreadsheet TTR forms will be automatically replaced with the October 2011 version of the spreadsheet forms on 1 October 2011.
To simplify the TTR form changeover process for your staff, by close of business on 30 September 2011 reporting entities are requested to finalise and submit any outstanding incomplete reports to AUSTRAC.
If your business uses spreadsheet templates to enter TTR reports offline, and then later copies the reports to the online spreadsheet to submit the reports, you will not be able to continue using those templates after 30 September 2011. From 1 October 2011 onwards, your business can download new spreadsheet templates using the 'Export' function.
From 1 October 2011 onwards, if your business needs to report a threshold transaction that took place before 1 October 2011, you can use the October 2011 version of the spreadsheet, however:
- do not complete 'How was the transaction conducted?'
- do not complete Part B (i.e. details of the individual conducting the transaction), including:
- 'Is the individual conducting the transaction'
- 'Individual conducting the transaction (if employee of the customer or other individual)'
- 'Contact details of the individual conducting the transaction'
- 'Identification details of the individual conducting the transaction'
- 'Business details of the organisation represented by the individual conducting the transaction, if different to the customer'
- 'Type of authorisation used by the individual, or the organisation it represents, to act on behalf of the customer, if any'
- do not select either of the following two options as 'Who is the recipient':
- 'Individual conducting the transaction (go to recipient account details)'
- 'Organisation represented by the individual conducting the transaction (go to recipient account details)'.
Report validation will guide you as to which sections you are required to complete, based on the transaction date.
Extraction
From 1 October 2011 onwards, reporting entities are expected to use:
- Version 1.1 TTR XML schemas to generate XML documents to report threshold transactions that took place from 12 December 2008 to 30 September 2011 inclusive; and
- Version 2.0 TTR XML schemas to generate XML documents to report threshold transaction which took place from 1 October 2011 onwards.
