Australian Government selects Shana's Informed e-forms engine for nationwide tax software solution; Over 1 million Australian businesses to benefit.

Business Editors/High-Tech Writers

EDMONTON, Alberta--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 19, 2000

Shana Corporation has announced that Informed, its integrated e-forms management solution, is at the heart of E-Record, a nationwide forms-centric tax solution developed by the Australian Taxation Office (ATO).

E-Record is a joint development of the ATO and Robert Barnett & Associates of Canberra, ACT, who are the representatives for Shana Corporation in Australia.

"The development of E-Record by the Australian Government is a great demonstration of how well our integrated electronic forms solution meets the needs of large organizations," said John Murphy, VP Sales and Marketing at Shana. "The solution that is the standard in many major companies around the world, is now available to more than a million businesses in Australia; we are very pleased that the Australian Taxation Office has chosen our software for this innovative solution."

E-record came about as a result of a new tax system to be introduced throughout Australia in July 2000. At the heart of the system is the replacement of wholesales sales tax by a more broadly-based Goods and Services Tax (GST). All businesses in Australia will need to keep more detailed bookkeeping records than they have in the past to enable them to calculate the GST and comply with government reporting requirements. Many of these businesses are very small and have never kept such records before. The ATO decided to assist them by producing a free, easy-to-use book-keeping system that can be run on a computer (either Windows or Macintosh) by novice users.

Designed primarily for the small business, E-Record consists of a series of Informed inter-linked forms which include a Cashbook, Bank Reconciliation form, Worker Time Sheet, Worker Payment Record and a number of special forms needed for GST compliance. For the shop using a cash register, there is a special Daily Sales form that enables the shopkeeper to record cash register details each day and have them automatically transferred to the Cashbook. There is also an on-line help facility, a master index and a special form for creating a new set of records each year.

In his speech at the launch of E-Record, Tax Commissioner Michael Carmody said that "E-record will save time, minimize administration costs, provide better information for the business owner and help them monitor cash flow."

Shana's integrated e-form management system addresses a fundamental business problem: the effective management of hundreds, even thousands of forms. For Global 2000 companies, the potential benefits are significant. A properly integrated solution can reduce operating overhead, increase productivity, improve responsiveness, and gain competitive advantage for the enterprise. In addition, the same framework can be used to meet internal B2E requirements or for external, B2B e-business applications.

By combining technology and professional services in an innovative framework, the Informed E-Forms Portal solution meets the fundamental challenge of managing large numbers of forms across the enterprise. Shana has strategic partnerships with a number of companies including Entrust Technologies (Nasdaq:ENTU), FileNET (Nasdaq:FILE), EDS (NYSE:EDS), and NCR (NYSE:NCR). Shana is privately owned and brings over 14 years experience to its Informed e-forms solutions, which are used by over 450,000 users in more than 65 countries around the world.