APRA Connect reporting starts with the taxonomy

APRA's APRA Connect Taxonomy Artefacts page was dated 16 September 2026. It says Reporting Taxonomies contain all the elements and their properties relevant to the selected collection.

The page explains that the Excel based reporting taxonomy includes worksheets for the Schema, Elements, Data types, Enumerations, Form Set, Folders, Forms and Rules. For an entity with an identified APRA reporting obligation, the practical consequence is an internal recommendation, not a new APRA instruction: begin the review with the collection's structure, rather than treating the final submission screen as the whole task.

The return is only one layer

It is reasonable for a reporting team to start with the return. That is the object it must submit, and the point at which the process becomes visible. APRA's material, however, describes more than a form. It sets out the structure of the selected collection and the way its parts are defined.

APRA says the Schema worksheet contains the collection name, schema properties and an embedded constraint file showing each table and the allowed values relevant to that collection. The Elements worksheet contains the elements and their properties. The Data types worksheet identifies the types that may be used for each defined element, while Enumerations lists the allowed values.

The remaining worksheets add further detail. Form Set contains the return name and label used in APRA Connect. Folders can describe returns that include multiple instances of the same form. Forms contains the properties of the forms in a return, and Rules contains rules relating to the selected collection. APRA also says a full list of rules across all collections is available in the Validation Rules spreadsheet.

That description gives a reporting entity a defined basis for reviewing its own process. It can ask whether the information it supplies can be matched to the relevant element, data type, allowed value and rule. That is an internal analysis of how to use APRA's material. The page does not prescribe who should own a data element, which system should supply it or what sign‑off process an organisation should adopt.

Where the internal review begins

The useful question is therefore narrower than whether APRA has specified a complete control framework. It has not on these pages. The question is how an entity with an identified reporting obligation can turn the taxonomy into a practical review.

A sensible approach is to assign an internal owner to each relevant element, identify the source of the information and document any transformation needed before it is submitted. The team can then test the result against the relevant data type, allowed value and rule.

Those are recommendations for internal management, not conclusions that APRA requires a particular operating model. Their value is that they make the organisation's interpretation visible. If a field requires judgement or manual adjustment, the reporting team can identify that point and decide how it should be reviewed. APRA's taxonomy provides the structure for that discussion, but does not make the management decision.

Migration changes the submission context

The taxonomy also needs to be read alongside APRA's move from D2A to APRA Connect.

APRA says its 2024-25 Corporate Plan announced the migration of all remaining D2A collections to APRA Connect by December 2027. The same page says the timeline has been brought forward because of early decommissioning of D2A client vulnerabilities.

For an entity responsible for a relevant collection, that supports a useful separation of questions. One question concerns the submission environment and the process for using APRA Connect. Another concerns the collection itself, including its elements, properties, allowed values and rules. Keeping those questions separate is an internal recommendation. It does not mean APRA has declared that every aspect of an organisation's process will remain unchanged.

A focused review for reporting entities

An entity with an identified APRA reporting obligation can use the material to:

• Confirm which APRA collection or collections it is responsible for and who owns the final submission.
• Review the relevant Schema, Elements, Data types, Enumerations, Form Set, Folders, Forms and Rules material, rather than relying only on a general description of the return.
• Map each relevant data element to its internal source, owner and any transformation applied before submission.
• Test the result against the relevant allowed values, data types and rules. Treating those tests as pre‑submission checks is a management recommendation, not a requirement stated on APRA's taxonomy page.
• Record separately what changes because of the move from D2A to APRA Connect and what APRA says is unchanged in the data collection forms.

APRA's pages establish the reporting structure and describe the position on migration. They do not identify advice practices or AFS licensees as being within scope, and they do not prescribe an internal ownership model.

For entities that do have an identified APRA reporting obligation, the practical conclusion is narrower. The taxonomy is a more precise starting point for review than the final form alone. It gives the team the collection's elements, properties, data types, allowed values and rules to test against its own process. That is an operating recommendation, not an additional APRA requirement.