if CR/LF characters are supplied, they must always occur together as a coupled pair and be on the end of each record, or the CR/LF coupled pair of characters may occur on the last record as the last two characters only. In this case, all preceding records must not have CR/LF characters. A special case can occur if only one coupled pair CR/LF is used in conjunction with an EOF character where the last three characters will be CR/LF/EOF (see b above). CR/LF and EOF characters are not part of the data supplied and, if used, must be additional characters to the record length. Record length (character position 1-3) in all records must be set to 996. A simple check can be used to ensure that the record length of a fixed length file is correct. The length of the file supplied to the ATO must be a multiple of the fixed record length. For example, for files that do not contain CR/LF at the end of each record: File record length is 996 characters Length of the file = 74,700 74,700 / 996 = 75 and 0 remainder Therefore the file is OK File record length is 996 characters Length of the file = 8000 8000 / 996 = 8 and 32 remainder Therefore there is an error in the file. For example, for that contain CR/LF at the end of each record (this is only a check of the file length and the 998 characters must only be used for division. All record lengths in the data must be 996): File record length is 998 characters (record 996 + CR/LF 2) Length of the file = 9980 9980 / 998 = 10 and 0 remainder Therefore the file is OK File record length is 998 characters (record 996 + CR/LF 2) Length of the file = 8000 8000 / 998 = 8 and 16 remainder Therefore there is an error in the file If an error in the division occurs, the file must be corrected before it is sent to the ATO. Examples of errors that may occur:
One or more of the records is longer or shorter than the fixed length of 996 characters. are characters at the end of the file that need to be removed. For example: an extra EOF marker, an additional CR/LF (if providing CR/LF there should only be one CR/LF at the end of the file) (see above), or binary zeros. The following tables show data records and elements. The tables contain the following standard columns: Character position – the start and end position of the field in the record. length – the length of the data item in bytes. Field format – the format type of the field: A is alphabetic (A-Z) - one byte per character. This field may be both upper and lower case and must be left justified. Characters not used must be blank filled. For example, SMITH in a ten character field would be reported as SMITHbbbbb. The character b is used to indicate blanks. AN is alphanumeric – one byte per character. This may be both upper and lower case and must be left justified. Characters not used must be blank filled For example 10 STREET in a 20 character alphanumeric field would be reported as 10bFIRSTbSTREETbbbbb. The character b is used to indicate blanks. DT is a date in DDMMCCYY format. If the day or month components are less than 10, insert a leading zero. For example: 26 March 2015 would be reported as 26032015 9 November 2015 would be reported as 09112015 If the date is mandatory it must be a valid date, otherwise see date under the optional field type on the next page. N is numeric (0-9), one byte per digit. Numeric fields must be right justified and zero filled. For example 123456 in a 11 digit field would be reported as 00000123456.