9.1. Chapter 9 describes the main advantages and limitations of administrative records as a source of data needed for measuring the international supply of services. Advantages include the reduction of costs and in the reporting burden for companies, the filling of data gaps and improvement in statistical business registers. Typical limitations include restrictions on access to information owing to the demands of confidentiality, divergence in methodology from statistical standards and issues of consistency and timeliness and other quality concerns. The chapter also presents good practices in the use of administrative records, which demonstrate that when their limitations are well understood and effectively addressed, such records can be a valuable data source in statistical compilation. The chapter contains the following sections: a summary of good practices (section A); a general description of administrative records (section B); examples of administrative records for use in statistics on the international supply of services (section C); and country practices (section D).