These changes have contributed to reduce costs to users. However, it has also made it increasingly difficult to distinguish between the costs of providing the service for each register. In addition, the fees charged in some smaller registers have not kept up with the costs of upgrading them. This shortfall has been met from surpluses that have been generated from fees collected under legislation governing other registers. This practice is not authorised by the legislation. The Companies Office's unauthorised funding practices have been addressed by the Companies Office Registers Funding Validation Act 2022—the Validation Act—by retrospectively validating the Companies Office charging and expenditure practices.