ABN Lookup – Importance of Australian Business Number (ABN)

It is a legal requirement for anyone doing business in Australia to register their business. The importance of a unique name for a business and ABN can never be overemphasised in a country like Australia. Australian Business Number is a unique 11 digit number that identifies a business and differentiates it from other businesses having similar names. It helps business owners in many ways and also legitimises their business.

If your business is registered with the authorities and has this unique ABN, it becomes easy for the government to identify the business for the purposes of taxation and licenses. It also tells your customers and vendors and the society at large that your business is legitimate. It instils confidence in the minds of potential customers who want to reassure themselves about the authenticity of your business.

To help people in confirming the credentials of a company, the Australian Business Register (ABR) provides information about all businesses registered with the government. The tool for the public to check the authenticity of a business is ABN Lookup where they can take a look at the information provided by business owners at the time of registering their business. If you are planning to start a business in Australia, you will be surprised to know that Australian people have done more than a billion searches to know the authenticity of a business using ABN Lookup in the last one year. If you have an ABN, it means that you are providing products or services to your customers, and not working with the business of someone else.

Your ABN allows your potential customers to check whether your business is currently and valid or not. It is therefore the obligation of the business owners to keep the information about their ABN current and up to date.

You can apply for ABN for your business entity by visiting the website of Australian Business Register. Your application gets processed smoothly and quickly if you have provided all the relevant information to the authorities such as your tax file number and other required details. It is possible to initiate the process of getting the ABN even without a tax file number though the time taken for processing of this application may get delayed until all the information required by the authorities is provided.

If you get a reference number from the authorities after application, it means they are not satisfied with the information provided by you and need some more clarification or details. You can use this reference number to check the status of your application on ABN Lookup anytime.

Once your application for ABN is complete and successful, you can download your ABN and other details associated with it and keep it with yourself. You can also proceed to apply for GST. If you have any privacy concerns, you can request the ABR to not provide such information to the public on ABN Lookup service. You can carry out your business with confidence once you have got your ABN.









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