Business Setup

Starting something of your own may turn out to be the best decision of your working life. It deserves to be done properly.

Starting a business in Australia takes more than an ABN. What it takes depends on what you are building – testing whether the idea holds up, choosing a structure, the registrations, and the reporting calendar you live with afterwards. Not all of it will apply to you, and this is not an exhaustive list.

Contracting, or need to be trading now?

If you are picking up contracting work, most of what follows does not apply – selling your own labour on site needs an ABN and not much else, and starting out as a contractor is the short version. If you simply want to be set up quickly, or have a couple of questions first, call us.

Before you trade

Before you start: will it fly?

Do not quit the day job yet. Before the structure, before the name, before anything is registered, work out whether there is a business here at all. Build a plan, and understand what you are getting yourself into. Cover all the bases and make sure it is a viable enterprise before you get any deeper.

Secure the name first

If the name matters to what you are building, research it and take the domain now rather than later. People routinely leave this until they are ready to launch and find somebody else has taken it – an avoidable way to lose a brand you had already made plans around. It costs very little to hold.

Cash flow projection

What is your initial outlay, and how much do you need behind you before the first payment lands? What happens if it arrives a month late, or not at all? Understand your cash requirements, because running out of cash can ruin the business.

Market research

Start with your direct competition: what they charge, what they do badly, and why someone would leave them for you. If the only answer is that you will be cheaper, that is a plan with a floor under it. Then widen out – who is winning across the market or industry and why people buy from them, what nobody is offering, and what the ones who failed got wrong. Then the honest question: can you see yourself succeeding in this market?

Do the numbers hold?

Price, volume, and cost per unit or per hour. Work out how much you have to sell to cover the fixed costs, then decide honestly whether that figure is reachable in your market.

Plan your resources

How much space do you need, and where? Who will your suppliers be? Is there skilled labour around to hire when the time comes? Can you get hold of every piece of equipment the work depends on?

Licences and permits

Do you need a licence to operate at all? Does the council have to approve what you intend to do at that address? These vary by industry and by council, not just by state, and some take months to come through – confirm you can actually get one before you sign a lease or order stock.

Assess your risks

Losing your largest customer, a supplier failing, a bad debt, a claim, an injury, a key person walking out, a sudden drop in demand. For each one, plan the backup, the fallback and what you would actually do to put it right – including what insurances you need.

Write a business plan

Put all of it in writing, plus the parts not covered above – a marketing plan for how customers will actually find you, and a rough timeline for what happens when. One page of bullet points is enough, or a full document if you would rather. Then read it back and ask whether you would invest in this venture. It becomes the thing you return to whenever you need direction later.

Business structure

The structure follows from what the evaluation found, and specifically from that last card. A low-risk business with no employees and nobody extending it credit can start as a sole trader and stay simple. Real exposure – staff, stock, subcontractors, work that can go wrong for a client – belongs inside a company, and the reason is the risk list you just made rather than a general preference for one structure over another.

What you choose decides your tax, who is liable when something goes wrong, and how easily you can bring someone in or sell later. It is the one decision that is expensive to undo, which is why it is worth making it in that order.

Our business structuring page has a short tool that will point you one way or the other in about a minute, and sets out the reasoning behind it.

The name, and everything attached to it

Check the business name, the domain and the social handles in the same sitting. A name that is free at ASIC but gone as a domain is not really free, and finding out after the signage is printed is an expensive kind of annoying.

If you want the business to stand out, get the domain. It costs very little, which is exactly why there is no sense in waiting until you are certain – secure the name now, before somebody else takes it, and think about the website whenever you are ready. Registering a domain does not commit you to building anything.

One thing about the domains: a .com.au requires an Australian commercial entity, so in practice you need the ABN or ACN first. A .au on its own is easier – it only asks for an Australian presence, which a driver’s licence satisfies – and a .com asks for nothing at all. Australian domains are better for local SEO, which matters if you expect to rely on digital marketing to bring clients in.

A business name must be registered with ASIC unless you trade under your own legal name. It gives you no trade mark rights – if the name matters to the business, that is a separate registration and worth advice before you build a brand on it. A registered trade mark gives you the exclusive right to use the name for what you sell, the standing to stop someone else using it, and an asset you can licence or sell with the business later.

Registrations

Whatever you trade through needs the right registrations behind it: the entity itself with ASIC, an ABN, the entity's own TFN, GST once turnover reaches $75,000 or voluntarily below it, and PAYG withholding before you pay anyone a wage. None of it is difficult, all of it has to be right, and the order matters – a company has to exist before its ABN application can reference it. We do this part as a matter of course, together, so nothing arrives out of sequence. Not sure whether you need an ABN, a TFN, or both? Our guide to the difference between an ABN and a TFN sorts out which applies to you, and GST and BAS covers what registering for GST actually commits you to.

Cover yourself

Public liability

Not legally compulsory in most industries, and increasingly demanded by clients and landlords before they will sign anything.

Professional indemnity

If you give advice or produce work someone relies on, this is the one that matters. Compulsory in some licensed professions.

Workers compensation

Compulsory before your first employee starts, and state-based – icare in NSW, a different scheme in each state.

Income protection

Nobody's favourite conversation. If the business stops when you stop, it is the cover that keeps the household running.

Licences and permits sit alongside these and vary by industry and by council, not just by state. Food, trades, transport, childcare and anything licensed all carry their own requirements, and none of them come with an ABN.

Running the business

Getting organised

Invoicing and payments

Do you need professional-looking invoices, or a point of sale terminal? What payment types will you accept – direct payment, cards, digital wallets? Will you offer credit or payment terms?

Banking

Keep business banking separate from personal – a separate account is the minimum. Want to put business spending on a personal card to earn the points? Have a procedure that tells business from private, and expect the extra work that comes with it.

Record keeping

Keep receipts, diaries and log books. Once the volume of them grows, consider proper accounting software.

Review your cash flow

Put a regular slot in the diary for it. Weekly is not too often in the first year.

  • Receivables – who owes you, how overdue they are, and who gets chased today. An invoice nobody follows up on is a discount you never agreed to.

  • Payables – what is due and when, so nothing lands unannounced.

  • Tax you are holding – GST collected and PAYG withheld are not yours to spend. Keeping them in a separate account is the simplest way to avoid finding that out the hard way.

  • What is coming – the next BAS, the annual return, insurance and workers compensation renewals. None of those should ever arrive as a surprise.

This is the part worth help with early. A forecast that shows you the month things get tight is worth more than any amount of hindsight in the accounts – and it is the same projection you built to test the idea, kept up to date. Talk to us before it is urgent.

The day you hire someone

Your first employee changes the obligations more than any other single step.

  • Employee or contractor is not a matter of preference, or of what the contract says it is. Getting it wrong means back-paying super and PAYG, with penalties.

  • Superannuation on top of wages, paid on time. Unpaid super is the exposure that reaches directors personally.

  • The award that covers them – pay rates, penalties, leave and notice, most of which are not negotiable.

  • Payroll and Single Touch Payroll reporting to the ATO every pay run, plus workers compensation before day one.

Reporting calendar

Once you are trading, the year has a shape to it. This is the whole of it for most small businesses – not all of it will apply to you.

Every pay run

  • Single Touch Payroll reported to the ATO
  • Super paid so the fund receives it – each payday since 1 July 2026, not quarterly

Every fortnight

  • Chase whatever is overdue
  • Check the cash flow position
  • Reconcile the accounts, so the bookkeeping stays current

Each quarter

  • BAS – 28 October, 28 February, 28 April, 28 July
  • PAYG instalments, on the same statement
  • Monthly on the 21st instead, if that is your cycle

Before 30 June

  • Trust distribution resolutions, if a trust is involved – miss this and the trustee is taxed at the top rate
  • The tax planning conversation, better had in April while the year can still be changed

Each year

  • Tax returns for the entity and for you
  • Workers compensation wages declared, and the policy renewed
  • ASIC annual review, if you have a company – on the anniversary of registration, not at year end
  • Insurance renewals
  • Taxable payments annual report by 28 August, in building and construction, cleaning, couriers, IT or security

For a broader read before you start, 10 essential points to consider in setting up a business in Australia covers the ground from a different angle.

We take it from here

What we do

Let us help you get your business up and running, and then stay in shape:

  • We can help you choose the right structure for your business, taking account of your budget and where you are heading

  • We can establish that structure and make all the required registrations

  • Bookkeeping and cash flow forecasting

  • Payroll, super and Single Touch Payroll, plus the rest of the day-to-day support a business needs

  • Tax planning, and tax returns for the entity and for you

Tailored to your budget

We can scale what we do to what you can spend, so you reach your financial goals sooner and get our support where it actually counts. Tell us what you are planning and we will tell you what it needs.

What it costs you in time

Most setups are done within a few days of us having what we need: identification, the names and addresses of directors and shareholders, and a decision on the structure – which is the only part that takes real thought.

Cost often drives the decision early on, and that is reasonable. We can start simple and build up later, once the concept is proven or the funds are there.

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