For cleaning businesses · contractor checks
Know your contract cleaners’ ABNs are still good before you pay them
Most cleaning businesses set a contractor up once, on their first shift, and never look at their ABN again. A few years and a lot of turnover later, some of those numbers have been cancelled, dropped off GST, or never matched the name on the invoice. ClearABN checks the whole list against the Australian Business Register in a couple of minutes.
Why it matters at TPAR time
Cleaning is one of the services in the ATO’s taxable payments reporting system. The ATO says you must lodge a Taxable payments annual report (TPAR) if your business provides cleaning services, pays contractors or subcontractors to provide those cleaning services on its behalf, and has an ABN. Payments to employees aren’t reported. The report is due by 28 August each year.
If cleaning is only part of what you do, the ATO’s test is whether the payments you received for cleaning services are 10% or more of your gross business income for the financial year. Its list of cleaning services is broad: carpet, chimney, exterior (except sandblasting), gutter, interior, park facilities, road and street sweeping and swimming pools, on buildings, homes, equipment, events and vehicles. Where a contractor supplies their own products, the ATO’s example reports the full invoiced amount.
For each contractor, the TPAR asks for their ABN (every ABN they used if it changed during the year), their name, their address, and the year’s totals paid, GST paid, and tax withheld where no ABN was quoted. The ATO’s own advice is to check that the ABN on each invoice matches your record, and to confirm the ABN, name and GST registration on ABN Lookup.
What usually turns up
The ABN was cancelled
A contract cleaner stops trading, sets up a company, or lets the ABN lapse, and keeps invoicing on the old number. Your contact card still looks fine.
GST registration ended
The invoice still says “includes GST”. The register says they haven’t been registered since March. That’s worth knowing before the GST credit goes on your BAS.
The name doesn’t match
You pay “Sparkle Cleaning”. The ABN belongs to S & J Nguyen, or to someone else entirely because two digits got swapped.
There’s no ABN at all
New cleaner, first shift, “I’ll send it through”. It never arrives and the invoice gets paid anyway.
If a contractor doesn’t give you an ABN
The ATO says that if a supplier doesn’t provide an ABN and the total payment is more than $75 excluding GST, you generally withhold the top rate of tax from the payment and pay it to the ATO. There are exceptions, and you can’t claim a GST credit on payments you withheld from. If a contractor has applied for an ABN, the ATO says you can hold payment until they quote it, but not pay in full on the promise that it’s coming. The no-ABN withholding calculator shows the amounts.
How to check your contractors
- 01
Once, for the whole list
Export contacts from Xero, MYOB or QuickBooks and run the free 25-supplier check, or the full bulk check for longer lists.
- 02
Then keep an eye on the ones that matter
Put your regular contractors on the free ABN watch. You get an email only if it’s cancelled, GST registration ends or the registered name changes.
Your bookkeeper does the TPAR? Send them the TPAR guide for bookkeepers.
General information only
This page summarises the ATO’s published guidance in plain terms. It is general information only, not tax or financial advice, and it doesn’t cover every case. Whether you need to lodge a TPAR or withhold from a payment depends on your circumstances: read the ATO pages below or ask a registered tax or BAS agent. ClearABN reports what the Australian Business Register shows.
Start with the first 25
No account, no card, and nothing connects to your accounting file.
ClearABN shows Australian Business Register facts and the result of an ABN checksum. It does not provide tax, legal or financial advice. Links go to the ATO and the Australian Business Register so you can read their pages yourself.