The four, at a glance
| Source | What we read | Where you can use it |
|---|---|---|
| Australian Business Register (ABN Lookup) | Business name, ABN, whether the ABN is active, GST registration status, state, entity type, business names | Free tools, no sign-in |
| Fair Work Commission published award rates | The published figure for a selected award, classification and pay type | Inside the app |
| ATO Super Fund Lookup | Fund name, ABN, USI, complying status | Inside the app |
| NSW Trades Register | Licence status and expiry | NSW only · opt-in · in the app |
The split matters and we would rather explain it than let you find out. ABN Lookup is open to everybody — it is on the free tools on this site and you do not need an account. The other three are inside the app, behind sign-in. That is deliberate: each one spends a registered credential per call or sits on a metered allowance, and an open door is one somebody else can drain.
1 · Australian Business Register — ABN Lookup public
ABN Lookup, the Australian Business Register's own public search service, operated by the ATO. Yamate uses the ABR's published web service under a registered key.
- Entity name and any registered business names
- ABN, and whether it is active or cancelled
- Whether the ABN is registered for GST
- State and postcode of the registered address
- Entity type — sole trader, company, trust and so on
- Free invoice generator — fills in your name and ABN
- ABN guide — check what the register holds about an ABN
- GST calculator and GST registration checker
- Whether a particular sale is taxable. The register knows whether a business is registered for GST. It knows nothing about the job on your invoice. That is why our invoice generator will untick GST for an unregistered ABN but never ticks it on for you.
- Whether the business is any good, solvent, or insured. It is a registration record.
- Whether you should register for GST. That depends on your turnover, not on the register.
You get an honest message and the form still works — you type the details in as you always could. A failed lookup is never presented as a finding about the business. "We couldn't reach the register" and "that business doesn't exist" are different sentences and we only ever use the true one.
Try it — this is the same component the tools use:
2 · Fair Work Commission — published award rates in the app
The Fair Work Commission's Modern Awards Pay Database, via its published API. Award information and the awards themselves are published by the Fair Work Ombudsman and the Fair Work Commission.
Exactly one thing: it puts what you are paying next to the published figure for the award and classification you selected, and names the source. That is a comparison, and it is useful — most underpayments are arithmetic, not intent.
- It does not tell you whether your business is compliant.
- It does not decide which award or classification applies to your worker. You choose that, and it is genuinely hard — the same job title can sit under different awards depending on the work and the industry.
- It does not render a verdict. You will never see "You're compliant ✓" or "You're underpaying ❌" from this comparison. Those are legal conclusions and they are not ours to draw.
The published data contains some bad rows, and we would rather show you nothing than show you one. We have seen a figure come back at roughly $26.44 per week for a role where that is obviously an hourly amount sitting in a weekly field — the national minimum hourly wage in the wrong column. A tool that displayed it would have told a tradie their apprentice's weekly rate was twenty-six dollars.
So Yamate suppresses figures that fail its sanity checks, and says so:
That message is a feature, not a failure. No rate is better than a confidently wrong rate — and if you ever see it, go to Fair Work's own pay tools and the award itself.
3 · ATO Super Fund Lookup in the app
Super Fund Lookup, the ATO's register of super funds.
Because a super fund typed by hand is a super fund typed wrong. A payslip has to name the fund, and a contribution has to reach the right one — so instead of a free-text box, you search the register, pick the fund, and Yamate keeps the ABN and USI the register gave it, with the date it said so.
- Fund name · fund ABN · USI · complying status · the date the register last updated the record
- "Complying" is not "correct for this employee." It is a status the ATO publishes about the fund. Whether it is the fund your employee actually chose is a different question, and only they can answer it.
- It is not confirmation that a contribution was accepted, or that it arrived.
- It is not advice about super, and choosing a fund is the employee's right.
4 · NSW Trades Register NSW only
The NSW Government's Trades Register, via the NSW API portal.
- New South Wales only. There is no national trade licence register in Australia, and Yamate does not have an equivalent integration for any other state or territory. If you work in Victoria, Queensland, WA, SA, Tasmania, the ACT or the NT, your licence is checked at your own state's regulator — we will link you there, and we will not pretend to check it.
- Opt-in, and off by default. Nothing is checked unless you turn it on.
- At most one check per licence per day. It is a licence, not a live feed.
- Licence status and expiry date, and the date we checked
If the register cannot be reached, Yamate says the check did not run. An unavailable service is never rendered as an invalid licence — those are opposite claims and confusing them would be the worst possible error in this feature.
Rules we hold ourselves to
- Name the source and the date, every time. A number with no provenance is a rumour.
- Show nothing rather than something wrong. Suppressed data with an honest message beats a confident figure that is out by a factor of forty.
- Never turn a lookup into a verdict. Registers publish records. Compliance is a legal conclusion, and it is not something a search result can establish.
- Never imply endorsement. Reading a public register is not approval by the body that runs it.
- Manual entry always works. Every lookup on this site is optional. If a register is down, or your business is not on it in the way you expect, you type it in — the way you always could.
- An error is never a finding. "We couldn't check" and "it's not valid" are different sentences.
FAQ
Is Yamate approved by the ATO or Fair Work?
No. Yamate reads public registers and published data and shows you what they say, with dates and sources. It is not accredited, approved or endorsed by any government body, and it does not lodge your BAS or your tax return.
Why can't I use the award rate or super lookup without signing in?
Each of those calls spends a registered government credential or sits on a metered allowance, so they are behind sign-in where they can be limited per user. ABN Lookup is open to everybody and powers the free tools on this site.
Why is the licence check NSW only?
Because there is no national trade licence register, and NSW is the integration that exists. We would rather say that plainly than imply national coverage we do not have.
What happens if a register is down?
You get told the check did not run, and you carry on by hand. Nothing is guessed, and an unavailable service is never presented as a negative result about a business or a licence.
Does my data go to the government?
A lookup sends only the search itself — a business name, an ABN, a fund name, a licence number. It does not send your customer list, your invoices, your employees' names or your member numbers.
How current is any of this?
Every rendered registry answer carries the date it was read. Registers change without telling anyone, so a check is a photograph of a moment, not a standing guarantee.
Related
General information for Australian businesses, not tax, legal or financial advice. Yamate is independent and is not affiliated with, approved by or endorsed by the ATO, the Australian Business Register, the Fair Work Commission, the Fair Work Ombudsman or NSW Fair Trading. Registry data is shown as published at the time it was read and can change without notice — check the source before relying on it.