AUSTRAC Enrolment for Accounting Practices

AUSTRAC enrolment puts your accounting practice on the Reporting Entities Roll when it provides a designated service. Apply through AUSTRAC Online within the applicable deadline. Identify the business entity providing the service before you start the form.

What AUSTRAC is

AUSTRAC stands for Australian Transaction Reports and Analysis Centre. It is Australia’s anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism financing (AML/CTF) regulator and financial intelligence unit.

For your practice, AUSTRAC keeps the enrolment roll, receives reports and supervises compliance. Its financial intelligence work uses reported information to help law enforcement investigate financial crime. These are the two roles AUSTRAC describes.

Which Practices Must Enrol

An accounting practice must enrol if it provides a designated service with a geographical link to Australia. You can prepare enrolment when you intend to provide one. The statutory deadline runs from when you start providing the service.

Providing accounting services does not automatically bring every practice into scope. A practice that only prepares ordinary tax returns does not need to enrol for that work. Helping a client create a company or trust can be a designated service. Receiving and controlling client money for transactions can also be covered, subject to the applicable exceptions.

Use AUSTRAC’s professional designated services guidance to map what your practice actually does. Record the relevant service, why it applies or why an exception applies, and the responsible business entity. Keep that decision with your AML/CTF obligations assessment.

The entity providing the service enrols. Employees do not each enrol merely because they work for that entity. If separate entities in your group provide designated services, assess each separately. AUSTRAC permits an existing user account to enrol another business with a different ABN. Shared branding does not make separate businesses one enrolled entity.

Enrolment Versus Registration

Enrolment adds a reporting entity to the Reporting Entities Roll. Registration is an additional procedure for remittance service providers and virtual asset service providers, including digital currency exchange activities.

An accounting practice providing professional designated services generally needs enrolment. If you have been looking for AUSTRAC registration for accountants, enrolment is usually the action you need. Providing separately regulated remittance or virtual asset services changes that answer. AUSTRAC explains the distinction in its enrolment overview.

Keep your enrolment confirmation as the practice’s record. A remittance-register search answers a different question: whether a remittance provider is registered. It does not establish an accounting practice’s enrolment or compliance.

What to Have Ready Before You Start

Prepare the information for the entity that will provide the designated service. AUSTRAC’s preparation checklist asks for the following information where applicable.

• Legal name, ABN, ACN and other relevant identifiers, plus business names used for the services.
• Principal business address, registered office, contact details and relevant website domains.
• Designated services and when you started or expect to start providing them.
• Legal form, directors or partners, trustees and beneficial owners, with the details required for that legal form.
• Reporting-group information and the lead entity’s or member entities’ AUSTRAC Account Numbers.
• Employee count, tax residency, the prior financial year’s approximate annual turnover band and small-business tax status.
• AML/CTF compliance officer’s details and a levy contact if different.
• Australian earnings information requested for the industry contribution questions, including related leviable entities where relevant.

Turnover and earnings are separate questions. Use the turnover band requested by the form, then answer the levy earnings questions from the relevant financial records.

Have your practice risk assessment under way. It helps you describe the services and customers your AML/CTF program must address. Enrolment does not itself create that program.

Choose an authorised applicant who can make the declaration for the business. Give that person their own AUSTRAC Online user account and complete its multi-factor authentication setup. Keep access with authorised staff as roles change.

Enrolling Step by Step in AUSTRAC Online

Use AUSTRAC’s enrolment guide for navigation. Its published enrolment questions describe the information sections.

1. Create access through Sign up to enrol a new business, then sign in.
2. Open Business, then Enrol New Business. Read the opening declaration.
3. Identify the Australian geographical link and any reporting group. Select the business industry and designated services, with their commencement details.
4. Complete business details and legal form. Add the relevant officeholders, trustees and beneficial owners.
5. Enter business contacts and operations information. Supply the compliance officer details and industry contribution answers.
6. Review the summary. Use Previous to correct an answer, then continue to the final declaration.
7. Agree to the declaration and select Submit. Save the confirmation receipt and email, including the AUSTRAC Account Number (AAN).

Saved drafts expire after 14 days. Submit the completed application before that happens.

The receipt records the application. AUSTRAC separately emails confirmation of enrolment and can request further information. Keep both records. You can retrieve submitted details through Business, Business Profile, then Submissions.

Before treating enrolment as complete, match the confirmation to the correct legal entity and AAN. If no receipt appears, check for unanswered questions and formatting errors. Correct the marked fields before submitting again.

Selecting every service as a precaution can misstate your work. Compare each selection with your recorded service assessment. If correspondence goes to a former employee, update the contact details and account access. For an unresolved submission error, contact AUSTRAC support with the error and receipt number if one exists.

Enrolment Timing for Tranche 2 Entities

Enrolment is open for newly regulated accounting practices. The initial tranche 2 enrolment deadline has passed. If your practice provided a covered service when the new obligations began and has not applied, enrol now. AUSTRAC’s initial deadline notice gives the exact boundary.

A practice starting its first designated service later must apply no later than 28 days after the day it starts. That is an enrolment timeframe, not permission to postpone customer due diligence or the AML/CTF program. Prepare those arrangements before providing the service.

For example, a hypothetical practice adds company-creation work to its existing tax-return service. Record when it first starts the designated service and calculate the 28-day enrolment deadline from that event. Its older tax-return work does not start that clock by itself.

After You Enrol

Maintain your AML/CTF program, complete required customer due diligence and keep the relevant records. Lodge reports when their triggers apply. Your suspicious matter reporting procedure must tell staff how to act when a suspicion arises.

AUSTRAC’s annual compliance report guidance now uses financial-year reporting periods. Submit the report within three months after the reporting period ends, unless an applicable exemption applies.

Tell AUSTRAC about changes to enrolment details within 14 days. This covers services, business details and contacts. Open Business, then Business profile, then Update Enrolment details. Correct the prefilled information, submit it and retain the new receipt. Follow the update instructions.

If you stop providing designated services, are unlikely to resume and have no outstanding reporting obligations, request removal from the roll. In Business Profile, select Remove from RE Roll and submit the completed form. Closing the business alone does not complete this step.

The industry contribution levy usually applies to medium or large businesses. Its criteria include Australian earnings of $100 million or more, or comparatively high transaction-report volumes or values. A small accounting practice is not automatically charged because it enrols. Keep earnings information accurate and pay any levy invoice AUSTRAC issues.

Assign someone to monitor AUSTRAC correspondence and keep the practice’s enrolment record current. That person needs the AAN, confirmation records and authority to update the business profile.