Looking Up an ABN or ACN

Most entity forms have a globe button beside the ABN field. It searches the Australian Business Register (the same data behind ABN Lookup) and fills in the numbers for you, so you don't have to copy them from another window.

It appears on company, trust, SMSF, partnership and individual forms — both the full entity forms and the inspector panels inside a diagram.

What the button searches for

It searches by name. That is what it is for: you have typed the entity's name, and you want its ABN.

The name search is deliberately fuzzy, so it still finds the entity when what you typed isn't word-for-word what is registered — "Acme Holdings" will find "ACME HOLDINGS PTY LTD". You get up to ten candidates, best match first.

What the form holds	What the button does
A name (whatever else is filled in)	Searches by name
No name, but a valid ABN	Looks up that ABN and fills in the name
No name, but a valid ACN	Looks up that ACN and fills in the name
Nothing	The button is disabled

Note: A name always wins. If you have a name and an ABN on the form, the button searches by name — it will not quietly turn into an exact lookup of the number you happen to have typed.

What gets filled in when you choose a result

Click a result and StructureGram writes what that record holds:

The ABN, if the record has one.
The ACN or ARBN, if the record has one and the form has a field for it (companies do; trusts, SMSFs, partnerships and individuals have an ABN field only).

Whatever the record holds is applied. Deciding whether that record is really your entity is your job, not StructureGram's — it shows you the name, numbers, type, location and status so you can judge.

Two things it will never do:

It never blanks a field it has no answer for. If the record has no ACN, an ACN already on your form stays exactly as it was.
It never invents a name. A record the register cannot name is shown as "Name not provided by ABN Lookup", not under the name you typed.

The name

If your name field is empty — because you looked the entity up by its number — the registered name is filled in automatically. There is nothing to overwrite and nothing to weigh up.
If your name field already has something different, the result offers you the registered name: Use "ACME HOLDINGS PTY LTD" as the name too. Click it to adopt the registered spelling, or ignore it and keep yours. Choosing the record and adopting its name are two separate decisions.
Individuals are the exception. A person's name is three fields here (given, middle, family) and the register returns a single string, often a business or trading name. Splitting that back apart would be guesswork, so an individual's name is never filled in from a lookup — read the result and type the name yourself.

When the ACN and ABN don't match up

For an Australian company, the ABN is the ACN with two extra digits on the front. When that holds, the two numbers are certainly the same company.

When it doesn't, StructureGram still applies the ACN — but tells you:

ACN 123 456 789 is not derived from ABN 12 345 678 901, so the two are not confirmed to be the same entity — check it before saving.

This is worth reading rather than dismissing. On a trust's register record, the ACN is usually the corporate trustee's — a different company from the trust itself. The message is not saying the number is wrong; it is saying the register has not proved the two belong together.

A foreign company's ARBN is never derived from its ABN, so it is always applied with that caveat.

Troubleshooting

"No record found." The register has no entry for that number. That is its answer, not an error — the number may be wrong, or the company may never have had an ABN. Clear the number, type the entity's name, and search by name instead.

The search found nothing for my name. Try fewer words, or the distinctive part of the name — "Epitelos" rather than "Epitelos Pty. Ltd." — since the register matches on registered and business names.

I got the wrong company. Nothing is saved until you save the form. Correct the fields, or reload the entity to start again.

The status says Cancelled. The ABN is no longer active. The numbers still apply if you want them; the status is there so you can decide.

The button is greyed out. There is no name and no valid number on the form yet. An ABN must be 11 digits and an ACN 9 before it can be looked up.