Five registers. Explained without the acronyms.
Every check reads the same five Australian records. Here is what each one holds, in the words you would actually use, and what you miss by skipping it.
You have probably seen them written as ABR, ASIC, AUSTRAC, DFAT and FCA. Nobody outside compliance knows what that means, and a list of acronyms is not a reason to trust a number.
- ABRAustralian Business Register
Is this business real, and is it still trading today?
The legal name behind the trading name, whether it is a sole trader, a company or a trust, whether the ABN is active right now, and whether it is registered for GST.
Skip it and you missAn ABN that was cancelled two months ago still looks like eleven digits on an invoice. Nothing on the invoice tells you it is dead, and paying it does not make it live.
Free to search at ABN LookupCheck it yourself - ASICAustralian Securities and Investments Commission
Who is actually behind the company, and is any of them banned?
The people who run the company, whether any of them has been disqualified from managing a company or banned from working in finance or credit, and whether the company itself has gone into administration or liquidation.
Skip it and you missSomeone disqualified last year can register a brand new company the same week. The new company looks clean because it is new, and the name on the quote is not the name on the ban.
Free to search at ASIC ConnectCheck it yourself - AUSTRACAustralian Transaction Reports and Analysis Centre
Has the regulator taken action against them?
Whether a money transfer or digital currency business is registered the way the law requires, and whether the regulator has published action against it.
Skip it and you missA remittance business operating without registration is committing an offence, and it will not be mentioned on the website of the business taking your money.
Free to search at the Remittance Sector RegisterCheck it yourself - DFATDepartment of Foreign Affairs and Trade
Is this person or business under Australian sanctions?
Whether the person, the business or the vessel appears on Australia's Consolidated List, which names everyone subject to Australian sanctions, including aliases and dates of birth.
Skip it and you missThis is the one that is not paperwork. Dealing with a listed person is a serious criminal offence carrying up to 10 years in prison for an individual, and that law applies to you whether or not you are in a regulated industry.
Free to download from the Australian Sanctions OfficeCheck it yourself - FCAFederal Court of Australia
Are they in court right now?
Federal proceedings they are named in, going back to 1984 and updated as matters are filed, with the parties and the court dates.
Skip it and you missA dispute that has been filed but not yet decided appears on none of the registers above. It is on the public record the day it is filed, and it is the earliest warning any of these five gives you.
Free to search at Federal Law SearchCheck it yourself
All five of these records are public, free to search, and linked above. Doing all five by hand is five websites, five search forms and an afternoon, and at the end of it you still have to write down what you found and when. That is what $0.49 buys: the five searches in one action, in about 30 seconds, and a dated result you can put in the file.
the personal bankruptcy index, run by AFSA (Australian Financial Security Authority), is not read by a check and does not move the score.
The index is a paid, name-by-name search with no bulk feed, so a check does not read it and the score does not include it. Saying otherwise would mean charging you for a search that never ran.
If you are dealing with a sole trader, run this search yourself. A company search will never show a personal bankruptcy, because the index holds people and never companies.
Can you trust your builder?
The same five registers, run against the most ordinary version of the problem: a large payment to someone whose paperwork looks fine.
You are about to pay a $40,000 deposit to a builder.
The quote looks professional. The ABN is printed on it. You have met him twice and he was fine. Here is what one check returns.
- ABR20/20Nothing to report
ABN active since 2019, registered for GST, and the trading name on the quote matches the legal name.
- ASIC4/15Found something
The sole director has been the sole director of two other building companies. Both went into liquidation, one in 2023 and one in 2024.
- AUSTRAC20/20Nothing to report
Nothing published. Building is not a business type the regulator registers, so a clear result here is expected.
- DFAT15/15Nothing to report
No match against the sanctions list, on the company or on the director.
- FCA5/15Found something
One Federal Court matter filed in March, still open, with the director named. Filed, not decided, and public since the day it was filed.
- FRESH15/15Nothing to report
Every record above was read within its published refresh window. This is a sub-score, not a register: a check on our own data, so the score is built on current records.
The business checked out. The person behind it has put two building companies into liquidation and is currently being sued. Two of the five registers found something, and both of them are registers you were never going to search.
It does not tell you to walk away. It tells you what to ask him about before you transfer the money, and it gives you a dated record of the fact that you asked.
Three free lookups, no card. After that, $0.49 for all five registers at once. Credits never expire.
No single register answers the question.
Australia keeps these records in five places because five different agencies were given five different jobs. The business register does not know who the directors are. The company register does not know whether the regulator has acted. The sanctions list knows nothing about a liquidation. None of them knows about a case that was filed last month.
So a search of any one of them comes back clean while the thing you needed to know is sitting in another. That is not a flaw in any of the five. It is just what happens when the answer is spread across an entire government, and it is the whole reason this product exists.
Every weight, source and refresh cadence behind the score is published and change-logged on the methodology page. We would not ask you to trust a number we would not show the working for.
Questions people actually ask
Could I just do these searches myself?
Yes, and we link to every one of them so you can. All five are free. The reason people pay $0.49 instead is that doing it by hand is five websites, five different search forms, and no record at the end of it. Ironbark runs all five in about 30 seconds and hands you a dated result you can file. One public record a check does not read is the personal bankruptcy index, which is $15 a name at the government's own service; if you are dealing with a sole trader, run that one yourself.
What does FCA mean here?
The Federal Court of Australia. It is Federal Law Search, the public record of federal proceedings going back to 1984, updated as matters are filed. It is not the UK financial regulator, which uses the same three letters.
Does a clear result mean the business is safe?
No, and we will not say it does. A check tells you what the public record held at the moment we looked. It is a defensible starting point for a decision, not the decision, and it is not legal advice or a guarantee. The value is that you now know what the record says and you have a note of when you looked.
Do I have to be a regulated business to use this?
No. Sanctions law in particular applies to everyone: dealing with a person on Australia's Consolidated List is a serious criminal offence whatever industry you are in. Plenty of people run a check simply because they are about to hand over a large amount of money to someone they met twice.
What does it cost?
Three free lookups with no card. After that $0.49 for a check across all five registers, or $29 a month for the Solo tier, which includes 50 checks and watches 15 businesses for you continuously. Prices are in Australian dollars and are the amount billed. IRONBARKTECH holds an ABN but is not registered for GST, so nothing is added at checkout. Credits never expire.
How current is the data?
It depends on the register, and we publish the cadence for each one rather than claiming everything is live. Registration and sanctions refresh daily; the director, regulator and court sources refresh weekly. Every field on a report carries the time it was last refreshed, and the full detail is on the methodology page.
Check all five at once.
Paste an ABN. Three free lookups, no card, no sign-up. After that it is $0.49 a check and the credits never expire.