Somebody sent you a link. Here is what it is.

A supplier has asked you to apply for a trade account. About five minutes, on your phone, and there is nothing to sign up for.

What it will ask you for

Your ABN

Checked in your browser before it is sent anywhere, then looked up against the register. A name mismatch surfaces on the page rather than a week later.

Who can sign for the business

How many people that is depends on what kind of business you are. The form works it out and tells you why before it asks.

Two trade references, if you have them

For a business with no credit file these are the only outside evidence there is, so they carry real weight.

A rough monthly figure

Not a commitment. It is what lets the supplier size the account sensibly instead of guessing.

Compared with how this usually goes

What happens to it

No account, no password

Nothing to sign up for and nothing to remember. Close the tab halfway through and you can have a link back by email.

You see the outcome, not the reasoning

Approved with a limit and terms, declined with the supplier's reason if they wrote one, or a question. How they got there is their commercial judgement, and if you were declined the person to talk to is them.

Kept seven years, then gone

Signed agreements and their evidence are retained, which is the whole point of them. Unfinished applications, sessions and one-time codes expire on their own.

What you are signing

The whole agreement, on screen, before you sign it — not a summary with a tickbox and not a link to a page that could say something different next year. What you read is what goes into the record, and you get a copy of it.

We email a six-digit code and the button does nothing until you enter it, so nobody can sign in your name. Your name, the time and the device you used are recorded as part of the agreement. You can also decline.

Why it wants more than one signature

For most kinds of business, one is not enough to bind it — a company is normally signed for by two officers, and a trust with individual trustees needs every trustee. A sole trader signs once and is never asked for a guarantee, because a guarantee over your own debt is paperwork rather than protection.

The rule for all six kinds of business.

If your supplier does not use us yet

You can fill your details in once and name the suppliers you buy from. We send each of them an invitation that says a customer has applied and gives your trading name — nothing else, until they confirm they are the business you named by matching their own ABN.

Apply for a trade account.

What we hold

Your supplier decides what is collected; we handle it for them. No credit report is obtained about you unless their terms say so and you agreed to that separately.

The full collection notice.