Defining Small Business In Australia
Australia has four key regulatory bodies who define small businesses slightly differently. The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS), the Australian Taxation Office (ATO), The Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) and the Fair Work Commission.
Small business defined by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS)
The ABS views small business in terms of employment.
- Non-employing businesses: This includes sole traders and partnerships that do not have employees.
- Microbusinesses: A small business that employs between 1-4 people.
- Other Small Business: A business that employs between 5 and 19 employees.
Small business defined by the Australian Taxation Office (ATO)
Under the ATO defintion a small business can be a sole trader, partnership, company or trust with less than $10 million in aggregated turnover.
Small business defined by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC)
ASIC has a similar sole trader, partnership, company or trust setup, but a business must meet two of the three criteria:
- The consolidated revenue of the business and any other entities it controls must be under $50 million;
- The value of consolidated gross assets for the business and entities it controls is under $25 million; and/or
- The business and entities it controls have under 100 employees
Small business defined by the Fair Work Commission
According to the Fair Work Commission, a small business is any business with fewer than 15 employees at the time of any investigation.
Small Business in Australia
There are a range of publications published by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) that provide insight into small businesses contributions to the economy and the way in which they function. This publication presents data from a range of different Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) and external sources to provide a range of information focusing on small businesses, but also, when available, providing comparisons to other business size categories. This publication provides a range of statistics related to small businesses, mostly sourced from ABS compilations, which presents statistics classified by size of employer.
It provides an opportunity for comparisons of small, medium and large businesses contributions to overall employment and overall IVA in the Australian economy in both the short-term and the longer-term. Employment by firm size in this publication is based on responses to the ABS Labor Force Survey and on financial records included in the business activity statements submitted by businesses to the ATO. Statistics about number of partners in each partnership, sourced from the ABS compilation Characteristics of small businesses in Australia, were used to generate factors that were then applied to estimates of workers on payrolls in the Labor Force Survey to provide estimates of non-employed businesses by industry.
The Fair Work Commission also has a definition of a small business, and unlike ASIC and ATO, who apply this criteria each financial year, Fair Work looks at a businesses circumstances. In employment, Fair Work Australia (FWA) defines a small business as having less than 15 employees, full-time and part-time. The ABS defines small businesses as those that employ fewer than 20 people, while the ATO defines small businesses as those with turnovers below $10 million.
The ATO definition states a business must have an aggregate turnover below $10 million. In the case of businesses that are part of a group, or that have subsidiaries, the ATO uses the aggregated turnover and can also look at a firms total net assets, which must be less than $6 million. The Australian Taxation Office (ATO) defines a small business (whether it is a person, partnership, corporation, or trust) as one with annual total turnover less than $2 million. A business may be considered small whether or not it is an individual, a partnership, company or trust.
A small business is defined as a private company, partnership, or sole proprietorship with fewer employees and lower annual revenues than a company or a medium-sized enterprise. Small-to-medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are a business category defined by the number of employees employed and the total annual revenue. According to ABS), a small business is a business that has 19 employees or less, and a medium-sized business has 199 employees or less. While this is a smaller scale, the sheer volume of small to medium enterprises (over 99% of the 2402254 businesses operating in Australia during 2020-21) more than makes up the difference between the incomes of the small enterprises and their number of employees when compared with large enterprises.
The remaining 99% of all businesses are split between 63% non-employed micros, 33.5% employed micros, 3% small businesses, and 0.5% medium businesses. About one-quarter of all Australian businesses are micro businesses, meaning that they have just 1 to 4 employees, and around 60 per cent of small businesses are sole traders, which are not employed.
All the categories of small businesses employ nearly 4.7 million people, which is around 41 percent of the workforce, making the businesses employing between zero and 19 the largest employers in Australia. Small businesses range in size from fifteen employees according to Australias Fair Work Act 2009, fifty employees according to a definition used by the European Union, to less than five hundred employees in order to be eligible for a number of US small business administration schemes. The ABS also recognizes microbusinesses with less than five employees.
Since many statistics and tables are taken from ABS publications, this post will also be using the ABS definition of a small business, including micro-businesses, except where indicated. The latest ABS estimates of indicators listed in the Quick Guide are provided in the three Statistical Snapshot publications produced by the Parliamentary Library, entitled Small Business Contributions to Economic Performance in Australia; Small Business Employment and Work Structures in Australia; and The Number of Small Business Establishments in Australia. The selected characteristics of Australian businesses also provides information about the extent to which small businesses have adopted flexible work arrangements, which enable employees to better balance their work and caring obligations.
Even within the Australian Government itself, different departments apply different rules in determining whether a business is small. The definition of whether businesses are defined as small in terms of being eligible for state support and eligible for special taxation policies, differs depending on country and sector. The Victorian governments current package of assistance is available to businesses that are registered. While smaller businesses may be classified using other methods, such as yearly turnover, output, sales, assets, or annual gross or net turnover, or net profit, number of employees is one of the most commonly used measures.
Our Story
Small Business Near Me
Small Business Near Me is an online business directory aimed solely toward small businesses and was created due to understanding that the small business environment is thriving. Research found there was a gap in directories that did not allow for small businesses to be able to link directly with customers. Small Business Near Me bridges this gap.
There are lots of reasons why small businesses are faring better than bigger businesses, and at its simplest form it comes down to being closer to customers and therefore being able to get a better idea of their needs. Afterall, business is about fulfilling needs.
Trust and transparency
In recent years, small businesses have gained popularity because they have direct access to customers. This aides in creating a community around a brand as customers expectations can be heard directly and adjustments made to be able to meet those needs. Having direct access to customers also allows small businesses to be able to show transparency, build trust through honesty and provide personalised customer service.
Trust and transparency are the most important aspect, with customers having lost faith in bigger corporations due to some fairly recent events. This has been the biggest drive, along with environmental factors being made more aware, for the drive toward small business.
Directory of Small Businesses
Small Business Near Me is quite simply a local directory of small businesses. Due to it only providing listings for small business, those people looking to source products or services from a small business can come to this directory to find one.
The definition of a small business as come directly from the Australian Bureau of Statistics, that states a small business employs fewer than 20 people.
Geo Location allows you to use the location facility on your device or search a particular area to see what small business is available in that location. This means not only people living in the area, those visiting, but those planning a visit can source small businesses in the area, providing more ways for your business to be found. This can be done by simply searching the area, narrowing down the area and looking for particular industry types in that area, opening up more possibilities.
Local SEO
Small Business Near Me also aides in getting your website seen in search engines. This is called search engine optimisation, SEO for short and in the case of small business near me, it is local SEO that benefits. This simply means that SEO for your business website is linked to the area your business covers.
Local SEO benefits are achieved in a couple of ways. The benefits include:-
- A listing in this directory will provide a direct link to your business website. These links help search engines analytics to see that your business has value, and therefore should rank higher.
- Paying a nominal fee of $4.95 per category per year, for a basic listing, featured listings will also be available. This fee aides with administration and upkeep costs of the directory, and the benefit for your business is that the search engine analytics favour paid, genuine links, such as business directories. Therefore making this link of more value.
- Name, Address and Phone Number local citations are provided. A citation is any online mention of the business name, address and phone number. These citations help in two ways, the first is they assist customers to find businesses locally, and in terms of SEO they are a critical factor. Search engines take all data provided into account when determining if a business business analytics to improve rankings, and the more citations provided the more genuine and more value your business appears to have. Ensuring your details are correct in every place helps to meet the SEO analytics of each search engine, because it shows that your business is striving to meet the needs of its customers.
Small Business Near Me is passionate about small business and assisting in the promotion aspect. With this in mind, blogs will regularly be written both about marketing tips and practices and information on industries, this will aide in both getting the directory more traffic and aid in providing customers with information about different industries, therefore assisting each business gains more attention.
