The annual membership fee is $594 inclusive of GST.

Your membership fee can be paid either annually or monthly. If you elect to pay annually, your annual payment will be the amount of the annual membership fee. If you elect to pay monthly, your monthly payment will be 1/12th of the annual membership fee.

Membership fee must be paid by direct debit, from either a credit/debit card (Visa or MasterCard) or an Australian bank account. Direct debits are processed on the first business day of the month. Your initial direct debit will occur on the first business day of the month after you join ABN

Your initial ABN membership period is from the date you join until 12 months from the end of the calendar month in which you join (e.g. if you joined on 10 January 2024, your initial membership period would be from 10 January 2024 until 31 January 2025). At the end of your initial ABN membership period, your membership automatically continues, either on a year-to-year basis if you pay your membership fee annually, or on a month-to-month basis if you pay your membership monthly.

An ABN membership cannot be terminated within the first 12 months. Should you wish to cease your ABN membership after this time, you can do so by contacting our office and requesting a copy of our ABN Membership Cancellation form be forwarded to you for completion. This form must be submitted to us by the 21st day of the month for a direct debit scheduled for the following calendar month to not occur.

The following examples illustrate the cut-off times for cancellation and assume that you are outside your initial ABN membership period:

• Monthly payments: if you submit an ABN Membership Cancellation form on 16 May, your membership will cease on 31 May and no further direct debits will be taken. If, however, you submit an ABN Membership Cancellation form on 26 May, your membership will cease on 30 June and a final direct debit will be processed on the first business day of June.
• Annual payments where the next direct debit is due to occur next calendar month: if you submit an ABN Membership Cancellation form on 16 May, and your next direct debit is due to occur on the first business day of June, your membership will cease on 31 May and no further direct debits will be processed. If, however, you submit an ABN Membership Cancellation form on 26 May, a final direct debit will be processed on the first business day of June for 1/12th of the annual membership fee and your membership will cease on 30 June.
• Annual payments where the next direct debit is due to occur sometime later than next calendar month: if you submit an ABN Membership Cancellation form on 16 May, and your next direct debit is due to be processed on the first business day of September, your membership will cease on 31 August and no further direct debits will be processed.

ABN reserves the right to cancel your membership at any time for reasons including, but not limited to, failure to pay your membership fees, unlawful distribution of our intellectual property, or your posting of content online that is in violation of any applicable law or regulation (such as copyright, trademark or other intellectual property rights), is in violation of privacy rules or personal rights of others, or is defamatory, obscene, threatening, abusive or hateful.

In regard to your initial ABN membership period, your Direct Debit Request (DDR) Service Agreement acts as a Tax Invoice.
In regard to any continuation of your membership beyond your initial ABN membership period:

• if you have chosen to pay your membership annually, a tax invoice will be emailed to you in the month before a direct debit is scheduled to be processed;
• if you have chosen to pay your membership monthly, no tax invoices will be issued nor are they required to be issued. This is because your membership continues on a month-to-month basis, and each supply of a month’s membership is below the low-value threshold for tax invoices in subsection 29-80(1) of the A New Tax System (Goods and Services Tax) Act 1999. 1/11th of each payment represents GST.

The annual membership fee may be varied from time to time. We will provide at least 14 days’ notice of any variation to the price.

Any variation to the annual membership fee will not affect your membership payments until your next direct debit is scheduled to take place after the 14 days’ notice has expired.

If you have chosen to pay your membership monthly and you are still within your initial ABN Membership period at the time that the annual membership fee is varied, you may cancel your ABN membership, notwithstanding the aforementioned statement that an ABN membership cannot be terminated within the first 12 months. Please refer to the “Cancellation of membership by you” section of these terms and conditions for further details on the process of cancelling your membership.

Your ABN membership includes complimentary membership to Australian Bookkeepers Association (ABA). If the ABA section of your ABN membership application is completed, we will assess your application & write to you detailing your voting status. If the ABA section of your ABN membership application form is not completed at the time of your application, your ABA membership will assume a non-voting status. If you wish to change your membership status, you can complete the ABA Update your details form from within the Member Centre of our website.

Your ABA membership is stapled to your ABN membership however should you wish to renounce your ABA membership, please contact us on 1300 856 710 or [email protected].

It is not possible to cancel the ABN component of the membership and only retain the ABA membership as this is a stapled membership. Therefore, to become an ABA member only, your current ABN membership must be cancelled, and a new ABA membership application completed. It will not be possible to retain the original ABN membership number.

The ABN Helpline provides general guidance on bookkeeping, GST and other matters which fall under the definition of a BAS Service.

The following are expressly outside of the scope of service of the ABN Helpline:

• advice on matters of income tax;
• advice on human resources (HR) matters, including the Fair Work provisions, Award interpretation or industrial relations issues;
• software-specific advice;
• specific advice to a specific set of circumstances relating to you or your client;
• advice that is not for you or a client;
• support for an academic pursuit, such as an assignment or examination;
• advice on matters relating to the GST, sales tax or income tax regimes of foreign jurisdictions.

The ABN Helpline provides general guidance only. The ABN Helpline cannot be relied upon to cover any specific situation and you should not act, or refrain from acting, upon the information contained therein without obtaining specific professional advice. It is not legal or financial advice and should not be relied upon as such. Moreover, the information provided by the ABN Helpline is subject to change at any time and therefore we give no assurance or warranty that the information is current when read.

Australian Bookkeepers Network, its directors and employees do not give any warranty as to the accuracy, reliability or completeness of information contained in an ABN Helpline response nor do they accept or assume any liability or duty of care for any loss arising from any action taken or not taken by anyone in reliance on the information in an ABN Helpline response or for any decision based on it, except in so far as any liability under statute cannot be excluded.

Our FairPlay Policy is intended to ensure that our members do not use our Helpline service in a way that is excessive or unreasonable. Such usage may impact our ability to provide a reliable Helpline service to other members. A decision as to whether usage is excessive or unreasonable is at the absolute discretion of ABN.

In forming a view as to whether usage is excessive, we will consider:

• the number of Helpline questions submitted
• the frequency by which Helpline questions are submitted;
• the complexity of Helpline questions submitted, including the extent to which they are multi-part.

In forming a view as to whether unreasonable use is occurring, we will consider:

• the likelihood that the Helpline question submitted relates to the business affairs of our member or their client (a usage we consider reasonable);
• the likelihood that the Helpline question submitted relates to the business affairs of a person who is neither a member nor a client of a member (a usage we consider unreasonable);
• the likelihood that the Helpline question relates to an academic purpose, such as a university or school assignment (a usage we consider unreasonable).

If we believe that you are in breach of our FairPlay Policy, we will let you know by either writing to you or telephoning you.

We aim to reply to ABN Helpline requests by no later than 5pm on the third weekday following submission of the request. For example, if an ABN Helpline request was submitted at 10pm on a Thursday, we aim to reply no later than 5pm the following Tuesday.

From time-to-time, peak demand may lead to these timeframes being extended. If this is the case, we will endeavour to let you know as soon as this is apparent.

The following do not count as weekdays for the purpose of the ABN Helpline timeframes:

1. gazetted public holidays in the state of Queensland;
2. the period of the annual Christmas closure of ABN, including the week before and the week after;
3. the period of the bi-annual ABN conference, including the weekday before and the weekday after.