Matching Companies to a Compliance Register by ACN
Matching a client company between two systems looks simple until the systems disagree on what to call it. NowInfinity held officer and annual-review data keyed to each entity's ACN, while Xero Practice Manager held the same entities under whatever trading name had been typed in at onboarding. Reconciling the two by name produced enough mismatches that we rebuilt the match key entirely, from name to ACN, the identifier ASIC assigns and neither system can misspell.
Executive Summary
Context
The same advisory group's compliance function ran on NowInfinity, the corporate register tracking each client company's officers, shareholders and ASIC registration and review dates. Pushing that data onto the HubSpot company profile meant first proving which NowInfinity record and which XPM record described the same real company, across a book built mostly from trusts, SMSFs and single-purpose companies rather than ordinary trading businesses.
What We Built
We rebuilt the match between XPM and NowInfinity around each entity's ACN instead of its name, restricted it to the business-structure types NowInfinity covers, and added a rule excluding companies XPM still listed as under external administration.
Tech Stack
- HubSpot Companies
- Xero Practice Manager (XPM)
- NowInfinity
- ACN match
Not a fit if every entity in your book already carries one stable legal name across every system. A straight name match will hold, and a second identifier match adds a step you don't need. This build pays off when a real share of your clients are trusts, SMSFs or single-purpose companies whose names drift between systems, and only when an identifier such as an ACN already exists in both to match on instead.
The Challenge
Every client entity existed in both XPM and NowInfinity, but the two systems didn't have a shared key to prove it. XPM recorded each client under a Company Number, Business Number in some reports, while NowInfinity used a field called Acn. Matching on name looked like the obvious shortcut, but it fell apart quickly, because a trust, an SMSF trustee and a single-purpose company can each carry a name close enough to another's that even careful manual reconciliation couldn't tell them apart.
NowInfinity also covers only a subset of what XPM tracks. It holds officers and ASIC dates for companies and trustees, but not the individuals and bare trusts that XPM carries too, so part of the list could never match whichever key we chose. And entities under external administration, already in liquidation, stayed listed as active rather than archived, so the match had to be told explicitly to leave them out.
Our Approach
We moved the match key from name to ACN, and worked through the mismatch list by email over three days in September 2022 until the rule set held. We scoped the match to the business-structure types NowInfinity could recognise: Company, Trustee and SMSF Trustee. Individuals and Trusts were excluded, rather than left to fail silently.
A second rule pulled out any entity under external administration, so a liquidated company wasn't matched to a stale, active-registration record. We ran the rebuilt match as an on-demand pass rather than a continuous sync. It resolved the great majority of the roughly 1,240 companies checked, and it left a remainder of 40 for a person to resolve by hand.
Impact
A government identifier replaces a guessable name
Keying the match on ACN instead of name means the reconciliation no longer depends on two systems spelling the same trust the same way. The identifier is assigned once, by ASIC, and neither system can record it inconsistently the way a typed client name drifts over time.
The match knows which entities it can actually check
Scoping the pass to Company, Trustee and SMSF Trustee records means the reconciliation only attempts matches NowInfinity can support, so an Individual or Trust record never sits in the results as an unexplained failure. The exclusion is a rule the match applies on purpose, not a gap to explain later.
Entities in liquidation stop corrupting the match
The external-administration exclusion means a company that XPM still lists as active, because it hasn't been formally closed out, doesn't get matched to compliance data describing a business that no longer operates under normal registration. The reconciliation reflects a client's real legal status, not just what XPM's own records say.
Forty unresolved records go to a person, not a guess
Of the roughly 1,240 XPM companies run through the ACN match, a small remainder of forty didn't resolve, and they were left for manual review rather than forced into a guessable match. Naming that remainder is what makes the rest of the match trustworthy.
The Australian Company Number ASIC assigns to each entity, recorded as Acn in NowInfinity and as Company Number, Business Number in some reports, in XPM. The reconciliation matches records on this identifier instead of the name.
A rule restricting the match to the XPM entity types NowInfinity can recognise: Company, Trustee and SMSF Trustee. Individuals and Trusts are excluded rather than returned as unresolved matches.
A rule that removes any entity flagged under external administration before the match runs, so a liquidated company is not reconciled against a record describing its earlier, active registration.
The matching routine runs as a manual, on-demand check rather than a continuous sync, worked through against the mismatch list until the rule set resolved the great majority of the roughly 1,240 companies checked.
XPM and NowInfinity had no shared key, and matching on name fell apart, because a trust, an SMSF trustee and a single-purpose company can carry near-identical names. Now the match runs on ACN, and only Company, Trustee and SMSF Trustee records go in, because those are the types NowInfinity covers. A second rule leaves out any entity XPM still lists as under external administration. Of roughly 1,240 companies checked, 40 were left for a person to resolve by hand.
FAQ
Trusts, SMSF trustees and single-purpose companies often carry names close enough to another entity's that a name-only match cannot reliably tell them apart. Reconciling by ACN, the identifier ASIC assigns to each entity, removed that ambiguity.
Only the business-structure types NowInfinity can recognise: Company, Trustee and SMSF Trustee. Individuals and Trusts were excluded, and entities under external administration were excluded too, so the match reflected a client's real, current status.
