Your NZBN links to the information you’re most often asked to share so others can do business with you (things like your trading name and phone number). Having an NZBN means you won’t have to keep repeating these details over and over. When something changes, the NZBN Register is the first place you should update your information, because others you do business with can be notified automatically and you won’t have to tell everyone individually.
Let’s say you’re signing on as a supplier for a new customer. Their registration process is done online and the form asks for your NZBN. When you add your NZBN, other relevant fields are automatically pre-filled using information available about your business on the NZBN Register, like your email address and phone number. Now you don’t have to manually enter that information. Using the NZBN is faster and smarter.
Take a look and see how the NZBN is working for tradies and their membership organisations. They’re using the NZBN Register to keep members’ details up-to-date and to communicate with those members, knowing they’ve got the right information.
A man is shown laughing and then the shot cuts to a Master Plumbers logo. The man is then shown sitting in a meeting room and his name appears across the screen – Greg Wallace, CEO Master Plumbers, Gasfitters & Drainlayers NZ Inc.
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Greg: Hi, I'm Greg Wallace, I'm CEO of Master Plumbers. I've been in the construction industry for 30 years.
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A woman is shown laughing and then the scene cuts to her sitting in a meeting room. Her name appears on the screen, Melanie McIver, CEO, Brick and Blocklayers Federation of NZ.
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Melanie: I'm Melanie McIver and I'm the Chief Executive of the Brick and Blocklayers Federation.
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Melanie is shown looking over some plans with a female colleague.
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Melanie: As a member based organisation, it's very important for us to be able to actually communicate effectively with our members, and if you don't have that ability to communicate with your membership, they don't know that you're doing business with them still.
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A ‘Ministry of Plumbing’ car is shown parked on the street. Two men wearing a Ministry of Plumbing polo shirts get out of the vehicle. They then get equipment out of the back of the vehicle and walk down the street carrying their gear. The scene cuts back to Greg talking in his office.
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Greg: Our guys work in the trade every day and we need to access information really quickly, and being able to easily let other businesses know what organisation they're from was a real challenge for our members.
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Melanie is shown talking with her colleague and then cuts to her talking in the meeting room. Melanie and her colleague are shown walking down the street wearing high visibility vests and hard hats. They then stand in front of a construction site together looking over plans.
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Melanie: The really good thing about an NZBN is that you actually know who you're doing business with, you know the legal entity's actual name, rather than what they think that they're called, or what they've told you that they're called.
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Greg is shown in his office shaking hands with a Ministry of Plumbing plumber. The video then cuts to Greg talking in the meeting room.
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Greg: Now with the NZBN it's really efficient for our members to be able to update their information in one place and know that goes across all the agencies and other businesses, and that means that our members are more efficient on the job and spending less time in the office doing paperwork that isn't required.
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A close-up shot of a plumber wearing a Ministry of Plumber polo shirt. The screen then cuts to him working with his tools and equipment. It then cuts back to Greg talking in his office.
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Greg: We want plumbers to save time and money, and reduce their processes. The NZBN offers all those services in one easy platform.
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The screen fades to read “Find out how the NZBN can become an asset for your business” and then shows the NZBN logo (more business, less work) and the website – nzbn.govt.nz.
Maybe your business is relocating. Having an NZBN means you only need to update your details once, which is why the NZBN Register should always be the first place you update your business information.
Imagine if your business is moving premises. Update your information on the NZBN Register and you won’t have to repeat yourself to the telephone company, your energy provider, the local council, your business customers or your water cooler provider. This saves you time and money.
It’s available to every business – and it’s free.
Any business operating in New Zealand can get an NZBN, whether you're a large national company, a self-employed person working from the kitchen bench, a landlord, a partnership or a trust.
It's accurate
You can rely on the information on the NZBN Register, because it’s provided by businesses themselves. It can be updated easily and quickly at any time.
To be notified when a customer or supplier changes their details, create a watchlist of businesses you work with. Alternatively, you can automate this process by connecting your systems or software directly to the NZBN Register via the NZBN API. Our free data matching service makes it easy to find the NZBNs of the businesses you work with.
Encourage other businesses you work with to use their NZBNs and set up a watchlist, so when you make a change to your business information they’ll get a notification too.
If a business closes or ceases trading, the NZBN Register will show that. If you’re using the NZBN, you’ll be aware of that change and you can decide whether to continue your business relationship with them, or not.
Here’s how an NZBN helped Levi’s supply business, what could it do for you?
Levi’s business supplies lollies to a local dairy. He emails them an invoice as normal, but this time the email bounces back.He calls the owner. Andrea tells him her other clients and suppliers were notified automatically when she updated her NZBN information.Levi creates a watchlist of his clients and suppliers on the NZBN website. Now, Levi doesn’t need to worry about missing out on important information.A month later, a florist Levi supplies to relocates to new premises. When the NZBN address is updated, Levi receives an email notification and knows where to deliver his lollies.
For certainty
Having an NZBN shows that your business is real and tangible giving others peace of mind when dealing with you. You can also use the NZBN to quickly and easily check the details of new suppliers or clients, to ensure they’re who they say they are. Since the NZBN is a globally unique identifier, when you use your NZBN, anyone across the world will recognise you, which is handy when you do business overseas.
Take a look at how credit bureau Centrix uses the NZBN to accurately identify businesses during credit checks.
A man is shown walking towards a building and then through a door into an office. A Centrix logo is featured on a glass wall. A man is then shown sitting in his office and his name appears on the screen, Mark Rowley, Operations Director, Centrix.
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Mark: My name's Mark and I’m the Operations Director for Centrix. We're a credit bureau, and our clients use us to assess risk for companies they wish to do business with. We get data from hundreds of different sources and our job is to put it all together, and give them back something that they can use to assess risk.
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Mark is shown walking through the Centrix office and then sitting down at his desk and typing on his computer.
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Mark: Prior to the NZBN being available, we got data from many different sources and it can be difficult to match. An example could be — we get data on Joe's Boat Yard or J. Smith Boat Yard, and it's pretty difficult for us to establish whether that's the same entity or not. But with the NZBN, it's one number, one business.
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Mark is shown looking up a business on the NBZN Register.
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A woman is shown sitting in the Centrix office and her name appears on the screen - Monkia Lacey, GM Sales and Marketing, Centrix.
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Monika: As a business, you may on occasion need to apply for credit, and if you do it's a good idea to have an NZBN. This means that we're able to link information more accurately on your business because we have one unique identifier that's associated to your company, and this in turn enables your credit providers to make a more informed lending decision.
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Monika and Mark walk into a meeting room and sit down and look over some documents together.
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Mark: Looking to the future, we'll use the NZBN right throughout our organisation. We'll use it in our billing and finance functions it'll make us so much more efficient. We think it's going to transform our business.
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The screen fades to read ‘Find out how the NZBN can become an asset for your business’ and then shows the NZBN logo (more business, less work) and the NZBN website – nzbn.govt.nz.
Your customers and suppliers will be using the NZBN
More and more businesses are using the NZBN, by either getting and using their own, or accessing other organisations’ NZBNs from the Register. Some of these businesses will be your customers or suppliers now or in the future. Soon, they’ll be asking for your NZBN so they can use your information to connect or transact with you.
Get your NZBN now, so that when you’re asked for it, you’re ready. When something changes, the NZBN Register should be the first place you update your business information, because others you work with rely on these details being up-to-date. As more people start using the NZBN, it will become central to the way you do business.
Search the NZBN Register to see if your business already has an NZBN and, if not, get yours now (it’s free).
Many government agencies, like ACC, Inland Revenue and the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment already use the NZBN to quickly and easily identify businesses.
If you’re a supplier to government, or are involved with tendering or contracting, it’s much easier to do business with government agencies if you have an NZBN.
Soon, when you update your core business information on the NZBN Register it will automatically update with every government agency. Won’t that be easier?
Ask the government agencies you deal with when they’ll be connected to the NZBN Register.
Over time, the NZBN will be integrated into all the day-to-day interactions you have with other businesses (and government), so processes that are currently manual and tedious, will be automated and seamless.
