The ABN validation check in Data Health & Insights identifies contacts with missing or invalid Australian Business Numbers (ABNs) and flags transactions where GST treatment may be inconsistent with a contact's ABN status. It uses data from the Australian Business Register (ABR) and your client's Xero account.
To access it, go to a client's account and select Data Health in the left navigation, then select ABN validation.
Important: This check is available for Australian clients only. The client's base currency and account country must be set to Australia in Dext, and the connected Xero organisation must be Australian.
Who can use this check
The ABN validation check is available to practices with the Data Health & Insights add-on, on Practice Essentials and Practice Advanced plans.
The two checks
ABN validation surfaces two types of issues. Select either check to expand it and see the affected contacts and transactions.
Invalid or Missing ABNs
Invalid or Missing ABNs shows active contacts that have transactions above the minimum transaction value threshold, but either have no ABN recorded or have an ABN that doesn't pass ABR validation.
Results are split into two sub-sections:
Contacts with No ABN — contacts with transactions above the threshold but no ABN recorded in Xero.
Contacts with Invalid ABN — contacts where the recorded ABN fails ABR validation.
Within each sub-section, contacts are grouped by tax type. Select a tax type to expand it, then select a contact group to see the individual transactions. Each transaction shows the date, tax type, created on date, contact, description, and account. Select View Contact to open the contact record directly in Xero.
You can filter the transaction list by Balance Sheet, Profit and Loss, or All, and search by contact name or description. You can also set a minimum transaction value to focus on contacts above a certain threshold — see Setting a minimum transaction value below.
GST Treatment Review per Contact ABN
GST Treatment Review per Contact ABN identifies transactions where the GST treatment applied doesn't match the contact's GST registration status as recorded in the ABR. For example, a GST-registered contact where transactions have been coded as GST-free.
The transaction list follows the same structure as Invalid or Missing ABNs — grouped by tax type, with contact-level drill-down and View Contact deep links to Xero.
Note: For information about how Dext checks ABN and GST status at the document level before publishing, see How does the ABN and GST status check work in Dext with Xero?
Setting a minimum transaction value
Both checks have a cog icon that lets you set a minimum transaction value. Contacts are only included in the check if they have transactions above this threshold during the selected period. The default value is A$0.00, which includes all transactions.
To change the threshold, select the cog next to either check, enter a value in the Minimum transaction value field, and select Save. The check recalculates immediately using the new threshold.
Syncing and recalculating data
To update the ABN validation check, use the two buttons at the top of the page:
Sync — pulls any new data or changes from Xero into Dext.
Recalculate — recalculates the check based on the latest data pulled from Xero into Dext.
If you've made changes in Xero, select Sync first, then Recalculate to see the updated figures.