Large employers are ready to work with government to review the Payment Times Reporting Act and make sure it works for businesses of all sizes, Business Council chief executive Jennifer Westacott said.

“We support greater transparency for small businesses, so getting this system working is crucial.

“Businesses of all sizes depend on each other to thrive, employ more people and help keep communities strong.

“An effective reporting system that minimises red tape will give small businesses the peace of mind and confidence they need to make decisions about who they trade with. That means they can get on with growing, investing and employing.

“Businesses have undertaken significant investments to meet their reporting obligations. The review is an opportunity to ensure the scheme delivers representative payment times data while minimising compliance costs and complexity for reporting entities.

“In particular, businesses want to work with the government to ensure that the Small Business Identification Tool gets it right. To give businesses and government a clear and reliable set of baseline data we can’t allow large businesses to be misidentified as small or vice versa because just one wrongly categorised business can skew the data.

“The relationship between small, medium and large business is worth around $600 billion a year to the Australian economy. When the entire business ecosystem thrives, the whole country thrives.

“In 2017 the BCA launched the Australian Supplier Payment Code with support from COSBOA and the Victorian Government. The code has 155 signatories with collective annual revenue of around $670 billion. It is working to reduce payment times, ease stress and let small businesses get on with the recovery.

“Since its launch the code has grown to cover some of Australia’s biggest companies with thousands of small business suppliers, helping smaller businesses grow with their larger partners.