What is myGovID and What do I Need to Know for My Business?

It's Saturday night, you are bored out of your brain, and you decide to click on a blog post titled What is myGovID and what do I need to know for my business posted by some accountant who acts like he knows something. While I won't question your life decisions that led to this very moment (maybe you should...), I will cut to the chase and break down what you need to know.

myGovID is the spiritual successor to AUSkey, and will be the way you authenticate with the business portal, as well as a bunch of other services going forward. On the 27th of March 2020, AUSkey will  be no longer. If you have not set yourself up with myGovID and Relationship Access Manager by then, you will be locked out.

I say again - if you use “AusKey” to log in to your online tax office information - this is changing, and changing soon! Read on

With that scary bit out of the way, here are the three things you are going to need to know, and more importantly, how they are different:

1. myGov
2. myGovID
3. Relationship Authorisation Manager (RAM for short)

myGov

Hopefully by now most of us have heard of and used myGov. In case you need a refresher, myGov is the Aussie Government's newish system for accessing a bunch of government services all in the one place, with the one username and password. myGov is generally targeted towards services provided to you as an individual, and not a company or trust as examples. Some of the bigger name services you can access here are:

• ATO
• Centrelink
• Child Support
• Medicare
• My Health Record

You can think of myGov as a central place that you can login and see all of the government services you have access to in one place.

All importantly, this is a separate login to myGovID, and uses a username, password, and text message to authorise you.

myGovID

myGovID (distinct from myGov) is a new app released by the Aussie Government that is hoping to make everyone's lives easier when it comes to accessing stuff online provided by the gov. In the future, you will actually use myGovID to login to myGov, rather than having a separate login (makes sense right?).

Today, myGovID will first be used to access a bunch of business related government services. These include:

• ATO Business Portal
• Australian Business Register

In short, myGovID is just a simple way to identify you as you online, and is similar to a 100 point ID check.

To get started, you simple download the app, and follow the steps to verify your identity. Once setup, you go to a supported website (ATO Business Portal as an example), click login with myGovID, type in your email address attached to your myGovID, and then accept the login using the mobile app (no passwords!).

Relationship Authorisation Manager (RAM)

Relationship Authorisation Manager is the new way that we authorise people at act on behalf of our business, and to let them access government services of the business. For the full list of services check out this link.

From RAM, you invite team members to access your business, and assign them permissions so they can only access what you want them too.

So what do I have to do?

1. Download the myGovID app and get your digital identity setup.
2. Using your new myGovID, login to RAM here.
3. Click Link your business and follow the steps to link yourself to the businesses ABN. You will need to be an associate of the business to be able to link yourself. If you are not a director or the trustee of your business, get in touch and we can let you know if you can Link your business, or if someone else will have to invite you in.
4. (If you need to invite others) Go back to the RAM home page, then click View or manage authorisations, machine credentials and cloud software notifications. Fill in the details of the person you are inviting, and select the appropriate permissions for them. The user will need to have their own myGovID. When inviting someone to access your business, use their business email address to invite them. They can then login to RAM with their personal email address, and type in the code they received.

So go fourth, get setup with myGovID & RAM, and enjoy the slightly less complicated way of logging in to all things Aussie Government and business.