But even with new avenues on the table this year, including new compensation limits through Australian Financial Complaints Authority (AFCA) and a planned small business concierge service to help small businesses interact with the ATO, raising awareness is a big issue.

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"It [awareness] is a huge piece. We're only a couple of months old and people haven't heard of AFCA yet," says AFCA head David Locke.

AFCA was launched in November 2018 as a new "one stop shop" for financial complaints.

The body considers small business credit matters worth up to $5 million, with a new cap on possible compensation sitting at $1 million.

In the first two months of the authority's operation, it received 940 small business complaints, 61 per cent of which related to credit and lending.

Just 7 per cent of complaints to AFCA so far have come from small business.

Locke is bracing for more complaints in 2019 but says there's still work to be done connecting with small businesses and their networks. AFCA is currently recruiting for a specialised small business ombudsman role, which is expected to be confirmed by the end of January.

This will help ensure "that all our staff know what small business priorities are", Locke says.

Fears of retribution

A report from Carnell's office into small business access to justice at the end of 2018 found smaller operators are spending $130,000 on average to resolve a dispute.

But the cost of ruining relationships also weighed heavily on the founders surveyed, with 28 per cent of companies that abandoned their claims doing so because they were "concerned about retribution from the other party".

State-based small business commissioners across Australia have a range of conciliation processes available to help solve concerns without escalating the situation.

But Carnell says lack of awareness of these services as the first port of call means many are risking ruining relationships with a supplier or other company when they don't have to.

"You can't backtrack once you are in the courts. It makes it a lot harder and it's absolutely true that if something is already in the courts system, we can't do anything."

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