A new survey by Sensis has revealed falling sales and red tape eroded business confidence in the ACT in the past three months.

But Sensis chief executive John Allan said the Barr Government was one of the only state or territory governments to be rated positively by business owners heading into the ACT election on Saturday, a result in which they should "take heart".

Approval for the Barr government rose three points from the last quarter to sit at +1.

The only other governments that attracted the thumbs up from business owners were the Tasmanian and Northern Territory governments.

Comparatively, the survey found the ACT was the third most negative state or territory regarding the federal government.

"Driving the result was a belief that infrastructure development in the ACT is helping to foster positive business conditions. Although, excessive bureaucracy continues to be a key concern," Mr Allan said.

Business confidence in the ACT has plummeted since July, with one in five operators surveyed saying they were worried about their future prospects.

Mr Allan said this was a stark difference to last quarter, when ACT businesses were the most confident they had been in five years.

The ACT now ranked fourth in the nation for business confidence and trailed the national average.

Sales and profits also "deteriorated quite markedly" after being the highest in Australia, Sensis said.

One in 10 ACT business operators surveyed revealed they struggled to find or keep staff. Another one in 10 said their biggest problems were cash flow, bad debts and profitability.

Moving towards Christmas could see some operators improve their outlook though.

"As we head into the crucial Christmas retail period, expectations are very strong for all of the indicators, with sales and profitability particularly positive," Mr Allan said.

The survey reflects the views of 1000 small to medium business operators throughout Australia.