The latest update this month enables users to effortlessly access and search a company’s filing history directly within Inform Direct. This integration streamlines company secretarial tasks, eliminating the need to switch between different software platforms. Below, you will find a glimpse of the feature’s core functionality and the simplicity it brings to viewing a company’s filing history.     View a full list of filing without the need to page Text search by name or description of the document Search by type and date View and download filings There are many benefits to s ..read more

The Enterprise Management Incentive (EMI) allows smaller companies to set up tax-advantaged employee share schemes. Under an EMI scheme the company grants share options to employees to buy shares in the company at some time in the future. Like any employee share scheme an EMI scheme gives employees the opportunity to gain from the company’s long-term performance. This can help to incentivise employees to work better for the company.  However, there are tax incentives from using an EMI scheme for both employees and companies over certain other share schemes. Given the significant tax i ..read more

We’re delighted to be celebrating a milestone, with 400,000 UK companies now managed on the Inform Direct platform. It’s a joy for us to work with so many different accountants, property managers, law firms, corporate finance agents and other company formation and secretarial professionals to support exemplary company secretarial compliance for your clients. Over 2,000 firms of accountants already use Inform Direct to manage cosec work efficiently. We look forward to meeting more wonderful accountants at Accountex in London on 15 and 16 May, and demonstrating how our software can save you ti ..read more

The vast majority of companies actively trade. However, there are also over 500,000 dormant companies registered with Companies House. Dormant companies benefit from reduced administrative requirements: in particular, they don’t have to provide the same level of detail in their accounts. While that’s hardly a reason in itself, there are a number of good reasons why a dormant company may be formed or maintained. In this article we’ll look at the five main reasons why you might choose to have a dormant company: 1 To set up a company you intend to use in the future You might have a new trade i ..read more

A great number of businesses choose to incorporate as a company limited by shares. That contrasts with other forms of business, such as the sole trader, partnership, limited liability partnership (LLP) or company limited by guarantee. Most companies limited by shares are set up as private companies. However, in this article we look at the advantages and disadvantages of a public limited company. As well as those forming new companies, a proper evaluation of the advantages and disadvantages of a public limited company will be needed for an existing private limited company considering converti ..read more

Our basic share certificate template is completely free to use. You can alternatively purchase unlimited use of one of our premium professionally-designed templates. Unlike other templates the Inform Direct software keeps a record of the share certificates you’ve created – so you can easily see which ones are active, and lets you cancel retired certificates. We also enable you to pull in existing shareholder information from Companies House into share certificates. We looked in another article at why you should be using Inform Direct to create and manage your share certificates. He ..read more

Documents filed electronically at Companies House must include details of who is ‘presenting’ the document. This lets Companies House know who to contact about a transaction, and can also provide a more efficient billing arrangement for chargeable submissions. This can all be achieved by obtaining a presenter code from Companies House. Generally, for those managing more than a few companies – and particularly for firms of accountants – it is attractive to have your own Companies House presenter code. Increases to Companies House fees take effect from 1 May 2024, with every electronic confirm ..read more

A share certificate, which is produced and issued by a company, certifies on a certain date that a person is the registered owner of shares in that company. The key information shown on the certificate includes the name and address of the shareholder, the class of shares and number of shares held. In terms of the Companies Act 2006, it is considered prima facie evidence (‘sufficient evidence unless the contrary is shown’ in Scotland) of the member’s ownership of shares in the company. However, while a share certificate may be issued by a company, it is an entry in the register of m ..read more

As we approach the milestone of 400,000 companies managed on Inform Direct, we want to take a moment to celebrate the work of our team who work so hard to deliver for all our wonderful customers. We’d also like to introduce you to some new members of our team, with seven new appointments in as many months, as we look to further enhance our software and service to accountants, other agents and companies. Delighting our customers is at the core of everything we do, so we have further strengthened our Customer Support Team with three new recruits. James, Ollie and Luke increase the Customer Sup ..read more

This month we’re pleased to introduce an exciting and much requested new feature. Subscribers using their own presenter code can now upload an iXBRL-tagged company accounts file to Inform Direct and authorise us to submit this to Companies House. This new release greatly expands our company accounts filing service. You can now use Inform Direct to electronically file all the following types of statutory accounts with Companies House:   Never-traded dormant company accounts Micro-entity accounts Small, medium and large company accounts Group accounts Abridged company accounts Audit-ex ..read more