Andrew Millet's blog

Back in October I had a rant about the Statement of Capital within the IN01 form. It had not occurred to me at the time that there was a similar issue with the new Annual Return form (AR01 form).

I am sure that most of us have spent a considerable amount of time over the last 12 months talking to banks about our clients needs.

We’ve all heard about the Enterprise Finance Guarantee. In summary, the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills has put aside £1.3billion to fund the Enterprise Finance Guarantee for those small and medium sized business that need to raise additional funding but have inadequate security of their own to provide. The Government guarantees 75 per cent of lenders' exposure on the business loans.

Again I bring up another area that I think sits between what I believe an accountant should know and what a lawyer will know.

Many small businesses will have failed to recognise that they have a legal obligation in relation to data protection.

From my experience the vast majority of companies with revenues less than, say £500k do not sufficiently plan ahead.  

For those that have not seen the delightful new IN01 form that came into force on the 1 October 2009, among other things there is requirement to insert a statement of capital. A one page blank section has been allocated to this and continuation pages may be used if required.

What responsibility do we have as accountants in relation to the money laundering regulations when advising a client to form their company through a formation agent?

It is probably worth considering what the The Money Laundering Regulations 2007, (“MLR”) in relation to forming a company requires: Under section 3(7) and section 3(10) of the MLR external accountants and those forming companies are required to carry MLR check on their clients.

For small accountancy firms, we all can produce year end financial statements; VAT advice; payroll services; secretarial services; and personal tax advice etc. The only thing that tends to differentiate us is the manner in which the services are delivered. The more successful firm will tend to be more communicative, pro-active, and possibly imaginative and may even have a slightly enhanced team of skilled staff. But, it is fair to say that the advice or end product from one firm to the next may look fairly similar.

Until recently private companies either appointed professionals to carry out the role of company secretary or appointed the most relevant internal person, often the finance director.

Now that private limited companies have not needed to appoint a company secretary, it appears that most are taking advantage of this. In doing so, companies believe that they are saving themselves the hassle of having to fulfil this role and also in some cases avoiding unnecessary fees.