Important Changes to Companies House Online Services

As a result of the final implementation of the Companies Act 2006 on 1st October 2009, there will be some changes to the screens and functionality of our online services.  To help you to understand what has changed, brief descriptions appear below, please click on the relevant heading for the service you require:

WebFiling
WebCHeck
Companies House Direct

WebFiling – Changes to screens and functionality

Forms numbers have changed under the Companies Act 2006.

Companies Act 2006 forms will be the default forms available from the main menu of the WebFiling service. The 'old' Companies Act 1985 forms will be available from the 'Old forms' tab on the main menu.

‘Event date’ transactions (e.g. date of appointment) will be available in both the new prescribed Companies Act 2006 form (e.g. AP01) and the 'old' Companies Act 1985 form (e.g. 288a).
The event date will determine which form should be submitted.

• Event date on or after 01/10/09 = new form
• Event date before 01/10/09 = old form

Transactions with NO event date (e.g. change of registered office) will ONLY be available in the new prescribed Companies Act 2006 form (e.g. AD01), the 'old' Companies Act 1985 form for these transactions (e.g. 287) will be obsolete from 01/10/09.

View full details of the transitional arrangements for the most commonly filed forms.

PLEASE NOTE:
All Companies Act 1985 forms filed on or after 01/10/09 will be registered on the public record as their Companies Act 2006 equivalent form ID. The document images of these forms will be unaffected.

It is important to note in view of the Companies Act 2006 implementation changes, ‘In Progress’ Annual Returns must be submitted by midnight on the 30th Sept 2009 otherwise this information will not be saved.

New information required for:

Company officers

Country/State of Residence – must be provided for all directors who are a person

EEA (European Economic Area) or non-EEA registration details – must be provided for all corporate directors and secretaries in accordance with their EEA or non-EEA status

Service address

From 1st October 2009 every director must provide Companies House with both their usual residential address, and for each directorship they hold, a service address.

Capital

When submitting an Allotment of Shares or Annual Return, you must provide the following for each class of share:
- the Amount paid up on each share
- the Amount unpaid on each share
- the Prescribed particulars of rights attached to shares (e.g. associated voting rights)

SAIL (Single Alternative Inspection Location)

Notification of SAIL must be provided when the register of members or debenture holders is NOT held at the registered office address.

To notify of the alternative address use the following forms:
- AD02 Notification of single alternative inspection location (SAIL) - use for registering the address
- AD03 Change of location of the company records to the single alternative inspection location (SAIL) - use for notifying which registers are held at SAIL

Log in screen

When signing in you must select the ‘Company Type’ from the drop down menu, this must correspond with the registration location of the company you are filing for.

1. England / Wales
2. Scotland
3. Northern Ireland – NI
4. Northern Ireland - RO

WebCHeck – Changes to screens and functionality

Disqualified Directors search

The Disqualified Directors Register can now be accessed from the WebCHeck homepage (Select and Access Company Information)

New format for Filing History

New document unavailable image icon. Documents with this icon are not available to order until the red highlight has been removed.

New folder icon: there are transactions associated with the main document which cannot be ordered independently.  E.g. a resolution or annual return filed containing a number of amendments will display the document symbol indented as separate transaction but only one tick box will display for ordering the document.

Latest Statement of Capital is highlighted

Green notebook icon highlights the document containing the latest statement of capital

Model Articles

The ‘i’ information icon will display when model articles have been adopted under the 2006 Act, either in entirety or with amended provisions.  Model articles can be accessed from the Companies House website by clicking on the model articles description or the green information icon.

Annotations

Where a document has been formally marked up or ‘Annotated’ (to highlight where clarification is required or where the document has been removed or replaced).  An ‘annotation’ sheet is displayed indented beneath a folder icon as it is associated with the main document image but cannot be ordered independently.

NOTE: Where the annotation states ‘Document Removed’ this document is no longer available to order.

Inconsistency

Where there is an ‘Inconsistency for Appointments’, e.g. the filing of an officer termination where Companies House has no record of the officer appointment, the following message will display on the You Have Selected, Company Details and Company Appointments screens:

Inconsistency: the Appointments list held by Companies House does not agree with the filings made by the company

Inclusion of Northern Ireland company details (from 5th October)

Company information is now available for all Northern Ireland companies except those with the following prefixes:

NP – Northern Ireland Industrial/Provident Company or Credit Union
NV – Northern Ireland ICVC (Investment Company with Variable Capital)
NR – Northern Ireland Royal Charter Companies

Image Availability:

1. Accounts and Annual Returns available from 2000
2. All Documents from February 2004

Insolvency details only available from October 2009

Monitor categories renamed

Throughout the Monitor service the document categories have been renamed as follows:

1. ‘287’  renamed Change of Registered Office
2. ‘288’ renamed Appointments.

Forms filed after 1st October will be displayed as new form numbers.

Examples

Companies House Direct – Changes to screens and functionality

New format for Filing History

New document unavailable image icon is displayed for the following reasons:

• Recently filed documents these are not available to order until the red description highlight has been removed and the document available icon is displayed.
• Older documents with this symbol and a selection box may be ordered for delivery by image download, post or fax but are subject to a short delay as they require scanning. 

Older documents with this symbol and no selection box are not available to order within this service

New folder icon: there are transactions associated with the main document which cannot be ordered independently.  E.g. a resolution or annual return filed containing a number of amendments will display the document symbol indented as separate transaction but only one tick box will display for ordering the document.

Latest Statement of Capital is highlighted.

Green notebook icon highlights the document containing the latest statement of capital

Model Articles

The ‘i’ information icon will display when model articles have been adopted under the 2006 Act, either in entirety or with amended provisions.  Model articles can be accessed from the Companies House website by clicking on the model articles description or the green information icon.

Annotations

Where a document has been formally marked up or ‘Annotated’ (to highlight where clarification is required or where the document has been removed or replaced).  An ‘annotation’ sheet is displayed indented beneath a folder icon as it is associated with the main document image but cannot be ordered independently.

NOTE: Where the annotation states ‘Document Removed’ this document is no longer available to order.

Inconsistency

Where there is an ‘Inconsistency for Appointments’, e.g. the filing of an officer termination where Companies House has no record of the officer appointment, the following message will display on the You Have Selected, Company Details and Company Appointments screens:

Inconsistency: the Appointments list held by Companies House does not agree with the filings made by the company.

New document package

Constitution Package

Price: £4 Image, £20 Post (in line with existing document packages)

Content:

1. Latest Certificate of Incorporation
2. The document containing the latest Statement of Capital
3. The latest set of Articles or Memorandum and Articles
4. Resolutions of specified types filed since the latest set of Articles or Memorandum and Articles

Inclusion of Northern Ireland company details (from 5th October)

Company information is now available for all Northern Ireland companies except those with the following prefixes:

NP – Northern Ireland Industrial/Provident Company or Credit Union
NV – Northern Ireland ICVC (Investment Company with Variable Capital)
NR – Northern Ireland Royal Charter Companies

Image Availability:

1. Accounts and Annual Returns available from 2000
2. All Documents from February 2004
3. Documents not already on our image database available for ordering online from 1998

New Constitution package only available for Northern Ireland companies incorporated from 1st October 2009

Insolvency details only available from October 2009

New information displayed for officers where applicable

1. Latest service address is displayed (and where captured the Care Of and PO Box data is output)
2. Country/State of Residence is displayed where captured – this is the only publicly disclosed element of the director’s usual residential address
3. From 1st October new secretary appointments are required to supply a service address only there is insufficient data for merging these appointments with existing officer records, consequently a unique secretary record will be created.

NOTE: these can be identified with ‘SEC’ output in the ‘Appt Type’ column on the Officer Search results screen

Monitor categories renamed

Throughout the Monitor service the document categories have been renamed as follows:

1. ‘287’  renamed Change of Registered Office
2. ‘288’ renamed Appointments

Forms filed after 1st October will be displayed as new form numbers.

Examples