The latest guides on company and information filing
CHD and WebCHeck closure
Companies House announced its intention to close Companies House Direct (CHD) and WebCHeck in October 2020. It has now confirmed that both services will close on 30 November 2023.
Users should use the Find and update company information service instead.
Current features include:
The find and update company information service is a fully accessible service and has already replaced the majority of the functionality provided by CHD and WebCHeck.
All records of companies dissolved since January 2010 are available on the ‘find and update company information service’. Companies House will continue to keep records of dissolved companies for 20 years from the date of dissolution, and its long-term intention is to make all these records available for free on the ‘find and update’ service.
However, dissolved records from before January 2010 up to 20 years from the date of dissolution will not be available on the service until the measures relating to suppression of personal information in the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Bill are implemented.
Objecting to a company being struck off
Objecting to a company being struck off is now easier.
When a company seems inactive, perhaps because it has not filed its confirmation statement or accounts, Companies House may take steps to remove it from the company register. This is called being 'struck off'.
Before a company is removed, Companies House publishes a notice in The Gazette. This gives interested parties – shareholders, employees, or creditors – two months to object to the company being removed. The quickest, safest and easiest way of objecting to the removal of a company is by using our online objection service.
This service was created for customers to make submitting objections with supporting evidence easier. All you need to do is create an account with Companies House.
For more information, read this blog post.
Changes to how you file
The measures in the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Bill will bring a lot of changes to Companies House, including changing the way accounts are filed.
Its vision is to create a single, cost-effective, sustainable way of filing accounts which will be secure, transparent and traceable. We also want to enable much wider tagging of accounts data. This means the data is electronically tagged and categorised to a specialist accounts taxonomy, making it easier for our users to access, analyse and search for data. These blog posts explain how the changes could affect you, and what you need to do:
Changes to accounts, part 1: moving to software-only filing
Changes to accounts, part 2: small company filing options
Read further blogs on legislative reform.
Changes when reporting a discrepancy
From 1 April 2023, an amendment to the Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing Regulations 2022 comes into effect. It includes a new definition of ‘material discrepancy’ – when the information an obliged entity has is significantly different to the information held by Companies House.
Obliged entities already need to report material discrepancies about any people with significant control (PSCs), but from 1 April they must only do so if there is a reasonable link to:
Obliged entities will also be able to report a material discrepancy about beneficial owners on the Register of Overseas Entities. More information will be provided soon.
If you are interested in joining a future roundtable event with Companies House to discuss future developments and your or your clients’ interactions with Companies House, please email lloyd.powell@accaglobal.com.