It shouldn’t come as a surprise that when forming a company, there are quite a few important documents to acquire and submit. Immediately after Companies House accepts your application to sign-up a new private Ltd company, you will receive many vital documents of incorporation such as the articles of association, the incorporation certificate and memorandum of association among others.  Here we have summarised what each of these documents are, and why you will need them.

Certificate of incorporation

As soon as your company is successfully registered, Companies House will give out a certificate of incorporation.  This certificate contains the date of incorporation as well as your personal company registration number. The Companies House Act 2006 states that whenever the certificate is issued, it is conclusive proof that the company has been registered accordingly.  Third parties like banks, may demand to see a copy of your certificate of incorporation as proof that your company has been incorporated successfully.

The date of incorporation, as shown on the certificate, is in fact your company’s birthday!  It will determine the date of your company’s first yearly Return, which is generally 12 months from the date of incorporation (though you can file earlier if you so desire).

Memorandum of association

This is a declaration made by every subscriber confirming their aim to setup a company and become a member of that particular company.  If the company is a private limited company by shares, then every member will have to be named on the memorandum of association and should agree to take a minimum of one share.

Articles of association

This defines the rules and regulations governing the administration of a company.  They set out the shareholders’ rights, rules governing the appointment (if any), dividend distributions, removal and powers of company officers, and how board meetings ought to be carried out. As part of your application to register a new ltd company with Companies House, you also need to file the articles of association.

The majority of companies merely make use of standard “model” articles and should you fail to supply articles while registering your company, the model articles will be applied by default.

Obtain every document of incorporation without delay

There are also these other vital legal documents to acquire when forming your company:

Share certificates

This certifies that on the issued date, the person whose name is on the certificate is the registered owner of the shares in a company.  Once your company has been registered, share certificates should be given to shareholders in no less than two months.  Generally, this is yet another task you must find time for in the early months of a newly established company.

Nonetheless, should you incorporate your company using Your Company Formation, then our system will by default create share certificates, saving you a separate task. It will fill the share certificates with information of every share allocation and you can still upload your company’s logo to generate branded share certificates.

Statutory registers

The Companies Act 2006 expects every company to preserve the statutory registers also known as statutory books listed below:

• Members’ registers Register of members
• Directors’ register
• Register of directors’ home addresses
• Secretaries’ registers
• Charges’ registers

Making sure that your statutory register is up-to-date can be a daunting task and easy to be ignored. Nevertheless, by incorporating your new private limited company with Your Company Formation, you will obtain free access to our company secretarial software. This enables you to easily update your company information for changes to officer’ details, addresses, or to make extra allocations and share transfers. Our smart system will automatically update your statutory registers for any changes you make, making it ready immediately to be viewed online or print.