In other articles we’ve looked at some of the technical aspects involved in appointing a director to a company. The company will want first to consider who can and can’t be appointed as a director, while the person becoming a new director will be interested in the duties and responsibilities of company directors.
To complete the appointment of a director (or a company secretary), you’ll need to:
- Notify Companies House; and
- Update the company’s statutory registers.
At Inform Direct, we’ve put together a simple online records management tool that enables you to do both with a minimum of time and effort – it’s easy to use and you can access the software from anywhere, any time. What’s more, if you need to notify Companies House of a director today, you can do it for free using Inform Direct. There’s absolutely no obligation and no credit card required to sign up. Lots of other changes you need to make in the course of running a company are also free when you use Inform Direct.
Making each new director appointment easy
When you register with Inform Direct we’ll electronically retrieve the details of all your current officers from Companies House and show them in one place. You can see full details of any officer and then update them if needed by clicking on the blue arrow next to them.
To start the new director appointment process you simply press the blue “Appoint officer” button.
The process to appoint a director, like all our simple wizards, is split into bite-sized steps. Help is always available on screen, although we’re confident that in most cases you really won’t need it.
We only ask questions that are relevant to the appointment you’re making so you’re not spending your time working out whether a box needs to be filled in or not. We also make sure you do fill in information that’s required by Companies House and, wherever we can, check what you enter – so we pick up errors that might otherwise cause Companies House to reject the appointment. Inform Direct will help you to get each director appointment right first time.
Full and flexible functionality
Inform Direct offers full support for the appointment of directors and company secretaries, whether they are individuals or companies. More specific appointment scenarios are also covered, such as appointing a corporate director or secretary based overseas or those rare cases where a director has applied for their residential address to be kept private from credit reference agencies.
As well as new people, it’s also easy to appoint someone who is already involved with the company – like appointing a shareholder as a new director, for example. Inform Direct won’t ask you for someone’s details again where it already holds them, making it quicker and simpler for you to manage your records.
Where you may previously have submitted one of Companies House forms AP01, AP02, AP03 or AP04, Inform Direct will automatically populate and submit the electronic equivalent to Companies House. After you’ve had the chance to check the details of the new director, submission is instantaneous and Companies House will usually accept the appointment quickly. It’s so much quicker, easier and more reliable than posting paper forms.
Automatic updates
You can also forget the hassle of updating your registers to reflect a new director appointment. Rather than you needing to do it separately, Inform Direct will also:
- Automatically update your register of directors (or register of secretaries)
- Automatically update your register of directors’ residential addresses
The statutory registers can be viewed and printed at any time. Most important of all, you can be comfortable that your company records are up to date and get on with other things.
Once a director is appointed, you can view and edit their details or terminate their appointment at any time. We support all the electronic Companies House forms required for submission of changes to directors and secretaries – you just need to change the director’s details and Inform Direct will do all the work in deciding if a Companies House form submission is required, populating the correct form and sending it electronically.
How to get started
Getting started is easy – just sign up and follow the on screen process to complete your company setup. Say goodbye to cumbersome paper based forms or your old complex, unfriendly database and discover the easy way to make director appointments and manage your other statutory records.