It is a special type of founder stress that comes not with the loss of clients or money thrown away, but with the realization that you have been receiving compliance infractions in your company even as you were running the company itself. ACRA does not send pleasant reminders. The Companies Act of Singapore merely directs all incorporated companies to have a qualified corporate secretary within six months of incorporation and beyond which the time starts running regardless of whether you are glancing at the clock or not. Majority of founders get to learn this at the very cost, which is a shame since it can be avoided at all costs. Ready to build credibility and protect your business? register a private limited company in singapore seamlessly through our reliable company secretary service Singapore.

So, what is a corporate secretary spending his/her time on? More than the title suggests. They possess statutory registers of directors, stockholders and share transfers – books which cannot and must remain current and in vivo and not merely in substance and generally in vivo. Annual returns are submitted to ACRA on a regular basis. Board resolutions should be drafted and documented well in advance to the time when major decisions made by the company take a legal status. AGM paperwork is to be prepared and adequate minutes made thereafter. All this is under deadline management which is a continuous exercise. Imagine the corporate secretary as the one who is making sure your corporate legal infrastructure is not silently crumbling as you concentrate on the revenues.

The quality of services offered by various providers varies widely and the cheapest quote is rarely the whole story. The basic providers can deal with regular filings in sufficient detail and cease at that point. Anything not in their script, whether it is a change of director half-way through the year, a complicated reorganisation of the shares, a sudden regulatory inquiry, all costs extra, or takes time, which is not available comfortably. High-end providers play more of a role of a sincere advisor. They foresee problems even before they proclaim themselves. Before you undertake that share issue, there are other things, by the way, you should know about it– the sort of contribution, made at the opportune time, will save a lot of time and legal expenses in the future.

In Singapore, corporate secretarial services costs range between SG 300 and SG 1500 per year. The propagation is indicative of company intricacy, commercial frequency, and to what extent active help the engagement actually entails. Combination packages of secretarial, accounting, and tax services are worth considering -this will cut down the need to deal with more than one vendor, and the packages may frequently be less expensive than shopping individually. Comparing providers, you have to pay careful attention to what the standard package is not including since it is in that exclusion list that the actual changes in costs lie.

The candid explanation of the difference between an excellent corporate secretary and an anonymous one is proactive communication. The great ones realise when your company constitution has become stale due to the changes in the regulations. They get hooked as a proposed transaction will have filing implications that you had not thought about. They are an extra pair of eyes on the health of your company which is not merely a filing service which is activated just once in a year. Such attention is more of a rarity than it needs to be but when you get it, the distinction is established quickly, say, around the moment something out of the ordinary occurs and you are in urgent need of a quick informed response as opposed to a phone call in three business days.