Company Secretarial Services
Incorporating a limited company: documents, directors and first filings
- Guide
- 1 min read
From name reservation to the first statutory filings, with the decisions founders are asked to make early and often regret leaving to the accountant.
Incorporation is quick. The decisions taken during it are not easily unwound, and founders often make them in haste to get the certificate issued.
Decisions worth taking slowly
- Share structure: how many shares, held by whom, and in what classes. Changing this later is possible but rarely simple.
- Directors: who is appointed, and what authority each holds.
- Registered office: the address at which official correspondence will be received and must be monitored.
- Financial year end: which determines every reporting deadline that follows.
Immediately after incorporation
Open the bank account, register for tax, issue share certificates, and hold the first board meeting to record the appointments and the year end formally. Each of these is straightforward on its own, and each is awkward to evidence if left for months.
Where founders intend to work together on the strength of an understanding, record it. A shareholders' agreement written while everyone agrees costs a fraction of the dispute it prevents.
This note is general guidance, not advice on your circumstances. Requirements differ by organisation and change over time — speak to us before acting on it.
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