Let us get down to brass tacks about something most incorporation guides shun. The Companies Act of Singapore requires all incorporated corporations to have a qualified corporate secretary within 6 months of incorporating the corporation. Not eventually. Not when things settle down. Within six months, full stop. ACRA does not give informal warnings when this is overlooked. Sanctions follow and the trail of non-conformance can cause more headaches than the initial authority by far. The same founders who make this appointment light-hearted are the ones who compare the penalty notices with other founders during networking events and usually laugh nervously. To prevent compliance risks, access now dependable company secretary service singapore support.

Peel under the surface of what the role entails and the image becomes even more stratified. Statutory registers directors, shareholders, share movements should remain up to date at all times throughout the year, not only during filing season. The annual reports are to be submitted to ACRA on a schedule that is pegged to the financial year end of the company. Before major decisions are granted legal weight, the resolutions of the board have to be drafted appropriately. AGM documents need to be organized and proper minutes taken thereafter. The cycle of compliance does not stop with the end of the quarter as it is a continuous cycle. All this is absorbed by an effective corporate secretary, with the founders free to concentrate on the aspects of the business that actually pay.

The distance between providers is broader than the price level can indicate. Entry level services are those services that process routine filings with a limited scope. Go beyond that boundaries – director retirement, share reorganization, a regulator enquiry that catches you off your guard – and extra charges or a sluggish turnaround time are the new reality. Better providers are forward looking. They flag implications prior to making decisions instead of making post-decision explanations. They deal the question you had not thought to ask. In shortlisting providers, go beyond the service brochure and inquire directly how they manage cases which are not part of the normal filings.

The annual fees are between S$300 and S1,500 based on the levels of company activity and the depth of actual services. Companies that are highly active in terms of transactions and board resolutions which are regularly conducted naturally demand high levels of engagement. Taking secretarial services and accounting and tax compliance packages should be taken seriously – they can save on the number of vendor relationships that need to be managed and generally provide the greater value when combined compared to taking delivery of each service independently with a different vendor.