Company secretarial admin: confirmation statements on time

Key takeaways

Company secretarial admin covers the recurring filings and records every UK company must keep: a confirmation statement at least once every 12 months, annual accounts, changes to officers and people with significant control, and the statutory registers. Each has a fixed deadline. A calendar and a routine prevent late filing penalties and the risk of being struck off.

• Confirmation statement at least every 12 months.
• File within 14 days of the review period ending.
• Private company accounts: 9 months after year end.
• Register changes filed as they happen.

What does company secretarial admin involve?

It involves tracking filing deadlines, preparing and filing the confirmation statement, reporting changes of directors, registered office and people with significant control, keeping statutory registers up to date, filing annual accounts prepared by your accountant, and keeping minutes of board and general meetings.

• How UK SMEs can use outsourcing to handle repetitive tasks
• Minute-taking support: clear minutes without late nights

Which deadlines matter?

Companies House guidance sets the core deadlines. Missing them can bring penalties for accounts and, if filings stop, the company may be struck off the register.

• Confirmation statement: within 14 days of the review period end.
• Private company accounts: 9 months after the accounting year end.
• Officer and PSC changes: reported promptly after the change.

• An admin task calendar: daily, weekly, monthly, yearly
• Compliance admin burden: what you can hand off

What does the routine take?

In an illustrative example, a group with six small companies faces six confirmation statements, six sets of accounts and a handful of officer changes a year: perhaps 15 to 25 hours of admin, but spread across many dates that are easy to miss. These are example figures. A shared calendar with reminders 30 days ahead does most of the work.

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What must stay with directors?

Directors are legally responsible for the company's filings and must confirm the information is correct. Decisions about officers, share changes and accounts approval stay with them. Companies House has introduced identity verification requirements, so check current guidance on who must verify and when.

• Core vs non-core activities: what to keep in-house

What does this look like in practice?

A pattern we see: a confirmation statement is missed because the reminder went to a director who has since left. A calendar owned by a routine, not a person, fixes that.

• See client work
• BPO Solutions for UK businesses

Company secretarial checklist

Keep these current for every company.

• Filing calendar with all deadlines.
• Reminders 30 days ahead.
• Statutory registers updated on change.
• Board and general meeting minutes kept.
• Director sign-off before each filing.

• Self Assessment preparation support for accountants

Next step

Send us the companies you manage. We will help you build the filing calendar and say plainly what a team could prepare for directors to approve.