When you want to make your business official, it can be much easier than you think to register your own company – you can now do this quite quickly and simply online through a formations service, such as Capital Office, and you can be up and running within the day!We can take care of all the official notification work for you, such as registering your company with the registrar of companies at Companies House. All you have to is to decide what structure your company is going to take, and then follow our simple step by step process online to get registered.Here in the UK we have a choice of different legal structures that your company can take. Which one you choose for your company will depend on how you wish to operate. By far the most popular types of business formations are companies limited by shares, and sole traders. However, these two options carry some rules and regulations that need to be adhered to that you should be made aware of.For your information we have listed below the primary differences between these two structures, so you can see which one would be more suited to your type of business.
Limited Liability
For your greater protection it would make sense to register your business as a company limited by shares. This is because if the worst should happen, each shareholder or member of the company would only ever be liable to pay what their individual shares are worth. For example, if you and three friends or family members where shareholders in your company, and you each owned a share at just £1.00 each, then you would only be liable to pay £1.00 each should your company go bust. Their personal finances will remain unaffected and protected.This is not the case for a sole trader however. Because there is no distinction between a sole trader and their business, they would be held entirely liable for all debts run up by their business. So if the worst should happen and the business went bust, the sole trader would have to pay out costs from their own pocket. This can often be catastrophic as the sole trader would have to use their own personal finances to cover costs, and this can impact greatly on an individuals ability to keep up with their mortgage payments, bank overdrafts and credit card repayments.So you can see from the two examples listed above why it makes perfect sense to register your company with Your Company Formations and the process is very easy to complete. In fact, all you will need for your company formation process are the following details:
Your Company Name
What you choose to officially name your own company is down to personal choice, however under The Business Names Act 1985, you must make sure that the name you choose is not already owned by another UK registered company. It is worth doing an internet search to see if your preferred company name pops up as already being used by someone else.There are also some words that you cannot use within your company name without express permission, and obviously names that contain sensitive words such as swear words or profanities will not be acceptable by Companies House. Also use of words like “association”, “group”, “federation” and similar words within your company name is prohibited.If you are really confused about coming up with a suitable name for your company, then one of our friendly customer service team members will be on hand to help and guide you.
Registered Office – Your Company’s Official Address
This address will be your main company office base, and can be any UK address that you use. Most small businesses will operate and trade from just one address, but your company does not need to trade from the address you choose as your registered office.The address you choose to register should be an address that is staffed frequently so that all important and essential mail coming from HMRC and Companies House will be attended to right away. This address will also appear on the public register, so anyone looking for your company address will see your registered office address on display. Because your registered office address will be on display to the public, like many other company directors, you may prefer not to register your home address as your registered office.Capital Office offers a registered address service where you can have your registered office listed, and our mail-forwarding service will ensure that any mail sent to you at this address is sent on to an address of your choice promptly. You can find out more information about our registered address service on our website.
Your Company Directors
When you form your company, you can register as many directors as you wish, but you need at least one person to be appointed as a director at the time of formation. The directors are the people who run your company, so if you want to form a company and run it with three of your friends for example, you can register yourself and your three friends as company directors. This does not mean that you cannot add any more directors further down the line, so in the future you can appoint more directors if you want to.To appoint a director you need the following information from them: Their full name, their occupation, date of birth, nationality, home address, and their service address. The service address is the official address that is listed on the public register, in a similar way to the registered office. Again, many directors may not want their home address appearing on the public register, so they may choose to register their service address as the business address.
Your Shareholder details
Shareholders are the people who actually own the company through their shares. When you first form your company, you can form it with just one single shareholder if you so choose. The shareholder can also be a company director, so you can form your own company with just one person who takes on the role of director and shareholder.To register your shareholder(s) you will need the following information from them: Full name, service address, town of birth, eye colour, phone number, number of shares to be held, currency of shares, value of shares
The Memorandum and Articles of Association
Put simply, these documents outline how you will be running your company. There are many templates you can use to draw up your documents, and Capital Office can provide free support and advice via telephone, email and our website chat portal to help you with this if you need it.All companies are formed at Companies House through the UK’s registrar of companies. You can register your business online directly with them for a £15 fee. Many people new to company formations find it much easier to register through a formation company such as ourselves, and our formations packages start from as little as £10.99 – including the fee from Companies House!So you can see from the information above just how quick and easy it is to register your own company. The process is so easy that you can be up and running after a few short hours.
