The Register of Shareholders is a record of everyone (both individuals and corporates) who either currently holds or has held shares in the company.
The details should include:
- Name (surname + forenames or company details)
- Correspondence address (the latest one)
- Class(es) of shares held e.g. Ordinary £1.00
- Total number of shares currently held in each class
- Date became a shareholder (of that class)
- Date ceased to be a shareholder of any particular class (this is blank if there is still a holding)
When the company is first set up with Inform Direct, Companies House will only return the names of the shareholders as at the last Annual Return or confirmation statement or, if neither has yet been filed, the subscribers.
Companies with just one shareholder will have the statement detailed below, the software will check to see if this statement is required when importing the company and after each share transaction. If you need to manually add a historic statement, this can be done manually.
If Inform Direct is unable to match up all the shares in issue with the names of the shareholders returned by Companies House the account will be marked Unreconciled. This will happen if an SH01 has been filed. It is easy to add the missing shareholder details to the live part of the system of Inform Direct, which will in turn update the registers.
How do I clear an Unreconciled alert?
Note: Either if an Annual Return or confirmation statement has not been filed or there have been changes since the last Annual Return or confirmation statement was filed, then to record shareholder information for anyone who held shares or a class of shares you should use the application.
Adding a missing contact address for a shareholder
To add/update a contact address for an existing shareholder see How do I add a contact address for a shareholder?
Adding details of a historic or former shareholder
To add details of a historic shareholder whose details cannot be added using the application follow these steps:
1. Click on the green 'Add Historic Shareholder' button.
2. This will bring up the below pop up box.
Note: You can add a second share class if required. If applicable you can add the names of any joint shareholders too.
3. If the person is an individual add their Forenames and Surname or if the person is a company just put the company name in the Surname field and then populate the rest of the details accordingly.
4. When done click on the green 'Save changes to Register' button.
5. The details of the historic shareholder will then be added.
To help you find the historic shareholder after you have created them you will see the record marked 'RECENTLY UPDATED'. This will disappear after a while but a permanent record that the details for this former shareholder have been added is denoted by the little green triangle in the corner of each of the editable columns.
Note: Since the person just added is no longer a shareholder the amount in the Total Number of Shares column is always zero and this number cannot be edited - see pop up box in 2 above.
6. If you let the cursor hover over any record ( i.e not just the ones with green corners which you have previously added) it will become highlighted and read 'Edit this record' as per the below. If you want to edit the record simply click on it.
7. If it was a record you previously added (i.e one with green corners) it will take you back to step 2 above however if it is not a record you previously added you can, if required, add the details of a prior share class once held by a current shareholder of another class.
Note: Editing the Register of Shareholders does not update any other register nor does it send any message to Companies House.
When it comes to printing the Registers any details added in the above manner will be indistinguishable from details which were either automatically included when the company was first imported or subsequently amended following any allotments or transfers processed using Inform Direct.