In cases where an individual holds multiple roles in a company e.g. officer, PSC & shareholder, Inform Direct looks to merge these records together.
The purpose of the merging is to ensure that the details are consistent for that person. It will ensure at the point of merging that their name and personal information is the same for each of their roles within the company in question.
The merging initially takes place during the process of importing a company to Inform Direct. Records are also linked if you select an Existing person while appointing a record to appoint or receive shares.
The guide below is for situations where the records already exist but have not yet been linked.
How do I check my records and merge if necessary?
1. To check whether the records for an individual within a company that they have multiple roles within are currently merged, navigate to either the Shareholders, Officers or PSCs tab.
2. Please then select the blue arrow next to the name of the individual.
In the example below we will review Edna Brown, who is a director, shareholder and PSC, but the records are not linked together and will require merging.
3. Opening the details of the record will list their different roles along the left-hand side of the page. If they have multiple roles you will see these by selecting Appointments, Shareholdings & Significant controls.
4. In the event that the individual has existing roles in the company which are not displayed when clicking the role type on the left hand side then please select Merge with another person on the right of the page.
The Merge with another person button opens a page which lists the other persons within the company. Next to each will be an i icon which allows you to view their roles.
There is then a Use this person button to confirm that it is the record which you wish to merge with.
Note: Once you have merged records together using this process, we are not able to reverse this. So please be certain that you are selecting the correct individuals before completing the process.
The example below relates to Edna Brown's director record. As Edna is also a shareholder and PSC within the company there are 2 records available to link to the director record.
Note: In cases such as this where there is more than 1 role which requires merging then the merge process should be completed twice to link all relevant records. It does not matter which record you select first in such an instance.
5. After selecting Use this person with the record that you wish to merge with you will be taken to a Merged person's details page. This step gives you an opportunity to ensure that the personal details of the individual are consistent across their different roles and will flag any items which do not match between the records to be merged.
In the screenshot below there are no inconsistencies so no clarification of details is required.
However, where there are inconsistencies, it will instead appear as below - with drop down boxes to confirm which record is correct.
A common example of an inconsistency across different roles is where the residential address as director differs to the residential address as PSC.
Select from the drop down(s) the correct data and then click Continue.
6. Depending on the nature of the inconsistency, at the final stage of the merge process you may be prompted to complete a Companies House submission to update the record which was incorrect.
If a submission to Companies House is required, the summary stage will detail this and show a red Submit to Companies House button as shown below. Once the red button is selected, Inform Direct will make a filing to Companies House to update whichever record held the incorrect data.
