Therefore, it is important to understand the compliance requirements and come up with a plan to stay on top of them. After ACRA filing, the same set of financial statement would be ready for IRAS filing. After setting up a company in Singapore, you will need to prepare ACRA filing and IRAS after every financial period irrespective of the type of entities that you have set up. Please refer to the compliant requirement for a Private Limited Company in Singapore.
This is also done to make information accessible to public agencies upon request. The idea is to introduce transparency in the ownership and control of business entities. With BizFile+, it allows the public to access more than 400 services online and doing business what are internal accounting controls in Singapore has become much easier and convenient. With BizFile+, the public can access a range of services upon request. This includes the submission of statutory documents and retrieval of information about business entities registered with ACRA.
How to Notify ACRA About Changes to My Company?
If your registration is successful, ACRA will send an official email confirming the company’s incorporation. The email notification will include Unique Entity Number (UEN) and is treated as the official certificate of incorporation in Singapore. Use your Corppass Administrator account to manage your business’ digital transactions with the Government. Learn about the different business structures and find out which one best suits your business. If you’re starting a business in Singapore, the first question to consider is whether you need to register it. A free copy of Business Profile for your business will be emailed to the person filing the application.
Annual filings are mandatory for both active and dormant Singapore companies despite whichever type of entities that you have in Singapore. However, unlike other registrars, ACRA is also responsible for monitoring ongoing businesses and their financial reporting. However, the latest changes have also made certain ad-hoc transactions for free, which earlier required payment. The Bizfile+ system has more mobile-friendly features, making it seamless for users to access the portal on the go. To notify ACRA, you must log in to your company account in BizFile+ and submit an online form specifying the changes. If you fail to notify ACRA within 14 days of the change date, a penalty may be imposed by ACRA.
How to register a business
The appointed officers of the company may file the Annual Returns online via BizFile+. Company Secretary who is a Registered Filing Agent must remind the directors to compile with the ACRA filing requirements. Before ACRA filing the Annual Return, as part of the annual obligations, companies and directors are required to prepare and present an updated financial statement during Annual General Meeting.
Accordingly to our corporate secretary specialist, Annual Return comes in 4 parts. It is similar to the registrar of companies that you might have in your country. If you are planning to incorporate your company in Singapore, you likely will have questions about ACRA. In this article, we have combined the most common frequently asked questions about this regulatory authority and provided answers. Understand the benefits and requirements of opening a corporate bank account.
Who needs to register with ACRA?
Foreigners can’t apply on their own, so they need to employ a certified agency to represent them. Upon successful registration of your new business, your business will be issued a Unique Entity Number (UEN). The UEN is your business’ unique identification number that will be used in all transactions with government agencies. It’s important to both you and your business that you comply with the filing requirements set down by the Companies Act and enforced by ACRA.
- The email notification will include Unique Entity Number (UEN) and is treated as the official certificate of incorporation in Singapore.
- Statistics reveal that over 1 million transactions take place annually on BizFile+.
- It’s important to both you and your business that you comply with the filing requirements set down by the Companies Act and enforced by ACRA.
- To obtain it from ACRA, you must make a request online and purchase it.
- It was replaced by BizFile+ — its upgraded version — introduced in 2016 to handle a more significant number of services and improve the processing time.
Therefore, a good corporate service provider is needed to help you to keep ACRA updated so you do not have anything to worry about. You may engage a registered filing agent (e.g. law firm, accounting firm or corporate secretarial firm) to submit an online application on your behalf. (e) To promote public awareness of the new business structures, compliance requirements, corporate government practices, and any other matter under the purview of the ACRA. ACRA considers it essential that information on the company registers be kept up-to-date. Therefore the incorporated companies must keep ACRA informed about a change of company name, business activities, new appointments or removal of a company director or secretary etc. The merger was to synergise the monitoring of companies’ compliance with disclosure requirements,[3] and the regulation of public accountants performing statutory audit.
Profit-Boosting Hacks for Enterprise in Singapore
(b) To report, make recommendations to, and advise the Government on matters relating to the registration and regulation of business entities, public accountants, and corporate service providers. ACRA’s objective is to make it easy for a business or individual to set up and register a company in Singapore. Additionally, it is responsible for ensuring that registered companies comply with statutory regulations and maintain their corporate information with ACRA.
If you currently run a business in Singapore or are thinking of setting one up, you’ll find that you come into contact with ACRA regularly. This makes for a safer environment for both businesses and customers in Singapore. It is also tasked with making sure the environment for business is as good as it possibly can be to allow companies to thrive. As a business, you will know that both your company and your work itself are subject to various rules and regulations.
Singapore Government Directory
Before the launch of BizFile in 2004, a business owner was personally required to go to the ROC to fill out and submit form(s) for any corporate actions of a company. However, busy entrepreneurs were not too happy about having to personally visit the ACRA office to register their company and make manual submissions. BizFile was introduced in 2004 as a corporate information storage portal to upload, store, and retrieve business data for companies in Singapore. BizFile was renamed BizFile+ in 2016, following a major update in the system to improve the speed and efficiency of the portal. In Singapore, the Accounting and Corporate Regulatory Authority (ACRA) is responsible for the registration of business entities.