Are you considering hiring a company Secretary or replacing your existing corporate secretarial services provider? You will need to work fast. You should not delay the decision. As per the law, you cannot keep the position vacant.

Corporate secretaries take care of their company’s compliance and statutory needs. It is why you must be careful about hiring one because it is difficult to recover from a mistake. Here are a few critical things to accomplish.

Importance of a Company Secretary

As your chief compliance officer, your full-time company secretary or company Secretarial Services Provider takes care of your company’s administrative, advisory, and fiduciary functions. Let’s take a look at them.

Administrative

Secretary ensures that your company complies with their statutory requirements. Your corporate secretary is your primary contact with regulating agencies like ACRA, IRAS, etc. They also record minutes of AGMs and EGMs, keep statutory registers updated, and file necessary documents and changes in the company with ACRA.

Advisory

The company secretary provides advice on compliance practices and legal data to directors for making essential business decisions. They also prepare reports and documents to pass on this information to company executives.

Fiduciary

The company secretary communicates with the company’s shareholders and works to protect their business interests. They circulate important documents like financial statements of the company to shareholders enabling them to make sound investment decisions.

Things You Should Consider Before Hiring a Company Secretary

Choosing the wrong company secretarial services firm may compromise your compliance and invite fines/penalties. It can also affect your brand image and credibility irrecoverably.

Below are a few key concepts you should consider before hiring a company secretary for your Singaporean small business.

Avoid Penalties and Fines

Hiring a company secretary services firm known for its professionalism will keep you out of trouble. They will work promptly on your behalf to ensure your compliance within due dates and help you avoid fines and penalties.

These firms generally have a team of experienced, trained, and qualified secretaries. They know government regulations inside out and are always on the lookout to update their knowledge. They help you maintain your brand image and credibility in the eyes of your lenders, suppliers, and customers. Their professionalism minimises the risk of non-compliance for you.

Complex Tasks are Best Left to the Experts

You need to understand that a sole director or a person who is not ordinarily a resident of Singapore cannot act as a company secretary in Singapore.

On the other hand, you may want to hand over the responsibility to one of the many of your company directors.

However, saddling an executive officer with secretarial tasks is highly impractical. It is going to waste their specific skillset and experience. If they are juggling it with their other responsibilities, then, soon, they are going feel challenged. They will find themselves needing to catch up on the latest knowledge.

It is why Singapore companies look up to third-party providers for essential expertise. Hiring a company secretary services firm is considered the best solution. These firms have the expertise, knowledge and the latest updates in the rules and regulations.

Hiring them frees you of the task and eliminates all the stress and anxiety you feel while ensuring your company’s compliance.

Check Their Experience

ACRA holds directors responsible for their company’s compliance. It is your job to dig into a service provider’s background to find their existing clients, reliability, and experience.

Read customer reviews and feedback. You can search for these details online and by visiting their website. You can also ask about them in your business circle. Please make sure they are professionals and can handle the responsibilities of a secretary for your company.

A professional corporate secretarial services provider will know the processes and need minimum input from you. They will take care of administrative work and save you time and effort. You can spend them to grow your company.

Check for Qualifications

Before employing the company secretarial firm, ask whether their employees are qualified. As per ACRA, a company secretary must own at least one qualifications listed below:

• Qualified professional under the Legal Profession Act, Cap. 161
• Public accountant registered under the Accountants Act, Cap. 2
• Member of the Institute of Certified Public Accountants of Singapore
• Member of the Singapore Association of the Institute of Chartered Secretaries and Administrators
• Member of the Association of International Accountants (Singapore Branch)
• Member of the Institute of Company Accountants, Singapore

Hire a Firm Which can Fulfil Your Business Needs

Hiring a company secretary services provider that works at your pace is a must. If you are a digitally oriented person, you also need to search for a provider who uses the latest technology and software tools.

Find someone who uses creative ways to speed up the workflow by digitising as many processes as possible. Hiring them will only lead to satisfaction for you. It will make taking care of errors and repetitive work and hassle. There will be no coordination between you.

Hiring a company secretary for your small business is a tough job. There are many players in the market, and finding the right one for your company is hard. Then again, you also need to find someone who can take care of your business needs affordably.

Well, to receive all the benefits of hiring a company secretary, trust SBS Consulting Pte Ltd. We have no hidden costs, and you will always pay for what you get. Call us at +65-6536 0036 or email us at [email protected] for answers to your company secretary-related queries.