Add an existing company to Kudocs (1) – Onboarding summary
How do I add a company to Kudocs? Very easily.
Kudocs has a live connection to Companies House, so all you need to do is enter your company name or number, enter your Authentication Code and then Kudocs will build your company profile for you, using the information that is publicly and privately stored at Companies House (don’t worry, the private information will remain private in your Kudocs account).
You just need to review the information we’ve pulled from Companies House, confirm it is correct (or update it if not) and that’s it. You’re all set up on Kudocs.
For a more detailed explanation of how/ what data we get from Companies House, see here.
There are 2 different ways to onboard a company – Quick and Full. What is the difference and which option should I choose? We have a dedicated FAQ to explain this – see here.
What is an Authentication Code? A password that allows the company to access its private information at Companies House. It is what the company needs to file documents through webfiling and it is what Kudocs uses to connect the companies account directly to Companies House so you dont have to worry about web-filing ever again! It will be securely stored in Kudocs for your future reference (rather than on a piece of paper that everyone looses and it then takes weeks to get a new one…).
I’ve lost my Authentication Code – how can I get a new one? This is not a problem – you can order a new one from Companies House – they will send it by post to the company’s registered address.
What types of company does Kudocs support? Kudocs currently supports companies limited by shares or limited by guarantee. We’re working on other forms (e.g. LLPs) and will be releasing that functionality in due course.
When I start onboarding my company, the information I see does not match my own records – why? Kudocs pulls information about a company that is currently stored at Companies House. That information might not be correct for 2 reasons:
- because previous filings by the company are wrong (incorrect names, numbers, etc); OR
- the information is not wrong, but not up to date. This is because a company does not have to file information about all changes immediately – e.g. it does not need to file details of shareholders (via a confirmation statement) after every share transaction – it only needs to file details of share capital changes (SH01, SH02, SH03 etc). Therefore Companies House will know about the latest share capital, but not the latest information about which shareholders own what. The information at Companies House is correct based on the last – correct – filings but not correct compared to the company registers (which should show all the details of the shareholders and share capital).
Don’t worry about this – there are various ways that you can fix this during or after onboarding.
What about the company records/ registers/ books that I have already? How do I add them to Kudocs? There are a number of ways to do this and we’d be happy to discuss this with you in detail. But in summary you can
(i) upload the previous records as documents into you Document store – easily accessible for whenever you need to look at them (easiest & quickest);
(ii) create detailed histories for the company and stakeholders by recording specific ‘historic; events; or
(iii) we can help with bespoke bulk data imports if you have the information in a data form.
I started onboarding a while ago, and have only now come back to it. Since I started there have been changes to the company information at Companies House. How do I refresh the data in Kudocs? Very easily. On step 1 of Onboarding there is an option to refresh the data. Just press on the {Get latest information from Companies House} button.
