CRO Digital Transformation
The Companies Registration Office (“CRO”) Digital Transformation has taken effect from 16 December and we are now seeing the impact on company secretarial compliance.
The annual return process for Irish companies has been streamlined to allow for a full electronic filing of a company’s annual return. A company must now file its annual return within 56 days of the annual return date. If you are a company director and unsure of your annual return date you can check here: https://search.cro.ie/company/CompanySearch.aspx.
The accompanying financial statements to an annual return must now be uploaded before a company can generate and upload the signature page to the annual return. Therefore the financial statements must be approved before the annual return can be completed. The uploaded financial statements may be type signed.
As always the B1 signature page must be completed in order to certify an electronic annual return. However this can now be filed using digital signatures. A page with original wet signatures can also be scanned and uploaded directly to the CRO rather than the traditional postal delivery. This will enable an annual return to be genuinely completed on the 56th day if required and uploaded in real time.
Annual return filing extension
In response to the continued Level 5 lockdown, the CRO have advised that any companies with annual returns falling due since 30 September 2020 during the lockdown period will be deemed to be filed on time if all aspects of the annual return are completed by 28 May 2021. This can give a much needed extension for companies in difficult circumstances were financial statement cannot be finalised or annual return signatories are unavailable. Don’t hesitate to get in touch with our team if you have any queries with your annual compliance needs.