"What else do you need from me?"
A client wants to incorporate. The manager emails asking for the proposed name, the registered office, the directors' details, the shareholders and how shares will be split, and a few other items. The client replies with half of it. The second director's details come a week later. The name they wanted is taken. Someone asks about the nature of business code. Then the share split changes.
When the company is finally formed, someone has to set it up in the practice software, add the deadlines, schedule the first jobs and start the onboarding tasks, often from the same email thread.
Formation needs many details from several people
Each officer and shareholder has their own details to provide, and the practice may need identity checks for each. Gathering them from several people through one client contact is slow, and emails are the worst tool for it.
Name checks, business activity codes and share structures produce questions that go back and forth. Nothing is checked until someone tries to file, so gaps surface at the last step.
After formation, setting up the new client internally is a separate manual job, which is how new companies end up missing from deadline lists for their first year.
What piecemeal formations cost
| Issue | Effect |
|---|---|
| Details arrive in pieces | Days of back and forth |
| Name not checked early | Plans changed late in the process |
| Gaps found at filing | A rejected or delayed formation |
| Several people involved | One slow director holds everything up |
| New company not set up internally | Missing from deadlines and job lists |
First impressions suffer as well. A new client forming a company is often at the start of their business, excited and in a hurry. A process full of repeated questions makes the practice feel slow at exactly the moment the relationship begins.
The formation intake we build
- The client receives a guided form for the company: proposed name with an instant availability check through the Companies House API, registered office, business activity from a searchable list and share structure.
- Each director and shareholder gets their own link to provide their details and complete your practice's identity steps, so one person is not relaying everyone's information.
- The form checks completeness and consistency, such as shares adding up and every director having the details required, and shows the client what is still missing.
- Your manager reviews the complete pack, raises any questions inside the same tool and approves it.
- Your team files through your usual formation route, and the tracker records the company number when it is issued.
- The new company is created in your practice software with its officers, key dates and first jobs, and your onboarding tasks start automatically.
Choices about structure and shareholding are for the client and your practice's advice. The intake collects and checks the facts.
Formations that start complete
Clients provide everything in one guided place, and each officer supplies their own details. Names are checked before anyone gets attached to them. Managers review a complete pack. And each new company appears in your practice software with its deadlines from day one.
Clients get a smoother start to the relationship as well. A clear, guided process for forming their company sets the tone for how the practice will work with them afterwards.
Is this how formations go?
- Formation details arrive over several emails
- Names are checked late
- One officer's details hold everything up
- Formations are delayed by missing information
- New companies are set up internally by hand