What is a company search report?

06 Feb What is a company search report?

Company Search Report

What is a Company Search Report

A Company Search Report is nothing but an annual report which is generated by a tool that inspects a company’s records.

The stakeholders need to fill in the basic details about the company whose details they require, including the history of the company, share details, key risk factors, and credit risk score.

Daily feeds are taken from official sources to update reports on a real-time basis.

Who uses the Company Search Report?

1. Stakeholders

Interested stakeholders of a company track the activities of a company for their personal benefits in other terms called an investment. There could be many purposes of a company search report. It could be to check profits, loss, repayments, etc.

2. Banks

The banks use company search reports to trace the history, check for fraudulence and authenticity.

A Company search report traces the history of a company and the property/properties owned by the company. It traces who the original owner of the property/properties is and how it is mortgaged with various banks over a period of time before reaching the bank who is currently demanding for the search report.

Content Of the Company Search report:

The Company Search Report  mostly contains the following details:

• Name of Company
• Registered Office Address of the Company
• Capital Structure of the Company
• List of Directors of the company since incorporation
• List of Shareholders of the company since incorporation
• List of Registered Charges since incorporation etc.
• The Report may include the other matters also as per the demand of the Bank Officials
• General corporate information
• Operating and financial review
• Chairpersons statement
• Non-audited information
• Financial statements, including
  • The Balance sheet is also known as the Statement of Financial Position
  • Income statement also profit and loss statement.
  • Statement of changes in equity
  • Cash flow statement
• Notes to the financial statements
• Accounting policies
• Auditor’s report
• Mortgage charge data
• Insolvency information

The information varies based on what one is looking for in the report, some basic data remains the same though.

Sources for annual reports

A summary of the sources for obtaining annual reports including services is available from the ICAEW Library & Information Service.

There are a number of libraries in the UK which hold collections of annual reports in printed form. Six libraries in the UK with significant collections of pre-1995 UK company annual reports are:

• British Library
• Guildhall Library
• London Business School Library
• Manchester Business School Library
• Strathclyde University Library
• Warwick University Library

How To Generate the company search data?

 You can visit the page here to generate a free report, the official website also has an option where you can set up free email alerts to tell you when a company updates its details.

• You can also use the WebCheck service. You’ll need to register, and it costs £1 to get copies of certain documents. You can pay by credit/debit card or PayPal. There is also a Beta version being tested with all information free of charge.
• AnnualReports is a free website from where you can also download the company report.
• Jordans is one such popular website which charges based on the data that you require in your company report.

Advantages of Generating a company search report

1. To check how the customers, prospects, partners or stakeholders score in terms of finance and stability.
2. Assess the financial risk of extending credit terms to a particular company.
3. Helps avoid fraudulent transactions.
4. The report makes transaction transparent and less risk-prone.
5. It helps the interested parties in staying informed of significant changes in a company’s business credit file.
6. Reduces a lot of man-hours and makes decision making easier.
7. The reports are tailor-made based on your requirements thus, saving a lot of money and time.
8. There is no waiting time and the reports are instant. The report is produced after researching through reliable databases and sources thus making it reliable and credible.

Conclusion

The Search report is a great asset to the stakeholders to know about the company in which they are going to invest, control, manage or provide a loan or to enter into a contract.