Few checkpoints while filing the Annual Filing form:
- Email ID of the Company (Authorized Person) in the company master data: It is recommended to give the email ID of the person handling the secretarial compliances of the company, as all official correspondence from Ministry, such as, form approvals, notices will be sent on this email ID only.
- Date of Board Meeting in which Financial Statements are approved: This Board Meeting date is really critical as it should not be confused with the date of signing the Financial Statements. There may be a possibility that the date of signing and date of approval of Financial Statement is not same, but date of signing of Financial Statement shall be either on or after the date of approval.
- Date of signing the Board Report and Audit Report: Date of signing of Board Report and Audit Report shall be either on or after the date of approval of Financial Statement by the Board.
- Details of Auditor: The details of Auditor shall be filled with utmost caution (manually) as prefill facility is not working currently.
- Service Request Number (SRN): The SRN generated at the time of appointing the Auditor in form ADT-1 will used as reference here. It should be noted that the ADT-1 filed for auditor appointed for FY2014-15 (with reference to term of appointment), will be used for filing the AOC-4. Another important point to note is that only such Name and Membership Number of the Partner will be mentioned who is signing the Balance Sheet on behalf of the Statutory Auditor Firm.
- Gross value of Related Party Transactions (AS-18): The total value of all related party transactions accounted in the year shall be shown in this head, to give a ‘gross value’ effect. Closing balances with related parties will not be taken into consideration while calculating the total value transacted.
- Information pertaining to Other Administrative Expenses: In common practice, expenses, such as, Audit fee, Power and Fuel, Insurance Expenses, are clubbed under the head ‘Administrative Expenses’ or ‘Other Expenses’. Thus, while filling in Annual Return form, the details of above expenses should be mentioned distinctively. For example, with regard to Power and Fuel expenses (head as provided in the form), different expressions may be used by Companies, such as, Electricity Charges, Utility Expenses, Light Expenses, Energy Cost, etc.
- Principal Products and Services of the Company: In case, if company is doing business in different sectors/ segments, then information relation to all such sectors/ segments will have to be clearly mentioned in the form.
- Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR): Details of CSR shall be mentioned as per the CSR policy and all expenditure shall be clearly marked in the form.
- Disclosure of Related Party Transactions: It the company has entered into any transaction with any Related Party which gets covered under Section 188(1), the disclosure is required to be made for all transactions, regardless these are in ordinary course of business and at arm’s length basis.
- Disclosure pertaining to Director’s Report: If the complete Director Report has been attached in the Form, then no additional disclosure is required to be made.
- Other important details:
- The date of Board Meeting and resolution number through which the respective Director is authorised to sign the form should be mentioned accurately.
- The practicing professional who is certifying the form should cross-match and validate each and every detail filled, before affixing their digital signatures.
Few check points while uploading attachments with Annual Filing form:
- The following attachments are mandatory in Annual Return form:
- Notice of Board Meeting
- Board Report
- Balance Sheet along with Schedules and Notes to Accounts
- Audit Report
- Related Party Contract or Extract of e-form AOC-2
- Details of entities who are Related Party
- List of Shareholders
- Most common defaults noticed are:
- Usually unsigned and unstamped documents are attached in the form, that can later be regarded as invalidated by Ministry of Corporate Affairs.
- Director Identification Number (DIN) and address of Directors are not mentioned. Here, it’s important to note that the same address of Directors should be mentioned in the Financial Statements which has been updated with the Ministry.
- Corporate Identification Number (CIN) and Registered Office of the Company are not mentioned.
- In case if the name of the company has changed within last two financial years, then the previously known name shall also required to be mentioned (“formerly known as [previous company name]”).
- Earnings per share (EPS) is usually ignored for validation. This should be calculated and verified diligently.
- Extract of Annual Return should not be missed in Board Report in Form MGT- 9.
