How much will it cost to hire a corporate secretary?

Upon incorporation of a Singapore company, it is mandatory to appoint a company secretary within six months of incorporation. The secretary post should also not be left vacant for more than six months. Companies can choose to hire an in-house secretary or appoint a corporate service provider to fulfil this position. Here is a breakdown of the general cost that you will have to fork out to hire a corporate service provider.

1) Annual Subscription Fee
This fee covers the corporate secretariat fees for the year. The corporate service provider will provide a named secretary as well as maintain the company’s registers and file all correspondences and resolutions for the year. Imagine this as having an out-stationed secretary. Instead of hiring a secretary who will be in your company’s office, you will have one that will maintain all your company files in their office. Do note that Singapore has very strict anti-money-laundering and anti-terrorism laws and the proper maintenance of company registers, especially the register of controllers and the register of nominee directors are mandatory for all companies unless exempted.

2) Annual General Meeting (AGM)
This is a mandatory meeting to be held by every company every year. A notice has to be sent out by the directors to the shareholders to inform them about the meeting. The financial statements are tabled at the meeting and the shareholders have to approve the financial statements. If an AGM is not held, the company is liable for a composition fine.

3) Filing of Annual Return
This is the submission by the company officers to inform ACRA that the AGM has been held and to update ACRA about the status of the company. If an annual return is not submitted, the company is liable for a composition fine.

Our corporate secretarial fees at Singapore Secretary Services is $550 per annum. This includes the notice by the company secretary to prepare the notice to shareholders for the Annual General Meeting. This does not include the Annual Return filing fee payable to ACRA of $60. If we are required to prepare the meeting minutes as the company secretary, our fee is $100. For more details of our Standard Package, do visit this link: https://acrafilingagent.com/

4) Bookkeeping Fees
This depends on whether your company requires the services of a bookkeeper. For some, they may have their own in-house accounts team and some company owners may choose to use systems like Waveapps or Xero to maintain their company accounts. Maintaining your own accounts will help to keep costs low. Bookkeeping costs are perhaps the fees that cost the most over the course of the year as these fees are paid monthly.
Bookkeeping fees vary based on the number of transactions per month. They range from $200 per month onwards. We highly encourage our clients who are cost sensitive to do their own bookkeeping using free accounting platforms like Waveapps. Our firm is not in any way associated with any accounting software nor do we receive any fees for promoting their platforms. We recommend these platforms as they have helped our clients save money and yet provide a great platform for our clients’ businesses. Free platforms like Waveapps provide users with the ability to manage their accounts, generate invoices, file receipts, integrate their bank account and even collect payments for invoices through credit card.

5) Other non-routine services fees
Things like the opening of company bank account, the sale and issuing of new company shares, change in company officers, company address or change in particulars of company officers are among some of the non-routine services that may incur costs. Feel free to speak to your corporate service provider and feel free to ask them for their price list of these non-routine services. Preferably, their prices should be listed on their company website.
For A1 Accounting Pte Ltd, our fees are listed on the homepage of our website. The fees listed are for one-time transactions. i.e. they are for clients that did not sign up for our annual packages and our company is not providing the named secretary for their firm and thus do not maintain their company files. The fees for non-routine services for clients who are signed up for our annual packages are usually lower and for most, changes it is covered in our annual packages.

Here is an example of the costs which our clients paid to our firm for the work done for the last year:

Client A
Annual subscription fee: $550
Notice for Annual General Meeting: Free
Drafting and filing of Meeting Minutes: $100
Filing of Annual Return with ACRA: $60
Opening of new Bank Account: $100
Change in Business Activity: $100
Update in Contact Information of Directors: Free
Change in Company Address: $100
Bookkeeping using cloud based accounting software: Refer to our pricing for accounting services

Client B
Annual subscription fee: $550
Annual subscription for company registered address: $80
Notice for Annual General Meeting: Free
Drafting and filing of Meeting Minutes: $100
Filing of Annual Return with ACRA: $60
Update Contact Information of Directors: Free
Notice for Extraordinary Meeting to remove and Appoint a Director and Increase the Share Capital of the Company as well as the Transfer of Shares: $100
Drafting and Filing of Meeting Minutes: $100
Increase in Share Capital and the Transfer of Shares Filing: $150
Drafting of Simple Share Transfer Agreement: Free
Witness for Share Transfer Agreement: Free
The signing of Bank Resolution: Free
Bookkeeping using cloud based accounting software: Refer to our pricing for accounting services

Client C: A foreign client who wanted to incorporate a Singapore registered company, hire a nominee director and required a registered address.
Annual subscription fee: $550
Annual subscription for company registered address: $80
Onetime fee for company incorporation: $400
Nominee Director Fees: $2,000 per annum
Security deposits for Nominee Director services: $3,000 (refundable upon cancellation of this service, reduced to $1,000 for customer using out bookkeeping services)
Notice for Annual General Meeting: Free
Drafting and filing of Meeting Minutes: $100
Filing of Annual Return with ACRA: $60
Bookkeeping Services: from $200 per month or $2,400 per annum (based on the number of monthly transactions)

The fees for corporate secretarial work varies greatly due to the amount of work that needs to be done throughout the year. The mandatory items like maintaining registers, holding an AGM and the filing of Annual Returns are the important items that company officers and owners should focus on. For most clients who hire bookkeeping services, it is these services that will incur the most cost to their business and even though our firm does provide such services, we would encourage our clients who are on a budget to learn how to maintain their own set of accounts to save cost.
When in doubt, seek legal advice or consult an experienced ACRA Filing Agent.

 

Yours Sincerely,
The editorial team at Acra Filing Agent

 

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