Over many years, the Companies Registration Office (CRO) has issued credit notes to customers in place of cash refunds.

Following legal advice received by the CRO, and as part of its intention to move to a full e-payments-based system for all monies charged and received from customers, the CRO now intends to phase out the acceptance of historic credit notes. 

Thus, all credit notes issued by CRO dated before 1 January 2014 will not be honoured as payment from customers. This applies to charges for services and customer account receipts, from that date.

This will start on 1 January 2020, and be implemented on a rolling six-year basis.

Peak filing date

The peak filing date for the CRO this year was on 29 October, the day after the October bank holiday.

A total of 52,968 companies registered with the CRO had an annual return date of 30 September, and a filing deadline of 28 October.

On time

In the two years since the introduction of electronic filing for the submission of annual returns and associated financial statements, a total of 98% of companies now file on time.

Only 1,052 companies failed to file on time.  

Mandatory e-filing and uploading of associated financial statements have contributed greatly to the increase in compliance, the CRO said.