Congratulations on taking the first step to start your venture! Registering a company in Australia, in particular a proprietary company, only takes a few simple steps (at least by using our service anyway). Let’s dive into it.
1. Choose a company name
This is arguably the most exciting part of setting up a company. Generally you can use any names, however there are a few caveats and exceptions as follows. We have also linked each of the bullet points to the ASIC website where you can find more detailed information:
- A company’s name cannot be identical to an existing company or business name
- You can only use certain characters in a company’s name
- Some terms are restricted
- Existing trademarks or names that could impact your name
- A company’s name must show its legal status
Obtaining a valid company name can be a frustrating process. That’s why we have put together a smart and easy to use company name availability search. You can try out as many names as you like.
Check Company Name2. Decide how your company will operate
It is important to know which rules will apply to govern your company. Your company can be governed by:
- replaceable rules
- its own constitution, or
- a combination of both.
To make this step easier for you, we provide a lawyer drafted company constitution as part of our company registration service by default. If you want to find out more about constitution and replaceable rules, please follow this link which points to ASIC’s website.
3. Choose your company shareholders and share structure
Shareholders simply mean the owners of shares in your company. They are also called members of your company. A shareholder must be a person, a body corporate (e.g. XYZ Company Pty Ltd) or a body politic (e.g. State of Victoria). This means your company can be owned by one or more persons, companies or combination of both.
Once you know who the shareholders are, it’s time to decide how many shares and what class of shares each of them will own. The most common class is ‘Ordinary’ shares or ‘A’ or ‘B’ class shares.
You must obtain and keep proper records from each person who agrees to become a shareholder of your company. We provide a sample of this in the files package once your form is submitted.
Our easy-to-use registration form will prompt for these accordingly and guide you through all the steps along the way.
4. Choose your company director and secretary (officeholders)
Your company must have at least one director who ordinarily resides in Australia. They must be over the age of 18. It is optional for a proprietary company to have a secretary. If it does, they must also live in Australia. A director and secretary can be the same person.
If you are a director or a secretary for a company, you’re also considered to be an officeholder of said company. Your legal obligations, simply put, are to ensure your company complies with the law. These obligations include:
- ensuring company details are kept up to date
- maintaining company records and details on the register
- paying the appropriate lodgement fees and annual review fees as required.
Officeholders are ultimately responsible for a company’s adherence to the Corporations Act. This means even if you appoint an ASIC agent, you may still be held responsible for failing to meet the company’s legal obligations.
You must get written consent from the people who will fill these roles (director, secretary and members) and you need to keep these with your records. We provide a sample of this in the files package once your form is submitted.
5. Confirm details, submit and begin your venture!
Double check and confirm all details prior to submission, especially the company name. This is because ASIC charges as much as registering a new company to change your company name. Once your registration form is submitted, our system will constantly monitor a response from ASIC and send you an email notification. This generally only takes a few minutes. Once you receive a successful registration notification, you can begin the next steps of your exciting venture!