If your CIPC annual return is due after 31 March 2013, you must prepare and submit the Annual Financial Statement to CIPC.
Your annual Financial Statements will have to meet the Companies Act, 2008 requirements.
All companies registered with CIPC will have to submit their Annual Financial Statements when lodging their CIPC Annual returns.
If you fail to do so, your company will be deregistered.
The worse thing the owners of the companies and Close Corporations can do is to wait until their companies are deregistered before they try to comply with this regulation.
Cost of restoration can be very expensive and time consuming process. And very risky in the event you conduct business with the government, through banks and/or utilise BEE credentials.
What this situation effectively means is that there 6 months left to get your books in order. This can be enough for someone who has been maintaining the books on monthly basis, and who has for the previous years been preparing the Annual Financial Statements.
If your business has not been maintaining the books on a regular basis and financial statements have never before been prepared, the remaining time left may not be enough. And that can mean high accounting costs.
Remember too that in order for your current Annual Financial Statement to be completed, all the previous annual financial statements must also have been done.
What Company directors and Close Corporation members need to undertstand is that they are responsible for the preparation of the Annual Financial Statements.
Even if you elect to outsource this responsibility you will still be liable in the event that your service providers prepare financial statements that does not meet with the requirements of the Companies Act, 2008.
When all is said and done, ensure that you appoint a suitably registered and competant person to prepare your Annual Financial Statement.