Collect changes before the confirmation statement

A confirmation statement is only as good as the registers it is built from. In a group, the share transfers and allotments of the past year are often known to someone else first, the group financial controller or a subsidiary's finance team. This workflow asks them a month before each statement falls due, so the registers are right before you file. Workflows must be switched on for your organisation.

Build it

1. Choose New workflow, then Build it yourself, and name it, such as "Confirmation statement: collect the changes".

2. Under When should it run?, choose Before a deadline. Set How long before it falls due to 30 days, and under Only tasks whose name contains type "Confirmation statement". Each run is about the company whose statement is due. Choose Done.

   

3. Add a Request information step. In the message, use Insert data to name the company and the statement's due date, and ask for any share transfers, allotments or changes to shareholders' names and addresses since the last statement, with a "no changes" reply if there were none. Under Who is asked, choose A specific person and find the person who knows. Under What they send back, choose A written answer and Documents, so stock transfer forms come with the answer.

4. Set Link works for shorter than the 30 days, such as 10, and switch on Chase if they don’t reply.

5. Add a Create a task step to bring the registers up to date, assigned to the company secretary and due a week after the run.

6. Choose Save. On the Review tab, What it does reads it back:

   

What a run looks like

Thirty days before each company's confirmation statement falls due, a run starts for that company and waits for the reply. Read it on the run, choose Accept and continue, and the task to update the registers is raised.

Record the changes (see Transfer shares between members and Record an allotment of shares), then file the statement from its task (see File a confirmation statement).

Tips from practice

• The trigger also runs for a statement already within 30 days when you save the workflow, so expect runs for those companies straight away.
• The workflow runs for every company with a matching task. Where a company's shares are handled by someone else, choose Cancel on that run and ask them directly.
• A "no changes" reply is still worth accepting: the run records who confirmed it and when.