A company registered in Hong Kong must comply with the Companies Ordinance. Take a public company as an example, it is impossible to list your business organization on the HK stock exchange without having a qualified company secretary who is locally based in Hong Kong. With a secretary, your business can operate properly on the right side of the law which would have avoided many future conflicts. The secretary can act or facilitate as an interface between your client business and the legal regulations.
A person with such knowledge and experience is preferred. A popular alternative is to use an agency who offers secretary services including incorporation, de-registration, tax filing, auditing, and more. The agency providing such service should be organizational competence and possess planning ability. An agency providing such services of company secretary to clients may run out of manpower to work on so much administrative work before the agency realizes. But there is always technologies that can help including a company secretary software.
For many companies the directors and board members often have other duties on a daily basis. It may be hard and time consuming for them to directly get the required operations information about the company. But with a secretary as a person to take up such responsibility, shareholders and members of the company now can be fed with company accounts and reports. Even when things do not work out well, and when the company may have to consider winding up, it is the secretary who can oversee the process of the liquidation.
Complying the laws is only one task. A company secretary with the specialty experience should be able to extend to decision making, business administration process, and governance. The experience should allow the agency to facilitate tax compliance for the company from day one and onwards. The company secretary may help to register the company with Inland Revenue Department (IRD). By the end of each financial year, the company secretary should be allowed to ensure annual tax returns are completed on time.
Organizing meetings and attending meetings for the board of directors or shareholders are some of the responsibilities of the secretary. For example during a meeting, the secretary has to do the preparation including the preparation of meeting minutes, assisting in the formulation of the agenda, ensuring the proper meeting procedures are carried out, and more. There may involve many incidents where the agency has to communicate complicated information with the client.