HMRC Admin
Government Gateway, authentication codes and the paperwork that quietly stalls everything else.
HMRC and Companies House run on identifiers — Government Gateway accounts, agent codes, Unique Taxpayer References, Companies House authentication codes — and the moment one of them is lost or deactivated, every other service stops.
- A forgotten Government Gateway password takes a week to reset by post
- A missing Companies House authentication code prevents any electronic filing
- An expired agent authorisation means the accountant cannot submit on the company's behalf
None of this is dramatic, all of it is expensive, and all of it has a turnaround time measured in weeks if it is solved late.
We set up HMRC online services for new companies from scratch:
- Government Gateway account
- Activation of Corporation Tax Online
- PAYE Online for Employers
- VAT registration and access
- Agent authorisations that let us file on the company's behalf
The activation codes arrive by post over seven to ten working days, and we sequence the registrations so the company is fully online before its first filing deadline rather than after.
The Companies House authentication code is a six-character code that any electronic filing requires. It is issued only by post to the registered office, takes up to five working days to arrive, and is the single most common bottleneck for last-minute filings. We request it as part of incorporation, store it securely, and replace it on demand if it is lost.
Address changes are deceptively simple. Updating the registered office at Companies House is a single online form, but the change does not propagate automatically to HMRC, the company's bank, the VAT registration, the PAYE scheme, or any other government register the company is on.
Each one has to be updated separately, and an out-of-date address with HMRC means statutory letters arrive at the wrong place and deadlines pass unseen. We update every register the company is on, in the right order, with documentary confirmation back to the client.