The realities of Russian business and changes in the legislation of the Russian Federation force caution when choosing a counterparty as a partner, whether it be relations with a buyer, seller or contractor. In times of crisis, usually more fraud schemes appear that can cause companies serious damage.
Why it is necessary to check the activities of the organization
Firstly, this allows you to identify unscrupulous partners or customers, cooperation with which can cause financial damage to the company.
Secondly, the risks of participating in litigation both as a plaintiff and as a defendant are reduced.
Thirdly, claims from the tax authorities in the absence of due diligence are prevented. This eliminates the possibility of additional taxes.
Checking the counterparty is a natural practice in the work of large companies. For this, the organizational structure of the enterprise includes a legal department, a security service . In the field of view of these units are not only issues of compliance with legislation and security within the company, but also work with legal entities.
And if the turnovers and profits of large enterprises justify the cost of maintaining a staff of lawyers and “security guards,” the opportunities for small businesses are much more modest. Therefore, we will share our experience and tips on how to verify the counterparty by the owner of a small company or its employees.
How to check organization
We suggest using the following list of actions:
- Study of constituent documents.
- Check the availability of the organization on the tax service website.
- Counterparty analysis by third-party resources.
- Search for information through the bailiff site.
- Collection of company reputation data on the Internet.
- Confirmation of existing licenses and certificates of SRO (if any).
- Verification of founders and persons entitled to act without a power of attorney.
- Assessment of financial position.
Verification of constituent documents
To start collecting information, we recommend that you request the constituent documents: charter, certificate of TIN, PSRN, a decision to create an organization or a memorandum of association, a fresh extract from the register.
The charter should pay attention to the title page, which indicates:
- Company name;
- basis for registration of a legal entity (decision or memorandum of association);
- date of registration;
- signature and details of the founder.
The General Provisions section provides the full and abbreviated company names, address, location, goals and activities. The headings “Legal status of the organization”, “Executive body” are also subject to careful study.
Certificate TIN and PSRN - documents issued by the IFTS when registering a taxpayer. Both documents must have the stamps of the tax authority, the same name, the date of registration and a single code of OGRN.
The decision to create or the memorandum of association is checked for the coincidence of the names of the organization, legal address, appointment of the director and his passport data.
An extract from the Unified State Register of Legal Entities is a summary of information about a company that is registered in the tax inspection database. The document should pay attention to the date of receipt. Compare information on the name of the counterparty, its legal address, data on founders and other persons entitled to act without a power of attorney (director).
In addition, the extract contains TIN codes for founders and directors, OKVED codes, information on the size of the authorized capital and documents on the basis of which data were recorded during registration and amendments to the constituent documents (for example, change of director, founder, legal address).
What should alert: a discrepancy in the data in these documents indicates the likelihood of a fake. The presence of records about the change of director, founders or legal address classifies the organization as a risk group from the point of view of tax authorities.
Collection of company information on the IFTS website
You can check the tax service organization on the official website of the tax authority. The main section is the "Business Risks: Test Yourself and the Counterparty" service. At this point, you can get an extract from the register. Data from an electronic copy obtained independently is verified with the option provided by the counterparty.
Counterparty verification by third-party resources
Where to check the organization in addition? The most popular services for collecting information about counterparties are provided by VLSI and Counterparty.
In the first option, it is necessary to open the website of the reporting operator "VLSI". The trial period of use is 8 days and is provided after registration. To search, you must enter the TIN or company name in the appropriate fields. The result is displayed in the form of a dossier and includes information on the assigned TIN, PSRN codes, registration address, information about the director, financial position, company rating and participation as a defendant, plaintiff or third party in court cases.
In the same way, a search is performed through the second resource. Information about the organization is displayed in a similar way.
What should alert: the person indicated by the director or founder is registered in a similar role in several companies. The organization is located at the mass registration address. The dossier indicates information on the presence of lawsuits in the history of the enterprise. In the decryption of the rating there are signs of tax evasion, bankruptcy, the presence of losses.
Search for information through the bailiff site
Data from the web portal will allow you to draw conclusions about the existence of claims from government bodies (tax evasion) and third parties.
You can check the organization by TIN, name and region of location on the website of the bailiff service (BSP). If there is information in the database, a table will be formed containing the name of the state agency, a link to the date and number of the enforcement proceedings, type and amount of debt.
If there is no data in the database, we can draw the first conclusion about the reliability of the company being audited.
Collection of company reputation data on the Internet
As a search query, we recommend choosing the TIN code, PSRN, company name. However, it should be borne in mind that in most cases the name of the company is not unique. Even in one region, several enterprises with the same name can be registered. TIN and BIN are unique codes that are assigned to only one organization.
A search of information in the Internet space will allow you to find reviews of other users about the company being audited. Also, by TIN and PSRN, you can get to the links of the court decisions in relation to the selected counterparty, if such existed in its history of activity.
Confirmation of existing licenses and certificates of SRO
In addition, the organization may provide in a package of documents a license or certificate of self-regulatory organization. Consider which of the most popular areas of activity for small businesses require a license:
- all types of operations from development to maintenance of encryption tools and information systems;
- operations from development to the sale, acquisition or discovery of equipment for secretly obtaining information;
- activities in the field of work with confidential information;
- pharmaceutical industry;
- the work of medical institutions, pharmacies, etc .;
- passenger and cargo transportation by water, air, road, rail;
- work of betting companies;
- private security and detective activities;
- operations for scrap of ferrous and non-ferrous metals;
- employment of citizens of the Russian Federation outside the territory of Russia;
- communication and television and radio broadcasting services;
- the activities of educational institutions;
- cartographic and geodetic services.
You can use various web services depending on the type of license. You can check the licenses of organizations of various types using the links of industry-specific state registration and issuance bodies.
Verification of membership in the SRO is a little different. The following sequence of actions is performed:
- First, the certificate itself is studied, where the registration number and name of the self-regulatory organization are indicated.
- On the Rostekhnadzor website, open an advanced search and enter the name of the SRO that issued the document.
- In the search results, open information about the organization and find a link to the site.
- Find the section on SRO membership on the company's Internet portal .
- Enter the name or TIN of the organization that provided the certificate of admission.
- If there is a company in the database, information on the date of entry, registration number and other information disclosed by the self-regulatory organization about its participants will be displayed.
Verification of founders and persons entitled to act without a power of attorney
The data obtained will allow us to draw conclusions about the nature of the problems and their possible impact on the performance of the audited legal entity.
Sources of information are also websites of the bailiff service, VLSI, and “Counterparties”.
Assessment of financial position
For this, an analysis of the financial statements for previous periods is carried out. A signal for caution is significant indicators of receivables or payables with insignificant assets (the value of fixed assets, goods and materials in warehouses, the state of settlement accounts, etc.) and a small annual turnover. It is better to instruct the study of the balance sheet to a full-time specialist. An experienced employee can easily find dubious indicators and inform the director.
We hope that our readers now have step-by-step instructions for a comprehensive check of the counterparty: from constituent documents to checking the organization’s SRO.