Ghameeda Idalene
Registering A Business

Working at Workshop17 opens your eyes because you see all of these entrepreneurs around you. I noticed it was the youngsters' startups that were successful and I was still stuck in this old school Monday to Friday - at the time I was an employee. I decided right there and then - I have the knowledge, I have the experience, why not me? 

The problem with a lot of small business owners is that they earn money, but spend it left right and centre - they basically never see the profitability of the company. So start recording income and expenses.

You're going to put yourself in a situation where you think you can do it under the radar, but the moment you want to do something - when you want to apply for something or make decisions in the business - that is where compliance comes in.

A client came to me, he was in big trouble with SARS, but it was not a matter of him owing SARS money. It was just that his books needed to be done and they weren't done. I think he had previously filed incorrectly. So I redid the three years - at the time he was in debt of about R500,000. When I was done, he actually ended up with a refund.

The moment you register with CIPC on a certain date, the next year, you need to file your annual return on that same date to stay compliant. That is one of the requirements to be compliant, your annual return through CIPC, first provisional tax, second provisional tax and the company tax that needs to be filed.

The problem that most startups have is that they never record anything until they get a letter from SARS out of nowhere. And they don't understand how SARS knows about them and suddenly they need to wake up and do stuff.

You're registering yourself on CIPC, so you're going to have to email through the CoR 39 that you've signed and a certified I.D. Very important - the CIPC doesn't accept different documents or different attachments, so you're going to have to combine them and then email that.

CIPC is the Company Intellectual Property Commissioner - it's where you register your business. It's an organisation that's linked with SARS.

It's easy, you can log on to CIPC and create a profile. Normally I do the registrations on behalf of the company, but the director can only download or request an original certificate if they have their own CIPC profile. So there's nothing really to be scared of.

Either you can do it yourself or you can outsource to an accountant, a bookkeeper or a tax practitioner. But you must remember that you can end up with hiccups.