CRO Newsletter - Interim Issue 171c

*** CRO WEBSITE/DATABASE MAINTENANCE ***

The CRO is carrying out maintenance to our website and database on Wednesday 27th September 2017. This will result in the CRO website and database being inaccessible from 5pm until approximately 6pm on Wednesday 27th. All our online services will be unavailable at this time. We regret any inconvenience caused to the public during this essential maintenance. 
Thank you for your cooperation.

*** MAIN POINTS TO REMEMBER REGARDING E-FILING B1 ****

If an annual return is non-compliant:
the return will not be physically sent back to the Presenter.
An email will issue to the Presenter informing them that their document is sent back and they must resubmit their B1, re-upload their financial statements, print and sign a new signature page and deliver it to the CRO within 14 days.

Companies and Presenters should ensure that they provide the correct email addresses to ensure they are alerted when their documents are sent back as they will no longer receive a letter or documents by post.

Payment must be made for an annual return online:
The filing fee for an e-B1 is €20.
Remember that if you have chosen to pay by credit card, payment will be taken immediately and is NON REFUNDABLE (as we cannot store card details). 
If you would prefer to pay by customer account, payment will not be deducted from your customer account until signatures are applied. 

If an annual return is filed late, late filing penalties apply and, where applicable, the company also loses its entitlement to claim audit exemption in the current year and in the following year.

If you have chosen to sign electronically and pay with a customer account or by credit card, then the submission is entirely electronic, so no signature page or cover sheet is needed unless your are signing as an EFA. As EFAs cannot in law certify the accounts they must attach an overall certificate to the patch page and file it with the CRO on or before the annual return's due date.

My financial statements pdf is too large and won't upload to CORE.
What can I do? A: PDF files should not be more than 5 mb. If your file is too large perhaps consider removing pictures/images from the financial statements. Copy the required text to a new Word processing document. There are other alternatives if using other Word Processors like CUTEFTP. Click File, Save As PDF. 3. Click the Radio Button “Minimise Size” and “Compress Pictures. Compress Pictures will offer options - the lower the resolution you choose - the smaller the size of the document. Click Ok and Save the Document as PDF. https://www.cro.ie/E-Filing/Main-Points-to-Remember

Certification by EFA

Where the B1 form is filed by an Electronic Filing Agent (EFA), the EFA cannot certify the financial statements of the company. In that case, the financial statements must be certified separately by a director and the secretary using a Financial Statements Certification sheet which must be attached to the B1-Financial statement certification sheet which must be attached to the B1.

What do I need on my computer in order to file online?
A: In order to file online you will need to have the following:

A valid email address.
Adobe Acrobat 9 or greater on your computer.
Adobe acrobat is a free download from www.adobe.com. You will need to download this onto your computer before filing electronically. A printer. Make sure that your printer is connected to your computer as you need to print out a signature page at the end of filing your form. 

Where can I get further information? 
Filing on CORE: https://core.cro.ie  
CRO website: https://www.cro.ie/Annual-Return/Filing-Electronically  
Filing through a software package website: Please contact your software provider
Phone Helplines: 1890-252536 / 059-9178981 /01-8045394
e-B1 Help Mailbox: eb1@dbei.gov.ie  
ROS (Revenue Online Service) https://www.ros.ie