How to keep an eye on your debtors and competitors

Did you know that there are free tools available which allow you to monitor the corporate and security activities of companies?

Using ASIC’s Company Alerts and the PPS Register’s alert notification service, you can keep an eye on changes that occur with your debtors, competitors and service providers.

Company Alerts

ASIC provides a Company Alert service which will notify you via email when documents are lodged for a particular company.

The Alert will tell you the type of document that has been lodged and the date of lodgement. From this you will be able to infer a number of things, e.g.:

  • If there has been a change to the status of a company, for example:
    • A receiver, liquidator or external administrator has been appointed;
    • An application for winding up the company has been lodged; or
    • An application for de-registration of the company has been lodged;
  • If there has been a change in the directors or shareholders of a company; and
  • If share buyback documentation has been lodged.

You can set up 5 profiles per email address and each profile can monitor up to 25 companies.

Company Alerts can be set up via the ASIC website.

If you have been alerted to a change for a particular company that you would like to investigate further, contact us on 1300 654 590 or by email.  We can advise you on the the next steps to take.

Monitoring Security Interests

Before the Personal Property Securities Act 2009 (Cth) (the PPSA) came into place, a Company Alert would also provide an alert if a charge was registered over the assets of the company.  However, now that the PPSA applies, a security over the personal property of a company is notified on the Personal Property Securities Register (PPS Register) and is no longer the responsibility of ASIC. If you need a crash-course in what the PPSA is and how the PPS Register operates, you can read more here.

The PPS Register also has an alert notification service, under which you can be notified when there is a new registration or an amendment (including a discharge) for an organisational grantor (i.e. a party that is described by an ACN, ARBN or Australian Registered Scheme Number).  Therefore, this alert system covers more than just companies and includes partnerships, trusts, managed investment schemes, etc.

As is the case for the Company Alerts, an email is sent to a nominated email address when a security interest is registered or amended.  There is no fee for the alert notifications service.

The PPS Register alert notification service are available on the PPS Register.

If you need help enforcing your registrations on the PPS Register, contact us on 1300 654 590 or by email.  We can help protect your interests.

How to use these tools

These tools are particularly useful to monitor your debtors.  For example, a change of directors or the registration of a security interest over all of your debtor’s assets may influence how much credit you provide in the future.

These are not the only tools that can assist you in managing the risk of extending credit.   A comprehensive set of Trading Terms & Conditions can protect your dealings with your customers, so that you can set out when you expect to be paid (and charge interest if you are not paid on time) and agree to take security in the goods you supply.

Who can help?

We can.

There are many more benefits of using Trading Terms & Conditions – read more about these here or contact us on 1300 654 590 or by email to get yours in place.

 

The information contained in this post is current at the date of editing – 24 November 2023.

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Is your PPSA registration expiring soon?

Is your PPSA registration expiring soon?

If the expiry of registration of your ‘security interest’ on the Personal Property Security Register is coming up soon, you need to act quickly. We guarantee you won’t remember to deal with this when in the days leading up to the expiry date.

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