By 18 November 2026, every UK company director, every Person with Significant Control, and every LLP member must have completed Companies House identity verification. There is no transition; there is no further extension; the deadline is statutory under the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act 2023.

For UK accountancy firms acting as Authorised Corporate Service Providers, this is not abstract. It is a workflow problem the size of your client base. The average ACSP-registered firm we speak to has between 200 and 1,000 corporate clients, which translates to roughly 2.5 to 3 individuals per client — directors, PSCs, and LLP members. That’s 500 to 3,000 verifications per firm before the cliff.

This article is the survival guide we wish more firms had read in late 2025.

What “verified” actually means

Companies House recognises two routes:

  1. Direct verification via GOV.UK One Login. The individual completes biometric IDV through the official portal and receives a Companies House identity reference.
  2. Verification through an Authorised Corporate Service Provider (ACSP). The ACSP runs an equivalent identity check, signs the result, and reports it to Companies House. This is the route most firms will use for their clients, because the ACSP can centralise the workflow and the audit trail.

Both routes produce a verified identity that is then bound to the individual’s Companies House record. The cost to the individual is currently nil for the direct route and roughly £20–£40 for the ACSP route, which firms typically charge through to the client at £35+VAT.

The honest volume estimate

Most firms underestimate their verification volume by 30–50% on first pass. The two reasons:

  1. They count directors but forget PSCs. A PSC who is also a director only needs one verification, but a PSC who is not a director (a controlling shareholder, a parent company beneficial owner) does need to be verified separately.
  2. They forget LLP members. Every LLP member who has filing rights or controls more than 25% of the LLP needs verifying.

Run the actual count. Pull your client list, cross-reference each company against Companies House for the full set of directors and PSCs, and add LLP members. The number will be larger than the partner who quoted “about 600” thinks.

A workable timeline

Here is the sequence we hand to mid-sized firms. It assumes you start no later than April 2026.

April — May 2026: Foundations

  • Confirm AML supervision is in good standing.
  • Register as an ACSP with Companies House (see our ACSP registration checklist).
  • Identity-verify your responsible individuals (partners, MLRO, anyone authorised to file).
  • Pick a system of record for the workflow. The choice is between Endorser (purpose-built) and a hybrid of spreadsheets + a generic IDV provider. Make this decision early; switching later is painful.

June — July 2026: Client outreach

  • Send each corporate client a short letter explaining the requirement.
  • Confirm to each client that you will run the verifications on their behalf.
  • Confirm the fee. Most firms settle on £35–£50 per individual plus VAT.
  • Update engagement letters where necessary.

August — September 2026: Bulk verification — wave 1

Send verification requests to your largest clients first. The reasoning: the largest clients have the most directors and PSCs, and any technical or process issues are easier to absorb when there’s still time to recover.

Aim to complete 40–50% of total verification volume by the end of September.

October 2026: Bulk verification — wave 2

The remaining 50–60% of clients. By the end of October, you should have fewer than 10% of individuals outstanding, all of them in the manual review queue or chase list.

November 2026: Mop-up

The first half of November is for chasing the stragglers. The second half is for the firms that didn’t read this article and now need urgent help. (Some of those firms will become your clients.)

What goes wrong, and how to plan for it

Three failure modes we’ve seen repeatedly:

1. The “we’ll do it manually” trap

A partner says “I’ll just have Sarah check the IDs herself.” Sarah is competent, but Sarah does not produce a hash-chained audit trail, and Sarah cannot operate at 1,000-individuals-per-month throughput. The manual approach also fails AML supervisor review. This is the failure mode that kills the most evenings.

2. The “send and forget” trap

The firm sends 800 verification links in one batch and assumes 800 will come back. They don’t. A typical first-attempt response rate is 60–70%. The remaining 30–40% need reminders, escalation, manual review, or — in 2-3% of cases — alternative verification routes. Build the chase workflow before you start, not after.

3. The “no fee model” trap

The firm verifies 800 individuals for free because no one wired up the billing. £35 × 800 is £28,000 of unbilled work. Don’t be that firm. The fee model needs to be agreed in writing with each client before the first verification goes out.

What Endorser does about it

We built Endorser because we watched four firms attempt the workflow on spreadsheets and IDV-provider portals during the early-2026 voluntary regime. All four ran into at least two of the failure modes above. The product is the workflow we wish those firms had had.

Specifically:

  • Bulk import from Companies House. Pulls every director, PSC, and LLP member for every corporate client in a single step. No manual data entry.
  • Bulk send and chase. Send 800 verification requests in a click, then track responses, send reminders, and escalate as needed.
  • Manual review queue. The 5–10% of cases that don’t auto-pass land here, with full context and a hash-chained decision trail.
  • Per-client evidence pack. A signed PDF and JSON bundle, ready for AML supervisor review or for client billing.
  • Fee tracking. Per-verification cost, per-client running total, monthly export to your billing system.

The product is the workflow. The brand is the discipline.

If you want to see it work on your real client list, book a 15-minute demo. We’ll import a slice of your Companies House data, walk you through the four steps, and you’ll know within five minutes whether it fits how your firm operates.