Starting a register again
Sometimes a register is not wrong in a few places — it is wrong from its first entry. Transcribed from the wrong company's file, or typed from a superseded set of papers, or entered by someone who misread the share structure throughout.
Correcting that one item at a time would be technically possible and practically useless: you would end up with a register carrying fifty corrections, which nobody can read. A register that cannot be read is a real failure, because the whole purpose of the document is to be inspected.
So there is a third remedy.
What is possible, and when
| Where you are | What to do | Available |
|---|---|---|
| The register is still a draft | Discard it — the company and everything typed into it | Always |
| Open, and a few facts are wrong | Record a rectification against each | Always |
| Open, and wrong from the beginning | Start the register again | Practice owner or administrator |
What "starting again" actually does
It is called supersession, and the important word is kept:
- The register you have now is sealed. A final entry is added to its evidence chain recording that you set it aside, when, why, and exactly what it contained.
- Nothing is deleted. Every entry stays. Every member, certificate and movement recorded against it stays. They stop being this company's register and become a closed generation of it, which the system makes permanently read-only.
- The company goes back to being a draft, so you can transcribe the correct history, check it, and open it again — exactly like setting the company up for the first time.
- The new register keeps its own evidence chain, beginning fresh.
What someone will see afterwards
A clean register — and the fact that an earlier one was set aside on a stated date by a named person, for a stated reason.
That is deliberate, and it is the reason this is safe to offer. A reset nobody could see would be worth nothing: if a register could be quietly restarted whenever it became inconvenient, no shareholder could rely on any register here. Because the restart is itself part of the record, an honest correction stays honest and a dishonest one is visible.
Write the reason for someone reading it in ten years who was not in the room.
Who can do it
Whoever owns or administers the practice. Someone with ordinary write access can keep the register day to day but cannot restart it — that is not bookkeeping.
When it is refused
- While the company is under a legal hold. A register whose contents are being argued about is not restarted mid-argument. Lift the hold first, which is itself recorded.
- While the register is still a draft. There is nothing to seal — discard it instead.
- Without a reason. The reason is the part that makes the restart meaningful.
One thing that changes permanently
Once a company has had a register superseded, its draft can no longer be discarded. Discarding removes the company entirely, and that would take the sealed generation with it while its evidence chain — which nothing can delete — carried on describing records that no longer existed.
So after a supersession the way forward is always forward: transcribe the correct register and open it, or supersede again.
Still not sure?
If you are hesitating between rectification and starting again, the test is whether a reader would end up with a document they can follow. A handful of corrections reads fine. A register where every line has been corrected does not.