Rebecca Ratcliffe
At this week’s Hacks/Hackers meet up Heather Brooke discussed the Companies House website’s paywall and the restrictions it places on access to company data.
In response, audience members suggested some useful sites which offer free access to annual accounts. Here’s a few that were discussed:
If you’re looking for UK company accounts Level Business has a simple interface and allows users to download accounts as PDFs. If you’re a novice, the Accounts Explained page is really useful.
2) Duedil
Duedil aggregates information on UK companies from sites including Companies House, Intellectual Property Office and the Registry Trust. It’s user-friendly and allows you to search director’s names, download accounts, look at shareholder ownership and where a company is investing. There’s a full list of features here.
3) Who runs it?
Who runs it? enables users to filter results by name of company director and secretary, unlike the search function on Companies House. It also offers links to OpenCorporates where more information is available.
OpenCorporates pulls together data from government registers across the world and links information to specific companies. It doesn’t offer annual accounts, but it does hold an overwhelming amount of information on over 26 million companies worldwide, including official notices, trademarks and government payments.
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