The firm's letterhead and particulars
How a firm's logo and particulars reach its statements, invoices and e-mails in Achekam, what happens to blank fields, and what to check after a change.
By Achekam · · 4 min read · For Accountants & audit firms in South Africa, Nigeria, Kenya
A firm's letterhead does quiet work. It tells a client which firm they are dealing with, tells a bank or a revenue authority who prepared a document, and gives a regulator the registration details it expects. When the letterhead is wrong, an old address, a former partner's name, a missing registration number, the document still works, but the firm looks careless, and some readers will start to wonder what else is out of date.
In Achekam, the firm records its logo and particulars once, and they are placed on what Achekam sends for the firm. That makes the one record very important. This article covers where it appears, what to put in it, how blanks are handled and what to check whenever it changes.
Where branding appears
A firm can upload its logo and record its particulars under SETTINGS > Firm Profile and Branding & Themes. Achekam then puts them on what it sends for the firm, such as client e-mails, staff signatures, invoices and the cover of financial statements. From a client's Billing tab in Client 360, staff can also issue a numbered statement of the services a client buys and their fees as a PDF on the firm's letterhead.
For payroll and signing documents, the logo, brand colour and company details set under Settings appear on payslips, tax certificates, EMP201 PDFs and documents composed for signature.
So a single change in Settings reaches a long list of documents. That is efficient when the change is right and far-reaching when it is wrong.
One regulatory point deserves attention before the firm's logo goes onto a client's statements. In Nigeria, the FRC's public notice to statutory auditors lists the rules auditors must comply with, among them key audit matters, audit committees and no auditor logos in client reports. A firm auditing Nigerian clients should read the notice and decide how its branding is applied to those clients' documents.
Particulars clients and regulators expect
What a firm's documents should show varies with its country and its work. As a starting list, record:
| Particular | Why it matters |
|---|---|
| Registered name, exactly as registered | Clients and authorities match documents to the entity |
| Registration number | Identifies the firm as a legal entity |
| Physical and postal address | Where correspondence and notices go |
| VAT or tax registration number | Required on tax invoices where the firm is registered |
| Professional registration of the firm, where it has one | Readers of assurance reports look for it |
| Telephone, e-mail and website | So clients reach the right place |
Take the VAT number seriously. On documents made by the server, the VAT number prints, and the document is titled Tax Invoice, only when a VAT number is set under Firm Profile. A registered firm that leaves the field empty will issue invoices that are not headed as tax invoices.
Blank stays blank
A field the firm has not recorded is left blank, not invented. Achekam will not fill a missing registration number with a placeholder or carry an address over from elsewhere.
That is the right behaviour, but it means the quality of every letterhead depends on the completeness of the profile. A blank on the letterhead is not an error message; it is simply absent, and it is easy to miss on a busy day. Before relying on the letterhead, open the profile and confirm that every field the firm needs is filled, and that every filled field is current.
A worked example in words: a firm converts from a partnership to an incorporated practice. Its name changes and it has a company registration number for the first time, but nobody updates the profile until the following month. In the meantime, every invoice, every statement cover and every e-mail signature carries the old details, and nothing on screen says so. The fix takes minutes; finding the documents issued in the gap takes much longer. Make updating the profile part of the change itself, not a task for afterwards.
Staff signatures
Staff signatures are among the things Achekam places the firm's particulars on. A consistent signature block, with the person's name, role and the firm's details, makes every e-mail from the firm recognisable and gives the recipient the right way to reach the sender.
Agree the firm's rules for signatures before people set their own:
- what role titles may be used, and who decides them;
- whether professional designations appear, and which;
- whether personal mobile numbers appear at all.
A trainee whose signature describes them as a manager creates a problem the firm did not intend.
Checking after a change
Whenever the firm changes its name, address, partners, registration details or logo, check the output, not just the settings. A practical routine:
- Update the profile and branding in Settings.
- Produce one of each key document: an invoice, a statement of services, a set of draft financial statements, an e-mail with a staff signature, and, if the firm runs payroll, a payslip.
- Read each one as a client would, and compare it with the change you meant to make.
- Note the date of the change, so that documents issued before it can be recognised later.
Point four matters because of how final statements are kept. Staff can download statements as an A4 PDF made on Achekam's server, and issuing stores the final PDF with a fingerprint and locks that version. Statements issued before a change keep the letterhead they were issued with, which is correct, but a client who compares old and new documents may ask why they differ. The issuing process is covered in issuing and locking the final PDF, and the statement of services is described in the statement of services and fees.
Open the Firm Profile today, compare every field with the firm's registration documents, and produce a test invoice to see exactly what clients receive.
General guidance only, not advice on your own circumstances. Tax and payroll rules change: check the current position with the authority or your adviser.
