The brainchild of Howard Graham, a partner with Westbury Accountants & Business Advisors, the ethos behind Companies Made Simple is to deliver services to business start-ups using the internet.

The website is one of seven created by Graham’s company, Business Made Simple, to deliver cost-effective services, from online company formations to company secretarial and virtual offices services, plus website hosting and content management.

Graham set up Companies Made Simple having realised that the business formation market was due for a shake-up. Many company formation agents provided only a slow and cumbersome service, and charged well over £250. By automating and standardising the procedures, and making the service available online, Companies Made Simple has made serious inroads into this old-fashioned sector.

It offers a speedy, friendly and low-cost service. A company can be set up in just three hours at a cost of £19.99 plus VAT. Currently, Companies Made Simple helps set up 2,000 companies a month and is growing fast.

The website provides the business start-up with a range of options, ranging from the basic bronze package for £19.99, through to the more sophisticated gold package for £99.99, a service that includes fast-track banking and the maintenance of statutory accounts.

The Companies Made Simple business model can be applied across a range of services. It has also proved to be a fast earner. The first full year of activity yielded a turnover of around £500,000, rising to £1.2m the second year. Projected turnover for the 12 months to April 2007 is more than £2m. Profit for the next year is expected to exceed £250,000.

The Companies Made Simple site also has a very real value to Westbury. One hundred start-ups have become Westbury clients, with estimated gross recurring fees of £160,000.

The judges said that the site provided a good, clear service for those making the first step into business and commented that it ‘leaped above other online offerings’.

THE SIMPLE APPROACH

Companies Made Simple provides company formations, off-the-shelf companies with bank accounts, company secretarial services and banking introductions. Around 2,000 companies a month are formed with the help of the service, and it has almost 10,000 registered offices signed up. Its sister site, thisisyouroffice.com, offers mail forwarding, phone answering, and fax and scan to email and SMS. It has more than 1,500 clients in 50 countries.