A spreadsheet kept by the practice
Your own list of clients, due dates and notes. It costs nothing to start and fits the way you work, but it only knows what someone types into it, and only from the day they do.
Compare
Spreadsheet, Companies House alerts or CompanyGuard?
Three ways a practice keeps track of its client companies on Companies House. Two of them are free. This page says what each one does, where the free options are enough and what CompanyGuard adds, with a source for every claim about a Companies House service.
No card required · up to 100 companies
The options
Three ways to keep track
Most practices start with the first two. Each one suits a different size of portfolio and team.
Companies House follow alerts
A free Companies House service. You sign in, choose "Follow this company" on each company, and get an email as soon as Companies House accepts a filing for it.[1]
CompanyGuard
Paid monitoring and casework for practices: deadlines and changes for the whole portfolio in one list, an owner and a decision for each case, and a check against newer evidence before a case closes. Starter costs £29 for up to 300 monitored companies, Growth costs £59 for up to 750, and Scale costs £99 for up to 2,000.
Side by side
What each option does
The Companies House column uses only what Companies House's own guidance says about the follow service. "Not described in its guidance" means the guidance does not mention it.
| What you need | Practice spreadsheet | Companies House follow alerts | CompanyGuard |
|---|---|---|---|
| What it costs | No fee; staff time to keep it current | Free[1] | £29 to £99 a month by portfolio size |
| Adding your clients | Typed or pasted by hand | Sign in, then follow each company from its own page[1] | Paste company numbers or upload a CSV |
| When you hear about a new filing | When someone next looks at the register | An email as soon as Companies House accepts it[1] | At the next check, about every 24 hours |
| Accounts and confirmation statement due dates | Typed in and updated by hand | Shown on each company's register page[1] | Every due date in the portfolio, overdue first, then anything due within 30 days |
| What changed | Compare records yourself | A link to the filed document in the filing history[1] | The value before and after, for the changes it monitors |
| Owner, decision and history for each item | Extra columns, kept by hand | Not described in its guidance[1] | Included |
| Several colleagues working on one portfolio | A shared file | Not described in its guidance[1] | Owner, admin and member roles, with each case assigned to a named person |
| Outcome checked against newer evidence | Not included | Not described in its guidance[1] | Included |
| Data that could not be read | A blank cell looks like nothing to do | Not described in its guidance[1] | Shown as unavailable or UNKNOWN, never as all clear |
Companies House details as of 7 October 2026. See the sources
Free options
When the free options are enough
You may not need CompanyGuard. These are the cases where the free options already do the job.
A few companies, one person
Follow alerts tell you when something is filed, the register shows each company's next due dates, and a spreadsheet holds your notes. For a short list looked after by one person, that can be all you need.[1]
You need to know the moment a filing lands
A follow alert arrives as soon as Companies House accepts a filing. CompanyGuard checks each company about every 24 hours, so the alert is faster.[1]
Reminders for companies you file for
Companies House also runs a free email reminder service for accounts and confirmation statements. Up to 4 people, including an agent, can receive the reminders for each company.[2]
When it grows
What CompanyGuard adds
Once the portfolio is longer than one person can watch, or several people share the work, a notice that something was filed is only the start.
One list for the whole portfolio
Deadlines, changes and sources that could not be read appear in one list, ordered by severity, instead of one email per filing.
Clear ownership
Each case is assigned to a colleague, with the next review date and the decision and its reason kept in its history.
Proof, not just a notice
A case closes as verified only when newer Companies House evidence supports it, and a print-friendly dossier keeps the sources, owners and decisions.
Questions
Questions about the options
- Is the Companies House follow service free?
- Yes. Companies House describes Follow as a free service that emails you when it accepts a filing for a company you follow, with a link to the company's filing history. Source: Searching the Companies House register, GOV.UK, as of 7 October 2026.
- When is a spreadsheet with Companies House alerts enough?
- When one person looks after a few companies and mainly needs to know that something was filed. The alerts are free and arrive as soon as Companies House accepts a filing, and the spreadsheet holds your own notes. It gets harder when several people share the work or when you need to show what was decided and why.
- Is CompanyGuard faster than Companies House alerts?
- No. A follow alert is sent as soon as Companies House accepts a filing. CompanyGuard checks each active company again once its last check is more than 24 hours old. What it adds is one list of deadlines and changes for the whole portfolio, an owner and a decision for each case, and a check against newer evidence before a case closes as verified.
- Does Companies House send filing deadline reminders?
- Yes, through a separate free email reminder service for accounts and confirmation statements. You sign up from the company's overview in the Companies House online filing service, and up to 4 people, including an agent, can receive the reminders for each company. Source: Registering for email reminders from Companies House, GOV.UK, as of 7 October 2026.
- Can I use CompanyGuard and Companies House alerts together?
- Yes. CompanyGuard reads public Companies House data on its own, so following a company on Companies House does not change what CompanyGuard shows.
Sources
Where the claims come from
Claims about Companies House services were checked on the GOV.UK pages below, as of 7 October 2026. Claims about CompanyGuard describe the product as it works today; prices are on the pricing page.
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[1] Searching the Companies House register (opens in a new tab)
Companies House guidance on GOV.UK, last updated 9 June 2026. Checked as of 7 October 2026.
Follow is free. It sends an email alert as soon as Companies House accepts a filing for a company you follow, with a link to the company's filing history, where the document downloads free. You sign in with a registered email address and password and select "Follow this company" on each company. The register shows each company's next accounts and confirmation statement due dates.
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[2] Registering for email reminders from Companies House (opens in a new tab)
Companies House guidance on GOV.UK, last updated 9 June 2021. Checked as of 7 October 2026.
A separate free email reminder service tells you when a company's accounts and confirmation statement are due. You sign up from the company's overview in the Companies House online filing service; registering many companies at once needs each company's authentication code. Up to 4 people, including an agent, can receive the reminders for each company.
See your own portfolio in CompanyGuard
Import your client list and see every deadline and change in one place.
No card required · up to 100 companies