The Happy Accountant

Company secretaries do not have specific responsibilities or powers but they may be criminally liable for company defaults (such as late filing of returns and so on).  They are also allowed to sign most of the forms required by Companies House.
A company secretary usually performs the following tasks:

maintains the statutory registers (such as register of members, [...]

Every company director has a personal responsibility to make sure that the company files its statutory returns to Companies House on time.  Directors can be prosecuted if they fail to do this - and it’s a criminal offence, so if you are convicted, you will end up with a criminal record and possibly a hefty [...]

Pretty much anyone can form a company.  It’s preferable to be over 18, but it’s not obligatory.  However, you cannot form a company if:

you have been disqualified from being a director (while the ban is in place).  Companies House holds a current register of disqualified directors. 
You are an undischarged bankrupt (except with the courts’ permission)

Essentially, before you begin, you need:

a company name, which can be almost any name that has not previously been registered.
a Director
a Company Secretary (which cannot be the sole director)
(or you could have two directors, one of whom could also act as Company Secretary)
a shareholder (which can be either the director or secretary)
a memorandum of association
articles [...]

It’s more costly both in terms of time and money to trade as a limited company.
First up, you have to pay to form your limited company.  If you do it yourself, it can be as low as £20, but if you get someone to do it on your behalf, it can be as much more.
You have [...]

Obviously, the main attraction of forming a limited company is the “limited liability” of its owners, the shareholders, as it protects the personal assets of the owners.  Should the company fail, the company is liable without limit for its own debts, but its shareholders’ liability is limited to the amount oustanding (if any) on their [...]

A limited company is a separate legal identity from its directors, shareholders and employees.  Therefore, a limited company has its own assets, liabilities which are separate from it’s owners.  This is obviously a significant difference from the situation of a sole trader or partnership, where the firm’s assets and liabilities are that of it’s owners.  This legal [...]

Accounting is not an exact science. There are certain procedures and principles that are recognised as good practice, but within these limits, there are often various acceptable methods of accounting for similar items. To make things comparable, the consistency concept just means that you treat similar items in a similar way and that the same [...]

Since accounts preparation is not an exact science, the pursuit of excessive detail is not warranted when it would not affect anyone’s understanding of the accounts.  Detemining whether or not an item is material is a very subject exercies.  There is no absolute measure of materiality.  Generally, an amount less than 5% of net profit [...]

This concept simply implies that the business will continue to operate for the foreseeable future and that it isn’t suddenly going to cease trading. The significance of this concept is that the assets of the business are not valued at their “break-up” value, which is the amount that they would sell for if they were [...]