Updating CSP Employees’ Particulars in Bizfile

If an employee on your firm’s authorised filing list changes their name, mobile number or email address, an authorised officer of the CSP updates it in the same Bizfile eService used to grant filing access. It is free and it takes effect immediately. An identification number is the exception: you cannot edit it.

Raffles Corporate Services works with a panel of experienced Singapore law firms who offer cost-effective and efficient legal service and advice. This article is general information only and is not legal advice.

This is the least interesting task in a corporate service provider’s month and one of the easiest to let slide. Nobody chases you for it. The eService does not nag. The employee keeps filing perfectly well with an old mobile number sitting in ACRA’s record.

It still matters, for a reason that only becomes obvious the day ACRA tries to reach one of your filers and cannot.

What you are actually maintaining

Your authorised employee list is the record of who your firm has put forward as fit to file transactions on behalf of your clients. The Corporate Service Providers Act 2024 builds the whole regime on registered firms, registered qualified individuals under section 10, and the duties in Part 3 that sit on the firm. The employee list is how your firm’s part of that structure is made visible to the Registrar.

So the particulars on the list are not administrative trivia. They are the contact details ACRA uses to reach a named individual about a filing made under your registration, and they are the identity details that tie a person in your office to a transaction in the register.

Four fields are maintainable:

The middle row is the one that catches people out. More on it below.

Who may update an employee’s particulars

Only an authorised officer of the CSP: a director, a company secretary, a partner or an owner, depending on how your firm is constituted.

Read that against the wider access management position. Managing filing access, meaning adding and withdrawing employees, can be done by an authorised position holder or by a registered qualified individual of the firm. Updating particulars is described more narrowly, as a task for authorised officers. Where your internal practice has been to let an RQI keep the list tidy, it is worth confirming the officer route is available before someone needs it at short notice.

Practically, this means the person who updates contact details should be the same person who owns the access list generally, and that person should be a position holder. If you have not read our companion piece on managing employees’ filing access as a registered CSP, start there: the two tasks live in the same eService and the same control should cover both.

The steps, in order

You only need the information that has changed. There is no fee, and the change takes effect immediately rather than sitting in a processing queue.

1. Log in to Bizfile using your Corppass credentials as a Business User.
2. On the profile selection page, select your CSP firm. Position holders find it under their entities; RQIs select it under the corporate service provider tab. If you act for more than one firm, this is the step that decides whose employee list you are about to edit, so slow down here. Our note on switching profiles in Bizfile explains why this trips people up.
3. Open the Manage filing access for RQIs and CSP employees eService, either from the dashboard shortcut to your RQIs and authorised employees, or from the “Manage” menu under the corporate service provider grouping.
4. Find the employee and select the edit action next to their entry.
5. Change only the fields that have changed, then continue to the review screen.
6. Read the review screen properly. This is where a typed mobile number with a transposed digit is caught, and the only place it will be caught.
7. Tick the declaration and confirm. Keep the acknowledgement with the employee’s file.

Changing an identification number

You cannot edit an identification number in place. The sequence is to remove the existing identification entry and then add the new one.

This is not a quirk. An identification number is the key that ties a human being to a filing history, so the system will not let you quietly overwrite it and thereby move one person’s record onto another identity. Deleting and re-adding leaves a visible break in the record instead, which is exactly what you want if anyone ever has to reconstruct who filed what.

Two practical consequences:

• The re-add is a fresh grant of filing access, which follows the processing timeline for grants rather than the immediate effect of a particulars update. Do not do this on the morning of a filing deadline.
• The commonest real-world trigger is an employee moving from a FIN to an NRIC, or being issued a new FIN on a new pass. Ask about it during the pass renewal conversation rather than discovering it when a filing bounces.

Employees are not RQIs, and the routes are different

This is the single most useful distinction in this article.

An RQI is registered in their own right. A change in an RQI’s particulars is a change to a registration held by that individual, which is why the RQI makes the lodgement themselves, through the general lodgement route, and why ACRA states a 14 day expectation rather than “as soon as possible”.

Where firms go wrong is treating a promotion as an administrative update. Someone becomes an RQI, and the office updates their employee entry to say so. That does nothing. Registration as a qualified individual is a separate process with its own criteria under the Act, and appointment of an RQI to a firm is a separate filing again. The employee list is not a job title field.

What goes wrong in practice

Dead email addresses. An employee leaves a department, the internal alias is repointed, and the address on the ACRA record now bounces or lands with somebody who ignores it. Nothing visibly breaks. It only shows up when a notification about a filing goes unread. Bizfile email verification problems have the same root cause, and our note on verifying your email for Bizfile covers the version of this that blocks transactions outright.

Name changes that never get filed. Marriage, deed poll, or a correction to a name that was keyed wrong at the start. The employee carries on filing under the old name in ACRA’s record, and the mismatch surfaces at the worst moment, usually when a client or a regulator is comparing a filing record against a staff list.

Updating the person instead of the registration. Covered above. The employee route and the RQI route are separate. Using the wrong one means the update has not been made at all.

Silent drift after an inspection. Firms tidy the list once, for the inspection, and then leave it alone for two years. A standing quarterly review is a ten minute job. Export the list, compare it against payroll, fix what has moved: see downloading lists of your RQIs and CSP employees.

Assuming inaccuracy is harmless. Providing false information to the Registrar is an offence under section 25 of the Corporate Service Providers Act 2024. A stale mobile number is not that, and nobody should pretend otherwise, but the habit of not maintaining the record is the same habit that produces the filing that is actually wrong. Our summary of common CSP Act mistakes and rejection reasons sets out where that habit tends to end.

Frequently asked questions

How quickly does an employee particulars update take effect?
Immediately. Unlike a new grant of filing access, which is processed over a period of working days, a change to an existing employee’s name or contact details is reflected once you confirm it. There is no fee.

Can an RQI update an employee’s particulars?
ACRA describes the update task as one for authorised officers of the CSP, such as directors, company secretaries, partners and owners, while access management more generally is open to position holders and RQIs. If your firm relies on an RQI to maintain the list, confirm the officer route is available before you need it urgently.

Why can I not edit an employee’s identification number?
Because the identification number is the link between a person and a filing history. The system requires you to remove the existing identification entry and add the new one, which leaves a visible break in the record rather than silently moving one person’s history onto another identity.

An employee has changed their name. Do I need any documents?
Bizfile asks for the changed information, not the supporting document. Your firm should still hold the evidence of the change in the employee’s file, because the assessment behind the entry is yours to justify if ACRA asks.

What if the employee has left the firm rather than changed their details?
Then this is not the right transaction. Withdraw their filing access instead, with a withdrawal date and reason, and do it immediately on departure rather than updating their record and leaving them authorised.

Do I have to tell ACRA when an employee changes role internally?
No. The list records who is authorised to file and how to reach them, not what their job title is. Internal moves only matter if they change one of the four maintained fields or if the person stops filing for your firm.

The small maintenance that keeps the record honest

A CSP’s authorised employee list is a statement to the Registrar about who your firm stands behind. Keeping it current costs minutes and costs nothing in fees. Letting it drift costs credibility at exactly the moment you need it.

Raffles Corporate Services is a registered corporate service provider and we maintain our own list on a quarterly cycle: export, compare against payroll, fix, file the acknowledgement. If you are standing up that routine in your own firm, or you want a second view on how your obligations under the Act are being met in practice, we are happy to talk it through. Our overview of what the CSP Act 2024 means for clients is a useful starting point if you are on the client side of that relationship.

The Act itself is on Singapore Statutes Online, and ACRA’s own material for providers sits under its corporate service provider pages.

The Editorial Team, Raffles Corporate Services