Last day I received a comment on my YouTube channel, from @Adnan-q5b5y, asking “can you make a video of how to make a registered production company”. This was a very interesting question. One that no one had asked before.

But I didn’t know if I’m the best person to answer a question on how to register a company. That isn’t really my area of expertise. I can only tell what I wish I knew before registering my film company, what I remember going through some five or six years back while making my debut feature film. So take this as just a personal experience, not as expert advice.

There are mainly two ways of going about it. One is the do-it-yourself route. That’s of course the cheapest. But it takes time, and you’ll have to deal directly with government offices, paperwork, and all the formalities yourself. I didn’t have the luxury of time back then. I also didn’t want to deal with the hassle.

Also there are restrictions on the kind of companies you can start on your own. We registered our company as a Limited Liability Partnership (LLP) because I was told it has fewer compliance requirements as compared to a private limited company. There are also options like sole proprietorship, which has even fewer formalities. Only those, I think, you might be able to do that yourself. But I haven’t gone that route so I can’t say how that works exactly.

As we went with the LLP option we chose to pay someone else to do it. I hired a Company Secretary (CS). You can search for “company secretaries near me” on Google and you’ll find people around you. These are certified professionals who handle things like this. You can also approach a Chartered Accountant (CA). I ended up going to a CS who was referred to me by a family friend.

They handled all the paperwork. They asked me for the company name I wanted, what kind of work the company would do, who the partners were, and so on. I had to give Aadhaar, PAN card and a few other documents. Then they drafted a legal agreement, printed it on stamp paper, and had it signed by me and witnesses.

In our case, once the documents were submitted, we had to wait for the PAN card to come. But the CS we hired messed up. They got the company name wrong, so we had to wait additional days to correct that. They also made mistakes with other filings, and we ended up paying ₹50,000 in fines a year later.

So I’m not sure we actually took the easiest route, even though we paid for it. I think we just chose the wrong person. Looking back, I should have visited a few more people, asked a few more questions, and then decided. Like you are doing with this question. I just went with a recommendation without doing much research, which was probably a mistake.

Hope this gives you some idea of what to expect. Again, I’m not an expert. Just sharing what I went through and what I wish I knew before registering my film company. Please do your own research and find what works best for you.