Did you know that every company has a seal, and each seal has a different role and has specific legal effect? Mande Enterprise Server will give you a summary of what these chapters are used for.

There are five main company seals, namely official seal, financial seal, contract seal, invoice seal, and legal representative's name seal. It should be noted that, in addition to the legal person seal, the other four seals need to be filed with the industry and commerce, public security, and bank where the account is opened or a seal must be reserved in accordance with relevant regulations.

What are the uses of the company’s several seals?

1. Company seal: The company’s most powerful seal is a symbol of the legal person’s rights.

Unless there are special provisions in the law (such as the stamping of invoices), the official seal can be used to represent the will of the legal person and sign contracts and other legal documents externally.

Scope of use: All letters, official documents, contracts, letters of introduction, certificates or other company materials issued in the name of the company can use the official seal.

Custodian: Generally speaking, the holder of the official seal should be the founder of the company or the person he trusts most, such as the chairman or general manager.

2. Financial seal: usually used when dealing with banks, such as various bank vouchers, remittance orders, and check seals. In addition, it will also be used for settlement of financial transactions, etc.

Custodian: Generally managed by the financial personnel of the enterprise, which can be the financial director or cashier, etc.

3. Contract seal: used when the unit signs a contract with others. It can represent the unit within the scope of the contract and affix a special contract seal on the contract. The unit must bear the resulting rights and obligations.

Generally speaking, in the early stages of starting a business, you can directly use the official seal to seal the contract. Reducing one official seal can reduce risks (such as loss, private use of the official seal, etc.).

Custodian: It can be the company's legal staff, cooperating lawyers or administrative departments, etc.

4. Invoice stamp: Enterprises, units and individual industrial and commercial households need to affix an invoice stamp when purchasing and issuing invoices. The seal impression contains the company name, the special invoice seal words, and the tax registration number.

According to the provisions of the "Implementation Rules of the Invoice Management Measures", it is usually necessary to stamp the invoice page and the deduction page with a special invoice seal.

Note: It is only valid if it is stamped on the invoice or in the invoice collection book.

Custodian: Generally kept by the invoice administrator of the financial department

5. Legal representative’s name seal: The legal representative seal is mainly used for company-related resolutions and bank-related matters. . The seal impression contains the company name, the special invoice seal words, and the tax registration number.

Usually used for company registration, basic corporate account opening, and check endorsement.

The custodian is usually the legal person itself, but sometimes it is managed by the cashier of the company's financial department.

(Note: There are no specific legal provisions for the custodian of the seal. The custodian can be set according to the company's situation. The above is for reference only.)

How should the company's seal be kept?< /p>

The authority of various company seals varies, and all documents stamped with seals must be taken seriously. Therefore, the custody of company seals must be taken seriously.

In the custody of the company's seal, a system should be implemented in which a dedicated person is responsible for keeping the seal, the person in charge's seal and the special financial seal are separately managed, and the custodian handover system should be strictly implemented. Generally speaking, the following measures can be adopted for the safekeeping of company seals.

1. Seal manager: Clarify the seal manager’s awareness and responsibility for legal risk prevention and control

The company can require the seal custodian or manager to sign a "Legal Risk Position Commitment Letter", Clarify the legal risk prevention and control awareness and responsibilities of custodians, and at the same time strengthen legal prevention education on their seal management work so that they can fully understand the importance of seals and strengthen their seal management skills and legal risk prevention awareness.

While strengthening managers’ job awareness, it is also necessary to establish standardized seal management regulations, such as: clarifying the management responsibilities of seal managers, standardizing the business process of seal use, and regularly inspecting the use of seals, etc. , so that the seal management work has rules and regulations to follow.

2. Seal use: Establish and use a unified seal use approval system and use registration form

The company should establish and use a unified seal use approval system and use registration form, users Comply with the company's seal usage regulations. Generally speaking, after being approved by the company leaders, the seal user should fill in a unified seal registration form. The company's clerical staff should carefully review the seal documents to see if they are consistent with the application for seal content and the number of prints, and then the seal can be used on relevant documents.

It should be noted that when using a seal, it is necessary to ensure that the seal custodian uses the seal himself and cannot let others use the seal on his behalf. At the same time, the seal cannot be left out of the sight of the seal custodian. Under normal circumstances, users are not allowed to take their seals out without the personal approval of the main leader of the company. Even if they need to take them out, it is best to designate a trustworthy person to go with them to ensure the safety of the seal.

3. Strictly control or prohibit the stamping of seals on blank documents

During the use of seals, seal managers must ensure that users cannot stamp on blank documents, such as blank paper and blank documents. , blank letters of introduction, etc. must be stamped with the company's seal. In special circumstances, the consent of the company's core managers must be obtained. If the blank document stamped with the seal is useless, the holder must also return the blank document to the seal management department (such as Administrative Department, Office), please handle it properly to ensure the safety of seal use.

4. What should I do if the seal is accidentally lost?

The loss of the seal must be reported to the public security agency as soon as possible, and a report certificate must be obtained. At the same time, the report must be reported to the local or project location newspaper Post a loss statement on the website.

Afterwards, when performing re-engraving, you must take the public security agency’s report receipt, declaration of registration, application form for re-engraving of seal and other materials to the local public security agency for filing, and then go to the designated seal company for engraving.

Tips: If the official seal is lost, even if you retain all the official seal information, such as style and coding, you cannot engrave the seal privately, otherwise you will face the administrative penalty of detention.

5. Deal with the relevant seals of the changed or canceled departments or companies in a timely manner

After the department of the enterprise is changed or cancelled, the unified seal management department must collect the department seals and seal records; After the affiliated branch is deregistered and the industrial and commercial cancellation procedures are completed, all the seals and seal records of the branch including the administrative seal, contract seal, financial seal, person in charge's name seal, etc. must be collected; after the project department is closed, the project department seal All seal usage records must be turned over to the corporate seal management department. The corporate seal management department will work with the legal department to destroy the collected seals, and the seal usage records will be archived by the seal management department in accordance with archives management regulations.

What is the legal effect of a company seal?

The evaluation of the legal effect of a seal is a value judgment rather than factual determination, so it is mainly reflected in the occurrence of disputes. Here are a few situations that are often encountered:

1. Misuse of seals

Internal seals are used externally, such as manpower seals and administrative seals to sign external contracts. The wrong type of seal is used, such as a tax stamp on a statement or a financial seal on an employment contract. Under normal circumstances, only the seal will not be effective. However, if the seal is accompanied by the signature of the person in charge, whether it will be effective for the company depends on whether the person in charge is an agent or a specific person in charge specified in the contract.

2. The validity of the branch's seal

According to the Company Law, a branch does not have the qualifications of a legal person, and the liabilities incurred shall be borne by the company, and its status is similar to that of an internal organization of the company. However, branches and ordinary internal organizations have different consequences due to special provisions of the company law. For example, branches can be defendants in civil disputes, but internal departments cannot. The company's affairs are stamped with the branch's seal, which generally binds the company.

3. Forged seals

If the seal is inconsistent with the seal registered with the industrial and commercial and public security agencies, it can generally be determined that it does not represent the company's intentions, which means that the company does not need to be responsible for this. However, if the legal representative of the company has a signature (not a signature) at the same time, it will generally be presumed to be binding on the company; if there are similar transactions with the same transaction partner and have been completed (typically such as previous contracts, reconciliations, etc.) , will also be presumed to be binding on the company.

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