Grant a mandate as a company or an organisation

If a company or organisation cannot authorise in Suomi.fi e-Authorizations, a mandate application can be used in the Mandate service provided by officials to grant or invalidate a mandate and to accept a mandate request. 

Go to Authorisation with an application

When you grant a mandate on behalf of a company or organisation, the company or organisation will be the assignor. 

• The business ID and name of a company or organisation registered in Finland are automatically retrieved from the Trade Register, the BIS or the Register of Associations.
• The name of a company or organisation that is not registered in Finland is retrieved from the Authorisation Register. Note that only persons given the right to grant a mandate can grant a mandate on behalf of a foreign company.

There are five steps to granting a mandate.

Step 1: Selection of the mandate type

First select the mandate type. There are four types of company and organisation mandates, two of which relate to the mandates granted by the company or organisation itself and the other two the mandates granted to the company or organisation.

Acting on behalf of your own company or organisation:

• Mandate for transactions: A person, a company or an organisation with a mandate for transactions can act on behalf of your company  or organisation (e.g. a company authorises an accounting agency to carry out transactions on its behalf).
• Right to grant a mandate: A person with a right to grant a mandate can, on behalf of your company or organisation, grant mandates for transactions to other persons, companies  or organisations (e.g. a company authorises its employee to grant mandates for transactions to other employees).

Acting on behalf of a person or a company that has granted a mandate for the company:

• Mandate to represent: A person with a mandate to represent can act on behalf of the person, company or organisation that has granted your company or organisation a mandate (e.g. an accounting agency authorises its employees to carry out transactions on behalf of its clients).
• Representative's right to grant a mandate: A person with a representative’s right to grant a mandate can grant other persons mandates to represent the person, company or organisation that has granted your company  or organisation a mandate, and request mandates for your company or organisation from other companies, organisations and persons (e.g. an accounting agency authorises its employee to authorise other employees to carry out transactions on behalf of its clients).

Step 2: Choice of parties

The person to whom a mandate is granted must be of age and have full power.

When you grant a mandate

• to a person, who has a Finnish personal identity code, you will need their last name, first name or preferred first name and personal identity code. Please note that you can only grant a mandate to an underage person via the Mandate service provided by officials.
• to a person who does not have a Finnish personal identity code, you will need their foreigner’s user identifier (UID). More information about the Finnish Authenticator Identification Service
• to a company or organisation registered in Finland, you will need the name or business ID of the company or organisation.

You can also grant a mandate to a company that is not registered in Finland, if at least one mandate has previously been registered for the company using the Mandate service provided by officials. To grant a mandate, you will need the VAT ID of the EU country or the national business ID of the country with which the previous mandate is registered. 

If you wish, you can grant a mandate to several persons, companies or communities at once. Please note that the mandate you have grant is the same for everyone: your company or organisation acts as the assignor, all assignees can act in the same matters and the mandate is valid for the same time. 

Step 3: Choice of mandate themes

Familiarise yourself with mandate themes before granting any mandates.

When granting a mandate, select the mandate theme you wish from the list in Suomi.fi by clicking on its name. You will then only see the mandate themes that are available in the company's and community's mandates on the list.

You can browse the list or search for a mandate theme by its name or part of its name. Check from the description of the mandate theme what an assignee can do on your company’s behalf with each mandate.

You can select numerous mandate themes at one time. You will have to select at least one mandate theme before you can go on.

If the mandate theme you have selected uses a mandate specifier, you can, if necessary and before moving on, restrict or target the mandate to apply to certain elements or subjects only.

Step 4: Specifying the period of validity

A mandate must always have a start and end date. 

You can specify a mandate’s period of validity by giving the relevant dates or you can select one that lasts 1, 5, 15, 20 or 25 years. The shortest period of validity for a mandate is one day and the longest is 25 years.

If the assignee’s identifier is the foreigner’s user identifier (UID), the mandate will be valid for no more than 3 years.

Step 5: Mandate validation

You will receive a notification, if the mandates to be granted overlap with previously granted mandates or if you cannot grant a mandate to the person you have selected. You can remove these mandates and continue with the validation of other mandates.

Check mandate details

• A company or organisation is the assignor.
• The assignee is a person, company or organisation that can depending on the selected mandate type either act on behalf of a company or organisation or grant mandates on their behalf.
• The mandate type and mandate themes you have selected and the period of validity of the mandate are correct.

If you wish to change the details before the mandate is validated, you can go back over these steps.

The period of validity of a mandate starts on the chosen start date after you have validated the mandate.

The granting of a mandate can be initiated by any member of the company's board if the company is registered in the Trade Register and has a board.

A mandate is granted in the same manner as it would be granted by one person alone, but when the mandate is validated, it must be decided whether it will be validated by all board members or in accordance with the rule of representation entered into the Finnish Trade Register, together by the board chairperson and one board member or together by two board members. All persons validating the mandate must have a Finnish personal identity code.   

If the initiator of the mandate can grant the mandate alone, 

• the initiator will be notified of this when persons are selected to validate the mandate. 
• there is no need to select persons to validate; the initiator can continue to grant the mandate alone.

If the initiator cannot grant the mandate alone, 

• the initiator only validates the mandate for their own part.
• other approvers will see a mandate waiting to be validated in the mandate requests sent to the company. Each person selected to validate the mandate must approve it for their own part. 

Please note that other people who must validate the made will not be notified that a mandate is awaiting validation. The initiator must notify them separately.

The mandate will only become valid after it has been validated by all persons selected to validate the mandate. Mandates to be validated will be listed in Suomi.fi e-Authorizations: for a period of six months after which they will be removed. 

You can use a mandate specifier to limit or target a mandate to apply, for example, only to a certain property, a client company or its department. Each organisation that uses Suomi.fi e-Authorizations itself determines whether a specifier will be available in their services.

Only use the specifier when you have received more detailed instructions on the e-service in which the mandate is to be used. The use of a specifier is not compulsory, and you may grant a mandate without one.

A mandate specifier may be available

• for a mandate for transactions: for example, a property ID can be used to limit the mandate to a certain property
• with the right to create a mandate: for example, a sub-organisation ID can be used to restrict the right to create a mandate to certain units or departments in an organisation 
• with a mandate to represent: for example, a customer ID can be used to restrict the mandate to represent a certain customer only.

You can see the mandates granted on behalf of a company or organisation in the mandates grated when you use Suomi.fi e-Authorizations on behalf of a company or organisation. Click on the name of the assignee to view the details of the individual mandate.

If there is a large number of granted mandates,

• you can view different mandates by liming them by mandate type
• you can search for only the mandates granted to a certain person, company or organisation
• you can download all granted mandates as a CSV file and view them in table format.

The assignees can view the mandates they have received in mandates received. 

You will see the mandates whose period of validity has expired or those which have been invalidated prior to their expiration in expired mandates.

In Suomi.fi e-Authorizations, you can see the mandate requests sent to a company or organisation on the Mandate requests page, when 

• you have selected acting on behalf of a company or organisation
• you have the right to represent a company or organisation alone or have been given the right to grant a mandate. 

Please note that the Mandate Requests page will also show the requests for mandates, which your company or organisation has submitted and are awaiting validation. 

The party submitting the mandate request can only act on behalf of a company or an organisation once the mandate request has been approved, i.e. the mandate has been validated. A mandate can be validated by any party entitled to grant a mandate on behalf of a company or an association. Validation means that the mandate is valid from its start date. 

If there is a large number of mandate requests, 

• you can limit the list based on the mandate themes or assignees of your choice. 
• you can download all requests as a CSV file and view them in table format.

When you click on the assignee's name in the mandate requests, you can see what type of mandate you are validating. 

• Check mandate details. 
• If necessary, you can edit the period of validity of a mandate. 
• If you validate a mandate that overlaps with an existing mandate, the already existing mandate will be invalidated. 

Validated mandates will be visible in the mandates granted by the company or organisation and in the mandates received by the assignee.

You can also reject a mandate request. If the request is rejected, the mandate will never become valid and it will be deleted from Suomi.fi e-Authorizations. Note that a party submitting a mandate request will not receive notification that the request has been rejected: you will have to do that yourself, where necessary.

If you cannot or do not know how to accept the mandate request, you can visit a service point of your choice to have the mandate accepted with the help of the Mandate service provided by officials. Service locations are listed on the Authorisation with an application page.

You can use a mandate granted previously as a template for a new mandate. You can copy the following as a template for a new mandate

• an existing mandate or an expired mandate
• a mandate that has previously been granted to a person, a company, or organisation
• a mandate that has been granted for certain mandate themes previously.

The mandates granted in Suomi.fi e-Authorizations are valid for a period specified in connection with the granting.

A mandate can be cancelled during its period of validity by any member of the company’s board or a person who can represent the company or association alone in Suomi.fi e-Authorizations. A mandate can also be cancelled by a person given the right to grant a mandate.

How to cancel a mandate:

1. Click on the name of the assignee in Granted Mandates.
2. On the page that opens select the mandate theme that the mandate you wish to cancel relates to.
3. Invalidate the mandate you have selected.

You will see the invalidated mandates on the Expired Mandates page. Note that the assignee will not automatically be informed that the mandate has been invalidated, and you must notify them of the matter where necessary.

If you cannot or do not know how to cancel a granted mandate, the mandate can be deleted using the Mandate service provided by officials. Authorisation with an application

If you have mistakenly granted the wrong mandate, the mandate must be granted again. Remember to also invalidate the mistakenly granted mandate.

Here we describe a situation in which a company grants its accounting firm a mandate to manage its tax affairs and to to deal with matters related to the Incomes Register.

If you wish to grant your accounting firm a mandate, do this: 

1. Identify yourself into Suomi.fi. Use your own personal means of identification for e-Identification (e.g. online banking ID or a mobile certificate). After logging in you will see that you have accessed the service as a private person, i.e. as yourself. 
2. Select Act on behalf of a company on the home page. You may have the right to act on behalf of one or more companies. Select the company on behalf of which you want to grant an accounting firm a mandate. 
3. Select Grant mandate.
4. Select Mandate for transactions as the mandate type.
5. Next add the accounting firm’s details in the section Add company. Enter the name of the accounting firm or its business ID and select Add.
6. Next select the mandate themes, i.e. in which themes you want to grant the accounting firm the right to deal with. Check from the description of the mandate theme what can be done with each mandate. You may grant mandate for transactions by themes or select several mandate themes at a time. You will find themes related to the management of tax affairs by entering tax in the search box. If you want the accounting firm to attend to all tax affairs on your behalf, select Management of tax affairs. If you want the accounting firm to deal with the filing of tax returns only, select Filing of tax returns and other reports. If you want the accounting firm to deal with themes related to the Incomes Register on your behalf, you can find the correct mandate theme by entering pay in the search box. Select Reporting pay data.
7. Some mandates can be restricted or targeted to apply to certain subjects or organisations only. If you want to use a mandate specifier, you can add the specifier to the theme categories where one is available.  Only use a specifier if you have received the instructions on how to use it. The Incomes Register uses a specifier “sub-organisation ID” in the mandate theme Reporting pay data. You can use it to divide a company’s activities into separate categories and restrict the mandate to apply, for example, to the salaries of employees or a certain department in the company. Note that If you specify the mandate theme using a sub-organisation ID, the same sub-organisation ID must also be used when the company’s data is submitted to the Incomes Register. Further instructions on the use of sub-organisation IDs can be found on the Incomes Register’s Sub-organisation identifier as a defining specifier in the Incomes Register page.
8. Next specify the mandate’s start date and period of validity either by selecting an expiry date or a period of 1, 5, 15, 20 or 25 years from the start date.  If necessary, you can cancel the mandate prior to expiry.
9. Go to the next step to check that all the mandate’s details are correct and validate the mandate. You will receive an acknowledgement that the mandate was successfully validated. 

The mandate granted by your company will be visible on the Granted Mandates page following validation. 

The accounting office will see the mandate it has received on the Received Mandates page.

This example describes how a company can authorise its employee to administer the mandates granted to the company and to grant other company employees mandates (representative’s right to grant a mandate). An accounting firm, for example, can authorise its employee to deal with the themes described above.

If you wish to grant your employee the right to administer the mandates received by the company and authorise other employees to do the same, do this: 

1. Identify yourself into Suomi.fi. Use your own personal means of identification for e-Identification (e.g. online banking ID or a mobile certificate). After logging in you will see that you have accessed the service as a private person, i.e. as yourself. 
2. Select Act on behalf of a company on the home page. You may have the right to act on behalf of one or more companies. Select the company on behalf of whom you want to grant a mandate. 
3. Select Grant a mandate.
4. Select Representative's right to grant a mandate as the mandate type. This means that you are giving your employee the right to authorise other employees to deal with themes on the basis of mandates granted to your company. 
5. Next add the employee’s details in the section Add person. Give the person’s last name, first name or preferred given name and personal identity code and select Add. You can authorise more than one person at the same time in this way.
6. Next select the mandate themes, i.e. themes regarding which you wish to grant your employee a representative’s right to grant a mandate. Check from the description of the mandate theme what can be done with each mandate. You may grant this mandate by theme or select several mandate themes at a time. You can find mandate themes related to the management of tax affairs by entering tax in the search box and themes related to the Incomes Register by entering salary in the search box.
7. Next specify the mandate’s start date and period of validity either by selecting an expiry date or a period of 1, 5, 15, 20 or 25 years from the start date. If necessary, you can cancel the mandate prior to expiry.
8. Go to the next step to check that all the mandate’s details are correct and validate the mandate. You will receive an acknowledgement that the mandate was successfully validated.  

The mandate granted by your company will be visible on the Granted Mandates page following validation. 

Employees who have received mandates will see them on the Received Mandates page when they have logged into Suomi.fi e-Authorizations as themselves.  

Employees who have been given a representative’s right to grant a mandate can act on behalf of the company as follows:

• Employees can use Suomi.fi e-Authorizations on behalf of the company and grant other employees mandates to represent in connection with a selected mandate theme.
• Employees will see all the mandates that the company has been granted related to the selected mandate theme. 
• Employees can also request mandates related to the selected mandate theme from the company’s business or private customers. For example, an employee in an accounting firm with a representative’s right to grant a mandate in the theme Reporting pay data may request, on behalf of the company, mandates from a customer company to submit pay data to the Incomes Register.

This example describes a situation where an accountant in an accounting firm should take care of a customer company’s tax affairs in MyTax. 

Step 1: The customer company grants the accounting firm a mandate for transactions

A customer company can grant an accounting firm a mandate to deal with its tax affairs in the manner described in the section of this page entitled "How do I as a company grant another company a mandate?".

The accounting firm may also request a mandate from a customer company as described in the Request a mandate on behalf of a company instruction.  Also familiarise yourself with the Finnish Tax Administration’s instruction How to grant an authorisation for tax matters.

Step 2: The accounting firm grants the accountant a mandate to represent

A person with the right to represent an accounting firm based on register data or an accounting firm employee does not automatically have a mandate to act on behalf of a customer company. Someone with the right to represent must grant either themselves or their employee a mandate to represent.

For an accountant to be able to use the e-services using the mandates the company has received, do this:

1. Identify yourself into Suomi.fi. The accounting firm’s managing director, another person with the sole right to represent the company or someone who was previously granted a representative’s right to grant a mandate to deal with tax affairs logs into Suomi.fi. This person uses their own personal means of identification (e.g. online banking IDs or a mobile certificate).
2. Select Act on behalf of a company on the home page and the company on behalf of which you wish to grant the accountant a mandate. 
3. Select Grant a mandate.
4. Select Mandate to represent as the mandate type. This means that you are giving the accountant the right to use the e-services by virtue of the mandates granted to the firm in themes you yourself select.
5. Next add the accountant’s details in the section Add person. Give the person’s last name, first name or preferred given name and personal identity code and select Add. You can authorise at one time one or more accountants to deal with the customer company’s tax affairs.
6. Next select the mandate themes, i.e. themes regarding which you wish to grant the accountant the right. Check from the description of the mandate theme what can be done with each mandate. You can grant a mandate to represent by theme or select several mandate themes at a time. You will find mandate themes related to the management of tax affairs by entering tax in the search box. If you want your accountant to deal with all the tax affairs of a customer company, select Management of tax affairs. If you want your accountant to deal with the filing of tax returns only, select Filing tax returns and other reports.  
7. Use a mandate specifier if you want to restrict or target a mandate to represent to apply to certain customer companies only.  A mandate to represent with no restrictions applying to it entitles the holder to deal with all current and future affairs of customer companies in a selected theme. Use the possibility to target a mandate by customer with caution, because using it will increase the number of mandates that have to be administered. A customer ID specifier is available for the management of tax affairs.
8. Next specify the mandate’s start date and period of validity either by selecting an expiry date or a period of 1, 5, 15, 20 or 25 years from the start date. If necessary, you can cancel the mandate prior to expiry.
9. Go to the next step to check that all the mandate’s details are correct and validate the mandate. You will receive an acknowledgement that validation of the mandate was successful. 

The mandate to represent granted by the accounting firm will be visible on the Granted Mandates page following validation. 

Accountants who have received mandates will see them on the Received Mandates page when they have logged into Suomi.fi e-Authorizations as themselves. 

Step 3: An employee acts on behalf of a customer company 

When an accountant has received a mandate to represent, that employee can take care of selected matters on behalf of the customer company by logging into MyTax using their personal IDs and selecting acting on behalf of a company. They then select the customer company on behalf of which they want to act. Accountants who have received a mandate to represent specific customers can only select the customers whose business matters they have a mandate to deal with.