Grant a mandate as a company or an organisation

Companies

Private trader, agricultural operator and forestry operator may grant mandates on behalf of their own company because they represent their company alone.

On behalf of a company, authorising independently is possible for persons whose right to represent the company has been entered in the Trade Register. When you identify yourself in Suomi.fi, you can check what roles in companies have been entered for you in the Trade Register in the Registers sectionOpens in a new window. 

Mandates can be alone granted by the following persons:

• The managing director or the deputy managing director
• A partner in a general partnership or a responsible partner in a limited partnership who has the right to represent the company alone
• Other signatory with the right to represent the company alone
• A person to whom the company has given the right to grant a mandate or a representative's right to grant a mandate in Suomi.fi e-Authorizations

Mandates can be jointly granted by the following persons:

• Jointly by all the board members who have been entered in the Trade Register
• Depending on the method of representation entered in the Trade Register, jointly by the board chair and one board member, or jointly by two board members
• Depending on the method of representation entered in the Trade Register, jointly by all partners in a general partnership or a limited partnership or jointly by two partners and, if the information on the right to sign the business name has not been entered in the Trade Register, jointly by all partners 
• Depending on the method of representation entered in the Trade Register, jointly by authorised persons of a limited liability company or a cooperative, jointly by an authorised person and the board chair, or jointly by an authorised person and a board member

Instructions for joint authorisation can be found on the Granting mandates jointly page.

Granting mandates on behalf of a limited partnership or a general partnership in Suomi.fi e-Authorizations is not possible if the Finnish Trade Register extract lacks the entry about the signing rights ("Signing on behalf of the company"). This information can be checked from the Finnish Patent and Registration Office (PRH):  

1. Use the PRH feedback formOpens in a new window. to submit a request to the Finnish Trade Register to check the partnership’s details.
2. Write in the text box that you are unable to grant mandates in Suomi.fi e-Authorizations and add the Business ID for the limited partnership or general partnership, the name of the person who cannot grant mandates, and the email address to which you wish to receive a reply.
3. The PRH will send the information once the person's right to sign on behalf of the partnership has been checked and the information has been updated in the register if necessary. If the person's information is correct in the register and the person has the right to sign on behalf of the partnership on their own, the person can grant mandates in Suomi.fi e-Authorizations after the update.

A procuration is a personal right to represent a company. A procuration holder may not transfer procuration to another person. For this reason, procuration holders can only grant mandates if they have been given a mandate to grant a mandate in Suomi.fi e-Authorizations.

Persons prohibited from running a business cannot grant mandates in Suomi.fi e-Authorizations. If the business prohibition is partial, mandate can be granted through the mandate service provided by officials. Follow the instructions to submit a mandate application. You must also attach to the application the court decision stating how extensively the business prohibition has been lifted. Go to authorisation with an application

Associations

Parties who can independently grant mandates on behalf of an association include

• the association’s chairperson, a member of the board or other signatory for whom the right to represent the association alone has been recorded in the Finnish Register of Associations
• a person to whom the association has given the right to grant mandates or a representative's right to grant a mandate.  

If granting a mandate on behalf of the association is not possible in Suomi.fi e-Authorizations, even though the person has been entered in the Finnish Patent and Registration Office’s (PRH) register of associations to represent the association on their own:

1. Use the PRH feedback formOpens in a new window. to submit a request to the Finnish Register of Associations to check the association’s details.
2. Write in the text box that you are unable to grant mandates in Suomi.fi e-Authorizations and add the Business ID for the association, the name of the person who cannot grant mandates and the email address to which you wish to receive a reply.
3. The PRH will send the information once the information of the person entitled to represent has been corrected in the register and they can grant mandates in Suomi.fi e-Authorizations.

Agricultural partnerships, forest property partnerships and real estate partnerships

The persons who can independently grant mandates on behalf of an agricultural partnership, a forest property partnership or a real estate partnership include: 

• all partners jointly, provided that all partners are persons
• a person to whom the partnership has given the right to grant a mandate or a representative's right to grant a mandate in Suomi.fi e-Authorizations. 

Instructions for joint authorisation can be found on the Granting mandates jointly page.

Other organisations and foreign companies

Only persons who have been granted the right to grant a mandate or a representative’s right to grant a mandate can independently grant mandates on behalf of other organisations and foreign companies.

Other organisations include state or municipal organisations, educational institutions, the Evangelical Lutheran Church, the Orthodox Church, religious communities, foundations, investment funds, unemployment funds, insurance funds, personnel funds, jointly owned forests, road maintenance associations, cooperatives and estates of deceased persons with a business ID.

When you want to grant mandates in Suomi.fi e-Authorizations on behalf of a company, an association or other organisation, do as follows:

1. Identify yourself into Suomi.fi e-AuthorizationsOpens in a new window..
2. Select  Company’s mandates as the service role.
3. Select the company, association or other organisation on whose behalf you want to grant a mandate.
4. Select Grant mandates.

There are five steps to granting a mandate.

Step 1: Selection of the mandate type

First select the mandate type. There are four mandate types, two related to carrying out transactions on behalf of one’s own company, association or other organisation and two related to mandates received from customers. Note that you can only grant a mandate for transactions if the assignee is a company, association or other organisation.

Acting on behalf your own company, associations, or organisation

Mandate for transactions: 

• Select this when you want to grant a person or an organisation a right to carry out transactions on behalf of the assignor. 
• For example, a company authorises an individual employee or an accounting firm to manage the company's tax affairs.

Right to grant a mandate: 

• Select this when you want to grant a person a right to grant and invalidate mandates for transactions in Suomi.fi e-Authorizations. 
• Note that the person with a right to grant a mandate must also grant a mandate for transactions to themselves, if they need to act on behalf of the assignor. 
• For example, a company authorizes its chief financial officer to grant mandates for transactions to its own staff or an accounting firm to manage the companies HR affairs.

Carrying out transactions with a mandate for transactions from a client

Mandate to represent: 

• Select this when you want to grant a person a right to act on behalf of a customer from whom the assignor has received a mandate for transactions. 
• For example, an accounting firm authorises an individual accountant to manage the customer’s tax affairs.

Representative's right to grant a mandate: 

• Select this when you want to grant a person a right to grant and invalidate mandates to represent and request mandates for transactions in Suomi.fi e-Authorizations. 
• Note that the person with a representative’s right to grant a mandate must also grant a mandate to represent to themselves if they need to act on behalf of the customer. 
• For example, a company authorizes its HR manager to grant firm’s payroll staff mandates to represent for the purpose of managing the customers' tax matters.

Step 2: Choice of parties

A company, association or other organisation acts as a assignor. 

• If the assignor has a Business ID, the name information is automatically retrieved from the Trade Register, the Business Information System or the Finnish Register of Associations.
• If the assignor does not have a Business ID, the name information is retrieved from the mandate register. The information can only be found if at least one person has been granted the right to grant a mandate or the representative's right to grant a mandate by means of the mandate service provided by officials. A person with the right to grant a mandate may grant mandates for transactions and a person with the representative’s right to grant a mandate may grant mandates to represent. 

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
• who does not have a Finnish personal identity code, you will need their foreigner’s user identifier (UID). More information on the Finnish Authenticator Identification Service page.

The person being granted the mandate may not be under guardianship. When you add the assignee’s information, the Suomi.fi e-Authorizations checks that the name and personal identity code match and that the assignee is alive.

When you grant a mandate to a person to a company or organisation,

• which is registered in Finland, you will need the name or business ID of the company or organisation.
• which is not registered in Finland, the assignee can be a company or organisation which has at least one mandate previously registered using the mandate service provided by officials. 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.

Step 3: Selecting mandate themes

Familiarise yourself with the mandate themes before granting any mandates. Check also in the instructions of each service you are using to see which mandate themes are in use in them.

When in Suomi.fi e-Authorizations, search for mandate themes using search terms based on the name or description or by the name of the e-service or organisation (such as Reporting earnings payment data, Tax Administration, My Tax, employer services or salary). You can expand the search by using more than one search term when adding them one by one. The list shows all mandate themes that include any of the search terms.

You can select more than one mandate theme. To continue, you must select at least one mandate theme. 

If the mandate theme that you have selected includes a mandate specifier, you can limit or specify the scope of the mandates. You should only use the specifier after you have received more detailed instructions on the e-service in which the mandate is intended to be used. Specifiers are not compulsory, and you may also grant a mandate without a specifier.

Step 4: Specifying the period of validity

A mandate must always have a start and end date. Please note that the dates are Finnish time. 

The mandate may be valid for a maximum of 25 years from the day on which it was granted.

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 validity period of the mandates to be granted overlaps with previously granted mandates or you cannot grant the mandate to the person you have selected. You can delete the overlapping mandates or postpone their start date. The mandates that you cannot grant to the person you have selected will be deleted automatically.

Check mandate details:

• A company or organisation is the assignor.
• The assignee is a person, company or organisation that can in accordance with 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 mandate you have granted becomes valid from its start date once you have validated it.

The mandate can be granted or invalidated by means of the Mandate service provided by officials with an application, if a company, an association, or other organisation is unable to authorise independently in Suomi.fi e-Authorizations. In this case, the mandate is registered in the authorisation register or invalidated on the basis of the application.

You will find instructions for your application on the Authorisation with an application page. Once you have studied the instructions, you can fill in the application on the same page. After identifying yourself in Suomi.fi, you can also find on the same page 

• the incomplete applications that you have completed in Suomi.fi
• the applications in which you are a signatory and that are waiting for your approval.

The parties that need the mandate service provided by officials, i.e., authorisation with an application, include:

• Public administration (e.g., a municipal or central government organisation, an educational institution, the Evangelical Lutheran Church, the Orthodox Church) 
• A Finnish association whose signature rule states that the association is represented by two or more persons together
• A forest, agricultural or estate partnership whose shareholders include another organisation (e.g. an estate of a deceased person) or whose shareholders do not have an identification token (e.g. online banking codes) or a Finnish personal identity code
• A foreign company in which the persons with signatory rights entered in the Trade Register do not have a Finnish personal identity code or which does not have a business ID
• Business entrepreneurs, self-employed persons, and agricultural or forestry traders who cannot use electronic services
• Other organisation or business partnership for which no representatives have been entered into the Trade Register (e.g., a foundation, religious community, investment fund, unemployment fund, insurance fund, personnel fund, jointly owned forest, road maintenance association, cooperative, shipping company, other consortia carrying out business operations or estate of a deceased person, which have a business ID)
• A Finnish company, association or other organisation if the persons entitled to represent it or partners do not have a Finnish personal identity code or identification token (e.g. online banking codes) or if the one with the right to represent is another organisation
• A Finnish company which is bankrupt or in liquidation or which has ceased to operate
• A guardian who has previously used the Katso ID to manage the matters of the person under their guardianship

If a Finnish organisation does not have a business ID, granting a mandate will not be possible in Suomi.fi e-Authorizations or with the help of the mandate service provided by officials.

The mandate service provided by officials enables granting 

• a right to grant a mandate, in which case the person granted the mandate can manage the mandates that the company or organisation grants to others in Suomi.fi e-Authorizations.
• a representative’s right to grant a mandate, in which case the person granted the mandate can manage the mandates granted to the company or organisation in Suomi.fi e-Authorizations
• a mandate for transactions, if the use of Suomi.fi e-Authorizations is not possible due to, for example, a lack of skill or the representatives not having means of identification for electronic services.

For more information on the different mandate types, see the section “How does a representative of a company, association or other organisation give a mandate alone?” on this page.

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 e-service that uses Suomi.fi e-Authorizations itself determines whether they use specifiers 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 granted without a specifier does not restrict the scope of transactions that can be performed by the assignee (e.g., an individual accountant may act on behalf of all accounting firm's customers).

A mandate specifier may be available

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

You can can copy as a template for a mandate

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

You can grant several mandates of the same type at the same time. There are four options:

1. You can add several assignees to a mandate if you grant everyone a similar mandate.
2. On the different pages, you can select multiple parties from the list and then grant new mandates to those selected.
3. You can import multiple mandate details from a single CSV file.
4. You can place parties and mandate themes concerning previous mandates from different pages into the selection basket, and then move on to grant new mandates based on your selections.

Importing mandates from a CSV file

To import mandate information from a CSV file:

1. Select Grant mandates.
2. Select Transfer mandates to be granted from the CSV file.
3. If necessary, download the example file from the end of the pop-up window.
4. Add your own file.
5. Check the mandate details by proceeding phase by phase to grant the mandate.
6. If necessary, supplement, edit or delete information.
7. Validate the mandates.

More information: Suomi.fi e-Authorizations: instructions for importing and exporting a CSV file (PDF)Opens in a new window.

Using the selection basket

You can use the selection basket to extract either parties or individual mandate themes (or both) from different pages. You can then grant new mandates with the information you have selected.

To use the selection basket:

1. Start using the selection basket on any page.
2. Select the parties. You can filter the list using a variety of different search criteria.
3. You can place parties to which you want to grant new mandates or the mandates of the selected parties in the selection basket, if you want to grant the same mandates to another assignee.
4. You can place additional parties or mandates in the selection basket from the same or another page before you move to grant mandates. Your selections will remain in the selection basket when you move to a new page. 
5. After you have placed all the information you want in the selection basket, use this information to grant new mandates.

For more detailed instructions, go to the Examples of company mandates page.

You can see the granted mandates in Suomi.fi e-Authorizations after you have selected Company’s mandates as the service role and 

• you have the right to grant mandates of a company or association alone in Suomi.fi e-Authorizations on the basis of register information (for example, as the managing director)
• you are a private entrepreneur, an agricultural entrepreneur or a forestry entrepreneur
• you are a member of the company board
• you are a partner in a general partnership or a responsible partner in a limited partnership
• you are an authorised person of a limited liability company or a cooperative entered in the Trade Register
• you are a shareholder of a tax partnership.

Other parties can only view mandates granted by a company, association or other organisation and mandates that have expired during the past 15 months if they have been granted, in Suomi.fi e-Authorizations, a mandate to see the authorisation register. for example, a municipality may grant the financial director the right to see the authorisation register. For instructions on granting this mandate, see the Examples of company mandates page.

Please note the following: 

• A person who has been granted the representative’s right to grant a mandate may only view the mandates to represent granted to other persons regarding the mandate themes to which they have been granted the representative’s right to grant a mandate.
• If you have been granted the right to grant a mandate or the representative’s right to grant a mandate, you cannot see the rights to grant a mandate or representative’s rights to grant a mandate granted to other parties.

On the Expired mandates page, you will see the mandates whose period of validity has expired or those which have been invalidated prior to expiry. Expired mandates are displayed on the page for 15 months after their expiry date.

How to view the granted mandates

On the Granted mandates page, you can see all those to whom mandates have been granted . If you click on the name of the assignee, you will see all the mandates granted by you to them.

If there is a large number of mandates, you can

• search for the mandates granted to a specific person, company or organisation by the name, part of name or identifier of the assignee
• search for mandates granted for certain mandate themes or with a certain specifier
• view different mandates by limiting them by mandate type
• limit the list based on the period of validity of the mandates
• download all granted mandates as a CSV file and view them in table format. 

Mandate status data:

• Valid: The assignee can act on behalf of the assignor.
• Not valid yet: The assignee can act on behalf of the assignor from the start date of the mandate.
• Invalid: The assignee cannot act on behalf of the assignor because some of the details of the mandate have changed. Invalidate the invalid mandate and grant a new mandate if necessary.
• The mandate theme is not in use: The assignee may no longer be able to act on behalf of the assignor because the mandate theme used in the mandate is no longer used for new mandates. Check whether the mandate theme that is no longer in use can be used for acting on behalf of someone in the e-service you need. Grant a new mandate if necessary.

A granted mandate can be deleted by invalidating it in Suomi.fi e-Authorizations. You can find the instructions on the Invalidating a mandate or mandate request page.