UDIN- A unique hegemony

The Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI) is a statutory body established by an Act of Parliament, viz. The Chartered Accountants Act, 1949 (Act No.XXXVIII of 1949) for regulating the profession of Chartered Accountancy in the country. The Institute, functions under the administrative control of the Ministry of Corporate Affairs, Government of India. The affairs of the ICAI are managed by a Council in accordance with the provisions of the Chartered Accountants Act, 1949 and the Chartered Accountants Regulations, 1988.

Chartered Accountant is an important pillar in economic growth of nation. His role is important in  preventing corruption, malfunctioning, window dressing, detecting frauds in companies etc.

Intention

To restrain the malpractice of third persons misrepresenting themselves as Chartered Accountants and thereby misleading the authorities and stakeholders Professional Development Committed of The Institute of Chartered Accountants of India has implemented in phased manner inimitable concept of UDIN (Unique Document Identification Number). This concept secures the certificates attested/certified by practicing CAs as well as this also enables the Regulators/Banks/ Third parties to check the authenticity of the documents.

Applicability

From 1st of February, 2019 as per Council decision. It is mandatory to obtain UDIN for all the Certificates issued where the Financial Information/related contents is certified as True and Fair / True and Correct. Certificates includes Reports issued in lieu of a Certificate in terms of Guidance Note on Reports or Certificates for Special Purposes (Revised 2016).

Who can generate UDIN?

UDIN is a unique number, which will be generated for every document certified/ attested by Practising Chartered Accountants and registered with the UDIN portal- https://udin.icai.org/ .

Chartered Accountants having full-time Certificate of Practice can register on UDIN Portal and generate UDIN by registering the certificates attested/certified by them. This portal ameliorates in tracing of forged/wrong documents prepared by any third person in the name of Chartered Accountant. As a person other than Chartered Accountant will not be able to upload the documents on the said portal.

Reference of 18 Digits of UDIN

UDIN is 18-Digits system generated unique number for every document certified/attested by Practicing Chartered Accountants.

The 18- digits UDIN (YY MMMMMM AANNNAANNN) will be like; 19112677AKTSBN2002,
Wherein; 

• First 2 Digits are YY - Last 2 digits of the Current Year (19 in this case)

• Next 6 Digits are MMMMMM – ICAI’s Membership No. (112677 in this case)

• Next 10 Digits are AANNNAANNN –Alpha-numeric generated randomly by the system (AKTSBN2002).

Non-applicability

Non-applicability of UDIN can be listed out but the list is not exhaustive. Like in the 1st phase, requirement of obtaining UDIN is Not Applicable for:

• Auditor's Opinion/Reports issued by the Practicing Chartered Accountant under any Statute w.r.t. any entity or any person (e.g.: Tax Audit, Transfer Price Audit, VAT Audit, GST Audit, Company Audit, Trust Audit, Society Audit, etc.,
• Valuation Reports,
• Quarterly Review Reports,
• Limited Review Report
• Information System Audit,
• Forensic Audit,
• Revenue / Credit / Stock Audit,
• Borrower Monitoring Assignments,
• Concurrent / Internal Audit and the like,
• Any report of what so ever nature issued including Transfer Price Study Report, Viability Study Report, Diligence Report, Due Diligence Report, Management Report, etc.

UDIN generation has been made mandatory as per the Council Decision, hence not generating UDIN for mandatory documents will amount to non-adherence of the Council Decision and may attract disciplinary proceedings as per the Second Schedule Part II of The Chartered Accountants Act, 1949.

How do Authorities/Regulators/Banks/Others can search UDIN?

The UDIN so indicated on certificate can be searched through the search option on UDIN Portal by sharing few details such as Name of the Authority, Mobile Number and Email of the person searching the UDIN. However they are not required to register themselves on the UDIN Portal.

Source: https://udin.icai.org/ 

The content of this article is intended to provide a general awareness to the subject matter.