User guide

How to search people, companies, and SHAB notices in this demonstrator. Proof of concept — not an official SHAB interface; the index may be incomplete.

Data sources Search Results People Companies Notices Diagram Limits

Data sources

SHAB (Schweizerisches Handelsamtsblatt / Swiss Official Gazette of Commerce) publishes commercial-register notices. This index is built from EIT's kyc-shab service (not a live SHAB website scrape). Company pages may add LINDAS and NOGA enrichment.

Zefix (Zentraler Firmenindex) is the Confederation’s public commercial-register search. Company pages can link to a Zefix firm page when LINDAS provides that firm’s numeric Zefix id (EHRAID — EHRA / Federal Commercial Register Office id). Zefix is the live register; this index is not.

LINDAS (Linked Data Service) supplies the FOJ Zefix open dataset we use for company metadata SHAB often omits: CHE↔CH-ID aliases, legal form, seat, purpose, Zefix firm id (EHRAID), street address, and other registered names (de/fr/it/en). Some firms have no LINDAS record.

EIT NOGA Service can add official NOGA activity codes, GwG risk hints, and fill gaps (legal form, seat, address, UID status) when SHAB/LINDAS left them empty.

Search

On the home page, type a person name, a company name, a Swiss UID (CHE or CH-ID), or notice wording. Suggestions appear as you type. Use All, People, Companies, or Notices to limit the result type. All shows short grouped lists of each kind so publication hits do not bury people and firms.

Quotes around a phrase search that exact sequence of words. Hyphenated names are matched flexibly (for example Meier-Müller and Meier Müller). Company search also matches other registered names when those are stored. Under the hood the default is an adaptive Postgres full-text search with fuzzy fallbacks (not a live Zefix query).

Results

Each hit shows the name, type, and—when stored—an address. Company hits also show the identifier, and may list other registered names under the caption. Open a row to see the full record and related notices.

People

A person page lists notices that name them, companies linked through those notices, and a relationship diagram.

Under the name, a line such as a city is the SHAB address (often place only). From is place of origin (Heimatort). Residence and Citizenship are countries as stored on the ItemStorage person record (ISO codes shown as English names)—not inferred from the notice text.

Companies are grouped as in office, role ended, or also linked, from the latest SHAB notice we can parse for that person—not from whether the firm is still active. Dissolved or liquidated companies may still appear under in office if the role was never recorded as removed; they get a firm-status badge. Click a notice date to open that publication. Click a notice count to filter related notices to that person.

Companies

A company page shows the key (UID or CH-ID). Hover the key when associated IDs exist (CHE ↔ CH-ID twins). Legal form, seat, status, address (under the name), and other registered names appear when available from SHAB, LINDAS, or NOGA. A Register → Zefix link appears when the Zefix firm id (EHRAID) is known.

People are listed from SHAB notices in Board & management, Auditors, and Signing authority (Unterschrift/Prokura only), each with current and former. When this company is itself named as Revisionsstelle for others, Auditor of lists those client firms. Names found only in publication text may appear without a person page until mastering links them. Large companies may show only recent years unless you search a name. Roles and relationships are inferred from related notices.

Mergers are read from notice text: the page lists the company merged into and companies absorbed (with notice dates); the diagram draws them as dashed amber lines. Parties are matched by UID/CH-ID or exact name; unmatched names stay “not in index” but still point at the source notice.

Notices

A notice is a SHAB publication (class and number, for example HR02-…). Its own page shows the publication date, body text, people named, and the company the notice is about. Names appear as printed in the text (“Schranz, Marc”); a link may open a person filed under everyday order (“Marc Schranz”).

On person and company pages, Related SHAB Notices sits in the right-hand column. Click a row to expand the notice in place; click again or Esc to collapse. Use n / p or ↑ / ↓ to move between notices. Sort order and a shortcut tip sit on the badge row above the list.

Relationship diagram

The diagram connects the current person or company to neighbours via notices (Show → All by default, including no-longer-listed links). Open Options for layout, depth, or Still listed only. Large firms may show a sample. Drag nodes, expand to full window, and hover an edge for a parsed role when available.

What this data is not

• It is not the official SHAB portal or a certified commercial-register extract.
• Officer status is inferred from gazette text and can be wrong or out of date.
• Addresses mix SHAB place names with LINDAS street lines when those exist. Some firms have no LINDAS record.
• People named on a notice without a person entity are listed from the text and may have no person page yet.
• ItemStorage sometimes attaches people a publication never names; those rows are marked “not named in this notice”.

Integrators: see the REST API and search notes in the project docs.