A Note From Your Clarus Team
At Clarus Partners, we understand the complexities of running a successful business. As your trusted advisor, we’re committed to providing you with the resources and knowledge you need to navigate the ever-changing legal and regulatory landscape.
That’s why we have worked to partner with Harbor Compliance to give you access to a valuable resource from our partners, they are a leading provider of commercial registered agent services. This comprehensive guide below offers a clear and concise overview of the essential Secretary of State (SOS) filing requirements you need to ensure your business remains in good standing and poised for growth.
Why is this information important?
Maintaining good standing with your Secretary of State is more than just following the rules; it’s about establishing a strong foundation for your business. Proper Secretary of State filings provide you with:
- Limited Liability Protection: Safeguard your personal assets by establishing a clear separation between your business and yourself.
- Access to State Courts: Formal registration empowers you to enforce your rights and defend your business in state courts if necessary.
- Enhanced Credibility: A track record of good standing with the Secretary of State projects professionalism and fosters trust with clients, partners, and investors.
The Challenges of Multi-State Operations
As your business expands beyond its home state, additional complexities arise. This guide explores the intricacies of:
- Foreign Qualification: Operating in a new state often requires registering as a foreign entity.
- Registered Agent Services: Appointing a reliable registered agent streamlines the process and ensures you receive important legal notices.
- Annual Reports & Franchise Taxes: Regularly filing reports and, in some cases, paying franchise taxes, maintains your good standing.
A Modern Solution for a Complex Landscape
Managing SOS filings across multiple states can be a daunting task. Clarus Partners is here to help. We have partnered with Harbor Compliance to provide you with a modern solution for this complex landscape.
By leveraging the expertise of Harbor Compliance, you can navigate the complexities of SOS filings with confidence. This empowers you to focus on what matters most – propelling your business towards continued growth and success.
In addition to the valuable information provided in this guide, Clarus Partners remains at your side as your trusted advisor. We are happy to discuss your specific needs and help you develop a comprehensive compliance strategy.
Secretary of State Requirements
Establishing and maintaining the good standing of your secretary of state (SOS) registrations is crucial for the health of your business. It lays a strong foundation for growth and scaling of your operations. However, registering and managing your business’s entity can be challenging with increasing regulatory complexity. This guide is designed to help you confidently create and manage your business’s entity registrations by explaining all the necessary details.
Creating and Maintaining Entity Registrations
The below paragraphs briefly explain the most common concepts involved in establishing entity registrations and keeping them in good standing with the secretary of state.
Formation
When you want to establish a new legal entity, the first step is to register with the secretary of state. By creating your legal entity and properly registering it, you gain limited liability protection, access to state courts for legal disputes, and credibility and trust in your organization among clients, partners, and investors.
Foreign Qualification
As organizations grow, they often expand their operations to exploit opportunities outside their home jurisdiction. Common reasons for registering your business in a new state include opening a physical location or hiring an employee in another state. Each state has its own definition of what constitutes “doing business,” so this is where the organization’s legal and tax advisors play a vital role.
Once you have a clear understanding of where registration is required, it’s time to proceed with the process commonly known as foreign qualification. Every state has a specific set of responsibilities for out-of-state organizations, and while the general process is similar across states, applications, fees, processing times, information requirements, and terminology are state-specific.
Foreign qualification is typically the first step in expanding a business in any state. The process involves registering the business with the SOS office, which allows the entity to “do business” in that jurisdiction. This process also generally reserves the business’s name in that state, although state-specific requirements may vary.
Registered Agent
Having a registered agent is a crucial part of both forming a new entity and foreign qualifying an existing one. A registered agent acts as your business’s primary point of contact for receiving notice of lawsuit (service of process) and government paperwork. Your business will not be properly registered with the SOS until you appoint a registered agent.
Organizations commonly appoint different individuals, companies, and law firms as their registered agent in different states, which can lead to increased administration, potentially higher costs, and a higher risk of missing important document deliveries. To avoid these issues, it is recommended that organizations use one registered agent that meets the requirements of all the states where they do business. Commercial agents, like Harbor Compliance, can help consolidate your registered agent representation with one vendor, invoice, and process.
Annual Reports
In order to maintain good standing and continue doing business in multiple foreign jurisdictions, you’ll need to fulfill ongoing obligations similar to those required in your home state. This generally involves filing annual reports with the SOS and providing updates on important information such as business address, ownership, and authorized representatives. Failing to file reports on time can result in penalties or administrative dissolution. Since each state has its own unique deadline, a multistate business must meet deadlines throughout the year. In any given state, reports are typically due on a yearly or biennial basis.
Franchise Taxes
Many states require businesses to file and pay franchise taxes in order to maintain corporate good standing. This is applicable to states such as California, New York, and Texas. Some franchise taxes are to be remitted along with the annual report, as in the case of Delaware and Illinois. Reinstating an entity with franchise tax issues is often more expensive and time-consuming than reinstating for SOS issues in isolation, as it involves two different agencies. Multistate compliance is a dynamic process that can be influenced by changes in the requirements as well as the organization’s strategy and operations.
Additional Secretary of State Filings
In addition to entity formation filings, foreign qualification, annual reports, and franchise taxes, there are many other kinds of filings that can be submitted to SOS offices. Below are several common examples:
- DBA registration – Allows businesses to legally register new names to trade under
- Amendment – Used to change an entity’s legal registration details, such as legal name, purpose statement, or ownership or management structure
- Change of Registered Agent – Updates an entity’s registered agent
- Reinstatement – Cures administrative actions against an entity, usually resulting from delinquent filings, and ultimately brings it back into good standing
- Withdrawal – Cancels a foreign qualification
- Dissolution – Cancels an entity formation
Challenges Faced by Expanding Businesses
Businesses encounter a variety of challenges as they grow and expand. Expansion in and of itself can be difficult. Seizing new business opportunities is exciting, but if those opportunities exist outside of the business’s state of formation, foreign qualification, annual report filings, and more may be required in each state where the business operates.
Moreover, not all growth opportunities are organic. Mergers and acquisitions in specific sectors have grown exponentially. These combinations increase the volume of transactional filings, making compliance management more critical than ever. After all, only entities that are duly registered and in good standing in all relevant jurisdictions can proceed with such transactions.
Furthermore, trends toward remote work and economic sales tax nexus often necessitate additional SOS filings. Selling products and hiring employees across state lines frequently demand additional foreign qualifications and other associated filings.
As organizations evolve, any changes made to the internal structure may require registration or updates to state records. If your organization experiences any of the following situations, it may trigger certain filings:
- Creation of a new entity, such as a subsidiary, holding company, or operating entity
- Name changes prompted by rebranding
- Changes or departure of key professionals/leadership, resulting in updates to secretary of state authorities.
Because each state has its own set of rules and regulations that businesses must follow, it can be challenging to grasp the subtleties from one state to another. Additionally, requirements often change, making the situation even more difficult. Laws, regulations, forms, and websites related to government registrations are subject to frequent changes. It is highly likely that an organization handling state registrations on its own will encounter one of these changes at some point. This often results in a rejected filing, increased time spent on phone calls or online research, and added administrative and legal work.
Government agencies increasingly use technology to enhance their enforcement capabilities through online filings. Failure to comply with the regulations may result in significant fines, not to mention loss of all of the key protections outlined above. Additionally, there is a reputational risk to consider.
Busy business owners and managers do not have the time to research and organize all the requirements. Therefore, organizations that operate in multiple states should consider outsourcing their registration to a provider that can track regulatory changes and ensure the efficient completion of registrations.
Beneficial Ownership Information Reporting: A Prime Example of A New Requirement
One important example of a new requirement that many businesses are unaware of is the Corporate Transparency Act (CTA), which came into effect on January 1, 2024. While it’s not a new secretary of state requirement, the information it requires directly overlaps many of the details commonly used in SOS filings. The CTA is a law passed by the US Congress in 2019 to prevent financial crimes. Under this law, businesses must report Beneficial Ownership Information (BOI) to the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN).
A beneficial owner is an individual who has ownership or a controlling stake in a business. The aim of this reporting requirement is to identify the people behind the holding and other non-operating entities. Although there are some categories of exemption, an estimated 32 million existing businesses are required to file in the calendar year 2024. New businesses formed in 2024 and beyond have 90 days to file, and any corrections or updates to previously submitted information must be submitted within 30 days.
Businesses and their leadership are expected to follow the rules, regardless of how new or complex they may be. Penalties can be severe at any stage of the lifecycle. However, adhering to rules brings several benefits, such as lower costs, better efficiency, competitiveness, better valuation, and the reassurance of clients and stakeholders. The question is, how can an organization navigate this landscape and maintain good standing everywhere it does business?
Best Practices in Compliance Management
Every organization has different requirements and abilities for carrying out state registration work. However, every successful compliance program must begin with people, training, and processes. Therefore, no matter how your organization manages its state registration work, you can take the following steps:
- Make compliance a priority. This should start with a top-down commitment to meeting requirements wherever the organization operates.
- Identify key roles. Determine who is responsible for internal communication of key deadlines, researching requirements, and completing registrations. This may include staff, external tax and legal professionals, and service companies.
- Dedicate specific individuals or vendors to ensure and execute your registrations, and ensure that there are no missing or duplicated efforts.
- Provide ongoing training and resources, and have a contingency plan for times of absence, busy periods, and staff turnover. You do not want to find out that an employee who was solely responsible for filing an annual report went on vacation or left the organization.
- Be proactive. Plan to register in advance of key opportunities or strategic initiatives. Agencies are often backed up, and you want to leave enough time to avoid penalties. This will also reduce stress and help ensure that deadlines are met.
- Lastly, examine your compliance program regularly. Your organization’s situation and state requirements change frequently. Therefore, your compliance program may need to evolve by improving processes, investing in new technology, and continuing to ensure that all stakeholders are well-informed.
Organizations that operate in multiple states or entities face challenges when they try to manage their deadlines and registrations through homegrown solutions. Often, they resort to using file folders, spreadsheets, calendar reminders, or their CRM. However, this approach results in human errors, poor visibility across the organization, and critical gaps or lapses, which are not necessarily anyone’s fault. To avoid such issues, modern businesses need a comprehensive solution that tracks regulatory updates, provides visibility to all stakeholders, simplifies deadline monitoring, and offloads filings and non-core administrative responsibilities.
How Harbor Compliance Can Help With Secretary of State Requirements
Harbor Compliance, a leading commercial registered agent provider offering service nationwide, has developed software that integrates all the essential compliance functions into one convenient platform. It supports the creation of new entity registrations and maintaining existing ones, features automated entity registration monitoring, allows you to receive registered agent deliveries, tracks projects, and more.
Our data and technology facilitate all key stakeholders to identify and mitigate risks, know where the organization is registered and can operate, and maintain continuity as your business evolves. You can rely on our nationwide services to complete and maintain your registration, and our technology ensures that all stakeholders stay informed. Contact Harbor Compliance today to learn more.