Avoiding Late Filings: Best Practices 

Legal professionals spend a vast amount of their time filing, managing, and tracking corporate entities. They also have to spend that time handling risks, deadlines, and other compliance responsibilities.

There are only so many different ways to remind yourself to file before crucial deadlines before realizing that no method is truly effective. Utilizing entity management software is one of the most efficient ways to avoid late filings. 

Here’s how an entity management software can help you and your firm:  

Managing Corporate Compliance

Entity management software can ensure that you and your firm never miss a filing deadline. As a result, you can expect to avoid fines and even avoid forced dissolution issues for non-compliance. Entity management software will even facilitate compliance tracking events and filing across different jurisdictions.

Filing and Managing Registrations

Proper entity management software can help you file a wide array of different business registrations. Some examples include:

• Business names
• Securities
• Special licenses
• Permits
• Other important business registration needs

All registrations can occur in one or more jurisdictions; therefore, law firms and legal professionals need to have a robust system established to be able to engage in these filings and monitor actions related to these filings.

These tasks include, but are not limited to:

• Centralization of all registrations so viewing can take place all in one location
• Tracking the ownership of each entity
• Keeping track of the staff — mainly managers and directors — of each entity
• Efficient document storage of entity filings
• Monitoring and adapting to requirements of changing laws and regulations                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                         
• Automating tasks that involve managing legal entities

Becoming more organized allows an entity to significantly minimize risks associated with various entities. Entity management software also helps show the law firm or legal personnel how to prioritize the importance of meeting filing deadlines. Additionally, it has been shown to reduce the frequency of problems arising in the future. 

Customization

Entity management software is usually going to be customizable. This customizability allows each individual legal department or law firm to have their needs met. 

In-house counsel, for example, may have a completely different demand or need than a medium-sized law firm. Again, someone who works by themselves and does a lot of business entity filings will most likely also have a different approach. 

It’s crucial to work with an entity management expert who will be able to take the time and understand what you need. In doing so, an entity management expert will provide you with potential solutions to increase the value of your company.

Automation

Ensuring that some tasks, particularly administrative ones like filing, are performed automatically is crucial for any business to be genuinely successful. Any lawyer or legal professional will be able to tell you that many billable hours are wasted due to a lack of proper automation for administrative tasks.

An entity management system is the solution. Tasks like filing, document assembly, and filing alerts can all be automated, saving you and your company resources, money, and time. 

Storage

Entity management systems will also have the ability to store documents related to the entity filing. Some of these documents include:

• Articles of incorporation
• Corporation bylaws
• Ownership agreements
• Partnership agreements 
• Employment-related agreements

The entity management system can also store information on officers and directors, as well as managing the relationships each has with a specific entity.

Contact Athennian Today

Each entity may require a different number of filings, which may be required to be filed across jurisdictions. A legal entity management system can track all aspects of filings, from creation to dissolution. 

Athennian is a top-rated cloud-based global legal entity management software. We currently have over 150,000 users and proudly lead as one of the top entity management systems in North America, serving in-house legal teams and external law firms. 

Our platform has been part of the solution for law firms and legal professionals in both the United States and Canada. Keep in mind that without a cloud-based entity management software, you can expect pesky obstacles like:

• Human error
• Disorganization
• Lack of proper collaboration
• Multiple versions of the same spreadsheet stored in a disorganized fashion
• Security risks
• Difficulty maintaining consistent compliance dates
• Difficulty maintaining annual reminders

Athennian entity management software’s goal is to make the legal audit and audit planning a facilitated process for law firms and legal professionals. 

You’ll be able to:

• Seamlessly manage basic entity information
• Automate templates and forms
• Ensure fewer security risks occur
• Recover from disasters
• Allow 24/7 virtual access to your records when unable to access physical minute books
• Allow clients and lawyers quick access to their records 
• Offer Read-Only Access or Restricted Access to clients and other lawyers
• Create a virtual minute book allowing quick access by third parties for due diligence reviews 
• Manage compliance and dates in one place
• Run reports
• Ensure all important and time-sensitive filings are filed on time
• Generate entity overviews and quick corporate summaries

Don’t hesitate to contact an Athennian entity management expert to learn more about what our intuitive entity management software can do for you. Speak to an entity management expert today for further information. 

‍

Want to Stay Up To Date with Industry Insights? Sign up to Receive our Newsletter

‍

‍