Author: Harbor Compliance
Businesses that prioritize compliance can hire, sell, and grow with ease. However, navigating entity, tax, and licensing requirements is challenging for most businesses. Many businesses struggle to manage their requirements efficiently while also focusing on running their business. And, as the business expands into multiple states, the complexity of different state requirements only increases.
In this article, we’ll cover how most businesses manage their obligations today. We’ll also discuss how there is a much better way!
How Many Businesses Manage Registrations Today…and the Challenges They Face
Just like building a product or offering a service, your business needs the right people, processes, and systems to ensure it meets all of its registration obligations. However, most businesses take a piecemeal approach, adding inefficiency, risk, and cost to the process.
The opposite is also true: with a comprehensive solution, your business can be better prepared. After all, compliance should feel good!
First, the status quo can be costly. As we covered in our previous article, your business must designate a registered agent in every state where it operates. Many companies use a registered agent that charges hundreds of dollars each year to receive documents. When you need to complete a filing, the provider charges an additional fee, leaving you feeling nickeled and dimmed. Or worse, they don’t offer a service, leaving you to find another solution.
The status quo can also be inefficient. Every business will face different requirements based on its industry and where it operates. Once registered, it will have deadlines throughout the year for any number of agencies. Suffice it to say; it’s a lot to understand and keep up with!
Most businesses lack a unified system to research requirements and meet deadlines. They may use spreadsheets and calendar reminders to track deadlines, file cabinets or local file folders to store copies of records and make time-consuming phone calls and web searches each time they need information from a government agency.
As a result, information is neither centralized nor easily accessible by the people who need it. Human error can lead to a missed deadline. And if a person responsible leaves or goes on vacation, the business may scramble to pick up where they left off.
The status quo also comes with a hidden cost: the time and high-level staff required to maintain disparate processes. Like any business, you hire talented and highly effective people. They deserve a system that makes their job easier and allows them to focus on more exciting, high-priority work.
The Better Way: A Unified Compliance Solution
By now, you may realize your business faces one or more of those challenges. You already know state penalties can be severe. Beyond that, you know that your growth opportunities are tremendous, if only you had the right solution to manage these obligations.
The good news is there is a better way.
Most businesses should consider outsourcing the work and effort. Outsourcing puts their registrations requirements in expert hands, allowing them to focus on their core product, service, or mission. Beyond that, your business should consider technology that puts all your requirements, deadlines, records, and information in one place. This technology informs all key stakeholders where you can do business, provides continuity during growth and change, and helps protects your good standing
Asure has teamed with Harbor Compliance to help your business register and maintain compliance with state requirements. The Harbor Compliance Platform enables you to manage all your secretary of state, tax, and licensing obligations in one software, plus professional services to register efficiently.
To learn more, visit https://landing.harborcompliance.com/partners-asure-software.