Three Ways to Get Ahead of Entity Management as a New General Counsel

You’ve recently become your organization’s new general counsel – congratulations!

We know you have a lot on your plate. Chief among the list of responsibilities you’ve assumed is protecting the business from risk. Foundational to that is ensuring the business is compliant across all jurisdictions in which it operates.

Despite the threats associated with noncompliance, it’s common to put entity maintenance on the backburner. The work associated with it is notorious drudgery.

A majority of third-party “entity management” services claim to do the heavy lifting on your behalf but typically fall short of their full potential. Most are merely notification services or repositories for your documents, so the responsibility of filing still falls upon you.

You weren’t hired to stay on top of your entity management provider or push paper, regardless of how important maintaining compliance is. You need an automated, twenty-first century solution that makes the threat of noncompliance obsolete.

Don’t Settle for the Status Quo

Compliance management can be a major struggle across industries. It’s possible you’re inheriting a legacy of entity management practices that aren’t as efficient and effective as they could be. Many companies unintentionally fall out of compliance because entities slipped off the radar of previous generations of workers. Or they were never on the radar in the first place. 

“It’s surprisingly easy to lose track of entities, especially with multi-jurisdiction requirements. Of the clients we’ve onboarded, 66% were out of compliance and 44% had entities they weren’t aware of.”

Andy White, Filejet CEO

Luckily for your new employer, you recognize that the old ways of manual entity management aren’t productive. Stay on top of compliance, lessen your workload and please your new bosses by implementing the right solution: fully automated entity management that is both transparent and collaborative.  

Here’s how you can do that.

1. Start with a Compliance Audit

Managing entities is messy. It’s easy to lose track of documents saved in disparate folders or forget where information is on a spreadsheet.

To know where you stand, assess how your company has historically handled entity formation, organization and on-going compliance. Determine how much money and time are typically spent on the process. Figure out whether any gaps in tracking or reporting seem to exist. You might be surprised by what you find.

Send us your list of entities and we’ll conduct a free entity compliance audit.

2. Look for an Automated Entity Management Process that Gives You True Confidence

When it comes to entity management, most third-party services fail to provide the two most sought-after features:

Transparency

No one wants to feel like they are sending sensitive data into a black hole. If a third-party assures you they are handling your entity management, but there is no visibility, reporting or accessibility, can you really be sure the work is getting done properly? (Or at all?)

Automation

If your provider lacks transparency and isn’t automating the entire entity management lifecycle, it’s time to look for a different solution. For it to feel like the work of entity management is truly off your plate, your provider should offer accessible reporting and provide a process that is as low touch as you desire.

3. Implement the Entity Management Solution that Hands You an Easy Win

More is expected of in-house legal departments than ever before. We understand that entity management is just a small, but vital, slice of what you need to oversee.

Luckily, the process doesn’t need to be a painful time suck. In fact, it can be one of the simplest facets of your work if you use the right process.

By having the foresight to explore automated entity management solutions, you are on your way to freeing up time that should be spent focusing on work that really matters.

Filejet Has You Covered

Mitigating compliance risks is easy with Filejet. We are the only entity formation and maintenance software in the U.S. that is fully automated, organized and secure. If you’re interested in banishing entity management from your to-do list, reach out to talk to an expert or schedule an audit.