How to Get Copies of my Business Documents: A Short Guide

Introduction to Business Entity Documents

The documents that officially certify your business will typically be required by partners and vendors throughout your business's lifetime to provide proof you have registered your business and are operating legally. These documents include the information provided to the Secretary of State that will be listed on your business page and will be how the State knows your business mailing address, physical address, registered agent, and ownership information.

Keeping organized records of these documents give your business an advantage and allow you to easily find any papers that can be requested by things such as your bank, business partners, vendors, or the courts. In this article, we will go over where you can expect to find these documents, the best practices for storing them, and what the benefit of using a formation service like Firstep is regarding the storage and acquisition of them.

Where to Find the Certified Copy of Your Business Documents

As most new business owners are aware of, you will need to first register your business with your specific Secretary of State to form your business. This typically will be done online through their official state website and will give your business the legal right to start conducting business in that state. For most of these sites, a simple search of your business name will take you to your business's page that lists the relevant information on your business. You will generally be able to find your important documents such as your articles of organization (Limited Liability Company) or your articles of incorporation (Corporations) that are available to download from the state website.

However, there are certain states that will require a small payment to redownload these documents if you have not kept track of these from your initial formation of the business. This is why keeping clean records of important business documents and information is so important as you can avoid any additional fees down the line after the payment for formation.

How a Business Filing Service Helps You Get and Keep Your Important Documents

If you have chosen to use a business filing service such as Firstep, you can avoid the hassle of acquiring your business documents and ensure you will have all important papers regarding your business. When we form your business, we will always provide you with the articles of organization (or articles of incorporation) so that you have them for your personal records. Also, if we file any of your annual reports for your business then we will also provide these to you through email and also by uploading them to your business dashboard in our system. This way, you will have multiple locations to find these documents if you don't file them away the first time and also help you avoid having to pay to download them again.

Through our subscription services we will automatically renew your business registration each year with all the correct information inputed and formatted how it is supposed to be, and then upload the official approved document for you to access. Having one place where you know you can find these documents can be beneficial and help with organization. It's advised to have one place internally where your business is saving important documents such as these to, and where you can easily access them in a safe place.

The Importance of Keeping Organized Records for Your Limited Liability Company

After the formation of your business you will begin to work with business partners and other vendors that might require your articles of organization or similar documents to verify they are working with a credible and established business. Things such as opening a bank account or bringing on investors in your business will require these documents and if you do not have them readily available this can delay this process.

Also, in the case of any lawsuits that are brought against your business you will more than likely need to provide these important documents to the court to prove the legitimacy of the business and that all information is compliant with the state regulations. While having these documents can be beneficial, the storage and safe keeping of them can be just as important as they will be required somewhat regularly throughout the course of your business.

At Firstep, we ensure you will always have access to these documents and will be able to easily save and download them from our system without having to go through the Secretary of State website and potentially have to pay for the download.

Conclusion

Clearly your formation and annual report documents are of great importance to your business. They will be used for multiple things and sometimes will be required for your business to provide them. Using our services at Firstep allows you to not stress about the hassle or fees of obtaining them and ensures you will always be able to come back to our systems or the confirmation emails we sent to download them if these documents are misplaced or lost somewhere.

This is just one of the many benefits to using a business formation service and there are many more benefits to having us take care of your formation and annual reports. For more information and guides on these benefits, see our post that goes more in depth on the different advantages here. As your business grows and has multiple years of annual reports it can be costly if you are required to provide multiple years of reports and can save you a significant amount of time by having them all stored in one secure location.