General Counsel Manual

Practice Tip: If you subscribe to receive entity change notices from us, then you can use the database to identify and respond to issues with suppliers and contractors after you enter into contracts. You may also want to consider talking to your individual and business clients about using the database this way. The reason is that an entity’s status might indicate something about its viability and effectiveness. For example, assume that you have a contract with a “maintain current-active status” clause. If you subscribe to receive change notices from us, you will not be dependent on the contractor to tell you if its status changes. This may give you more options for responding to the change.

Filing Documents with the Business Registration Database

Tips for Filing Documents

Correct Address Saves Time

Practice Tip: Save time by making sure that you double-check the accuracy of any addresses you enter on forms you submit to us. The reason is that we use the US Postal Service’s database of valid addresses to conduct address verification for mailing addresses on filings submitted to us. If the software says that the address is not deliverable, we contact you and you will have to either:

• 1. Confirm that the address is accurate as written, or
• 2. Make corrections before we file the document.

And, if you confirm that the mailing address is correct although the software says it is not, we will document that confirmation in the entity’s records. If you file online and you enter an address that the software says is not deliverable, you will also have to do extra work: confirming the address is correct, adding missing data or changing the address.

Email Address

Practice Tip: The email address you provide for a business when you create the entity must be correct! This is another area where proofreading pays off. The reason is that we send an automatic email to the email address associated with an entity each time there is a change to that business entity’s records. That way, the business gets immediate notice of changes and can take corrective action if the changes were not authorized.

Practice Tip: Promptly notify us of changes to the main email address associated with our files on your business (or your client’s business). Otherwise, we may send an email notice of a change to the wrong email address. That could mean that you don’t find out about a change made by someone who wasn’t authorized to do it.