One of the most exciting things when creating a corporation is receiving your official ‘Articles of Incorporation’. If you’re still determining whether or not incorporating your business is right for you, check out our previous blog article, “Should I incorporate my business?” Many first-time business owners assume that once you have the articles of incorporation you can shove them in a drawer and forget about them. In order to build and maintain your business, here are our top 4 priorities every corporation should prioritize when building and maintaining their business:
Stay Organized
Every corporation must be legitimately organized. This means you will be responsible for appointing your board of directors, issuing shares, and approving corporate governance activities like by-laws to help ensure your business runs smoothly.
Be Proactive
The more you know and the more you work to ensure your business is as strong as possible, the better prepared you will be to take advantage of opportunities, and the inevitable not-so-good things, over the course of your business’ life.
Don’t “set it and forget it”
Maintaining the legal health of your corporation is an ongoing process that should be regularly reviewed with your board and advisory team. As you grow your business, your needs, processes, and corporate structure may need to change. Ensure that you are following the law and abiding by-laws and best practices to avoid any legal trouble. Take the time to clearly understand the details of the corporation and get familiar with the information that supports your operations.
Record Everything
There are laws that require certain information to be on record regarding your operations, directors, and shareholders of your corporation. It is very important to keep track of this information and be as up-to-date as possible with the legal responsibilities of your corporation. While much of this recorded information may not seem important, in our experience, the annual maintenance of your corporation becomes one of those “it’s not important, until it is” events. Any information gaps or evidence that the corporation has not maintained reflects negatively on the corporation, so keep everything up-to-date.
Are you unsure about the health of your business? Give us a call and we will set up a time to walk through our services and help you determine the best next steps for your business.
