Keep accurate records for monitoring the health of your company. It is difficult to identify patterns, calculate ratios or make decisions in the future without them. You also need these records when you file tax returns and also to support the data you include in your financial statements. These include income (profit and loss) statements as well as balance sheets.
Most states have corporate department or secretaries of state offices who require companies to submit an official statement of ownership. These documents are accessible online in most cases. You can search these documents using the name of the company, and the websites often offer a list of names of directors and officers as well as their addresses and other information about the business. Certain private firms or companies make directories of businesses. These directories could include the city of a business’s headquarters or where it is registered. They can also contain contact details, the name of the principal officer or officers, as well as an overview of the kind of business the company is involved in.
A lot of cities require that any person or company engaging in an enterprise within the city register, and a lot of cities have placed these documents online. Some counties have fictitious company name indexes where the top officers of a partnership as well as their addresses are listed. Some states keep an inventory of all business names that are fictitious. States, the secretary of state and corporation departments have also made these online.