Corporate Records What to Keep

No matter whether youve created a corporation or limited liability organization, you ought to preserve records. Heres a primer on the basic corporate records you require to retain.

Corporate Records

When forming a corporation or limited liability firm, you are developing an entity independent from your self. In so contractor accounting undertaking, this independent entity need to take actions for itself, not you. For instance, a corporation will have a corporate bank account through which all revenues and debt payments are limited company records handled. As a shareholder, even with a single shareholder entity, you will not spend individual expenditures out of the corporate bank account. This notion extends to record keeping.

For the objective of this report, I am considering each corporation and limited liability organization documents as corporate records. Despite the fact that the records of each entity have various names, they serve the identical purpose. For instance, articles of incorporation for a corporation serve the identical purpose as Articles of Organization. The following list applies to corporations, but you can apply the list to the restricted liability equivalents.

Although every state has different records requirements, all require you to keep the following records.

1. Articles of Incorporation The charter establishing the existence of the entity with the relevant Secretary of State.

2. Bylaws The guidelines visit of the corporation. Essentially, the bylaws set out how the corporation will be administered from a procedural perspective, the rights of shareholders, how meetings will be called and so on.

3. Board Resolutions These are resolutions passed by the Board of Directors from time to time, such as defining classes of corporate stock and approving specific courses of action for the business.

four. Minutes of Shareholder Meetings

five. Annual Meeting Each and every state requires a corporation to have at least 1 meeting of the board of directors each year. Keep these in your corporate book.

6. Shareholder Communications Copies of all communications to shareholders. Most states call for you to hold these for 3 years, but you must maintain these permanently to guard against future shareholder lawsuits.

7. Shareholders A list of shareholders and the shares they personal.

8. Annual Report Most states call for you to file an annual or bi-annual report with the Secretary of State. Preserve copies of these in your corporate records. Most states give a pre-printed form.

9. Balance Sheets Shareholders have the correct to inspect the finances of the corporation, despite the fact that this proper has limitations. You need to keep up to date balance sheets.

ten. Tax Returns

So, how lengthy ought to you maintain these corporate records? Some attorneys will tell you three or five years. Personally, I think you should maintain them permanently. If a shareholder dispute happens, you dont want to testify you by way of away a document. If the company is ultimately sold, the buyer is going to want to see all corporate records. Either way, you are better off holding on to all records.