Navigating 2026: A Practical Guide to Annual Reports and Business Licenses

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Annie: Hello, everyone, and welcome to today's webinar, "Navigating 2026, A Practical Guide to Annual Reports and Business Licenses." My name is Annie Triboletti. I will be your moderator kicking things off today.

So joining us today are Trent Bavaro, Calla Heathman, and Arianne Turnier. Trent is a product director for our Annual Reports Division. Calla is a senior sales engineer focusing on business license outsourcing, and Arianne is a product director specializing in business license and License Pro. So with that, I'd like to turn it over to our presenters to get things started.

Calla: Wonderful. Thanks, Annie. Before we dive into content for today, we just wanted to maybe highlight a little bit about CSC. Some of you with us might be very familiar with CSC. Some of you may not be.

So on the screen you'll see a couple of our highlights. I think the biggest thing here is that we've been in business for a very, very, very long time. We're specialized in a lot of the things that we're going to be talking about today and so, so, so much more. And if you are really unfamiliar with us, just know that we are the business behind business. We help power kind of every stage of the compliance life cycle, which we'll touch base on a little bit later. But we're here to support you really in any way. If you need something outside of annual reports and business licenses, or if you have additional questions, feel free to let us know throughout the session and we're here to support you.

So as we dive into our content for today, we're going to focus a little bit on obviously annual reports and business licenses, but kind of the contrast between the two. Especially here at CSC, we may define them differently than maybe how you define them internally. So touching base on how we separate them out and define maybe why they're needed, what they do for you, and all of those things.

We'll dive into a lot of common compliance challenges. Our main focus within CSC is helping clients with their compliance challenges, so everything that we might experience and that you might be experiencing today going through all of your compliance metrics. Aside from that, there are some consequences of non-compliance obviously, that we might dive into today. Just things that can happen if you're not following proper procedure or happen to miss something and maybe how to rectify that.

Lastly, we'll dive into how we can be here to help support you as one of our current clients or as a new client to CSC and what we have to help support annual reports and business licenses. And lastly, which could be the most powerful thing for you today is we'll do a live Q&A session with myself, Arianne, and Trent. You'll have a chance to submit your questions throughout the session. So we do encourage you to do so if there's something that you think of throughout the presentation. A lot of the times we can actually get to those during as well. So we'll wrap up with that.

But to start, we're going to focus, again, a little bit on the annual reports versus business licenses, maybe how we define it, things that they're used for. And with that, Trent and Arianne.

Trent: Great. Thanks, Calla. So as we see here on the screen, we have really a side-by-side, high-level snapshot of annual reports and business licenses and permits.

Starting with annual reports, we are talking about a state-level filing, typically done with the secretary of state or other corporate filing office. It could be department of state. It could be division of corporations. We're talking about a high-level registration with that jurisdiction. Now it's important to notate that with this type of filing it is industry agnostic. It does not matter what your industry is, your services, your products, or your goods. It is the same form that is required of all businesses, again at that state level.

The reason for filing this, it is a regulatory filing. It is mostly done on an annual basis. It is to maintain the good standing status of your registration to transact lawfully again at the state level, so the high level. We'll kind of talk about business license typically done a little bit more on the local level, but here we're talking about just the state-level registration in order to transact lawfully in that jurisdiction.

This is something that is done in any state where you are registered. So if you are formed in one jurisdiction, let's say you're formed in Delaware, you will have a Delaware corporation annual report. But if you then register your business in additional jurisdictions, you may have an annual report in those jurisdictions as well. So one company could have multiple annual reports depending on where they are registered to transact.

Again, it's annually in most cases, but that can be a little bit of a misnomer at times as some jurisdictions do have different filing cadences. For example, in California, a limited liability company is actually filed every other year. Similar in New York, LLCs and corporations are filed every other year. But in most cases, it is done once per year. In terms of when it's filed, the cadence typically can be on a fixed date. Coming up very soon, we have Delaware corporations due by March 1st. But also there are some jurisdictions where it is based off of the anniversary date, when did you first form and register a company, and then it could be one year from that date. It could also be based off of the fiscal year end, things of that nature as well. So there is a lot to kind of track in terms of when those filings are due.

And what is required on, it is basic information about the business, so your business address, mailing address, officers' names and titles, their addresses, and also state-specific information as well. One thing that I want to point out is typically, from year to year, the filing information, the data in each state doesn't really change too much.

But we do see a very big change in Delaware this year, where starting on the open filing right now, you now need to list the nature of the business for corporations in Delaware. So that Delaware corporation annual report is due by March 1st. So we have less than two months. And you'll see if you do the filing, there is now a pick list where there's 18 options to select which nature of business is most specific and relevant to your business, and that needs to be selected. If one of those 18 don't seem to be applicable, there is a 19th option for other, where you have a 60 character limit in order to provide data to identify the nature of the business in Delaware. So that is a new requirement. The Delaware General Corporation Law was amended by code, and so that's something that needs to be included moving forward.

So with that, I'll go ahead and pass over to Arianne to talk a bit more about business licenses and permits.

Arianne: All right. Let's talk a little bit about business licensing and permitting. Who to file with? So with the licensing world and permitting world, the jurisdictions you file with vary dramatically. So we see everything from the state-level jurisdiction. So it could be a secretary of state. It could be a financial division of the state board. It could be an enforcement division of the state board. But then we get down to things like county and city, and we also move into areas like school districts, fire departments, tribal lands. So pretty much any jurisdiction that thinks they can regulate a license will try to regulate a license. So who you're filing with will vary extensively.

The reasons it's required is pretty specific. But it's going to be specific to how you operate. So it's a little different than annual reports because when we're talking about a license, you're going to file a license to do general business in some cases. So I want to operate in the city. I want to operate in the state. I want to operate in this county. That's kind of your general business license requirement. But in many cases, our business licenses and our permits are to sell a specific product or to offer a specific service. And in some cases, when we're talking down to like the permitting level, it's to operate in a specific way. So maybe you have boilers, maybe you have grease traps. You might have to have a permit to operate and manage facility requirements. So because they are specific to how you operate, a construction company might need to have licenses related to contractor work, HVAC, plumbing, roofing. And a company that does grocery might need to have a license for liquor, for food, for tobacco, for the nursery, for the meat department. They can have multiple licenses for a single premise. We also are seeing an increase in licensing based on what you do for service companies, so offering a specific service. Do you do telecom? Do you do fire install? Do you do landscaping? All of those, again, can trigger specific licenses.

When to file is very similar to annual reports for licensing. It can be annual, and it's typically either on an anniversary date, or it is going to be on the date the jurisdiction issues a license for all of their operations. But we also see some new time periods for licensing. We see things that are every two years, every five years. We might have them quarterly. And we even see licenses could potentially be monthly.

The data requirement for licensing is pretty extensive, and it varies again depending on how you operate, what you're doing, and what the jurisdiction has decided to require. So we definitely see requirements like officers, owners, addresses, and entity details. But we see more extensive information related to sales, so gross receipts. A good example is if you're operating in Alabama, you are probably reporting a lot of gross receipt information. But other states, again, are starting to adopt that gross receipt philosophy because it allows them to regulate a business even if there's no brick and mortar. So if you do generate revenue in some way, if you have employees in a jurisdiction, in many cases a license is required. We also see that there's going to be information required for different people, not just officers and owners, but store managers, technicians, qualifiers. So again the data required for licensing can be very extensive and can actually live in a number of different places within your organization. So lots to cover there.

I'm going to move on to the next thing here, which is really about kind of the compliance life cycle. So whether we're talking about annual reports, whether we're talking about licensing and permitting, we have a fairly general life cycle. There is kind of the start of that cycle, that starts with really kind of initiating business. So whether you are starting a new company, a new entity, you might need to have those initial reports for your corporations, your LLCs. And if you're opening a new location, you're going to have new licenses both for the building and construction, but you're also going to have licenses to maintain that business, so new business license, and then some of the ones we've talked about, so initial applications and research that go into that.

Once we've got all that initial filing underway, we move into the maintenance phase of compliance. So again, with our annual reports, we need to make sure that we maintain the authority to transact our business. And then we also have, of course, the industry and company-specific filings for how you operate and what you're doing. So again, those annual filings, those annual reporting requirements.

Expanding is a big part of our life cycle though. Many of our companies we're seeing kind of an expanding and contracting sort of life cycle. If you're in that expansion mode, again, we're kind of back into researching requirements to open new locations, making sure we've met all the legal requirements for our locations, for our states, and, again, for how we operate.

Then we get into the closure stage. If we're in that kind of contracting cycle where we might be closing a business, dissolving a business, we need to make sure we file any outstanding requirements for annual reports, make sure that we're merging any of those entities, making sure that they're being reported so we get them out of existence. Surviving entities are reported correctly. And for the closure of licenses, it's not like you close a location and you just don't file a license. In many jurisdictions, you need to notify them of the closure. You'll receive a renewal the next year if you don't, and it's very difficult to explain I don't need to file that license. So making sure that we also notify agencies when we're no longer operating.

So again, that maintenance, that life cycle is going to continue on and on, kind of like a merry-go-round. And we want to make sure that you guys are always thinking about these different stages as you operate.

So I'm going to move into really the next section here. I'm going to hand this off to Trent about the common challenges we see. And again, go ahead, Trent, and take over.

Calla: I think, actually, I'm going to jump in here.

Arianne: Actually, that's you, Calla. Sorry.

Calla: The new Trent.

Arianne: Go team.

Calla: I think that the biggest thing that Arianne mentioned within the life cycle and just all those different items about annual reports and licenses and the things that are required, they're all going hand in hand together. And some of you may manage one side of the business and not the other. You might manage both. And so you have all these different things going around. And the key of that is nothing is really the same. It's not uniform even within one product area. Trent mentioned that the annual reports, they're really the same, right? Every company needs to file one if you're registered with the state, but they're not all the same. They might require different information. They're due at different times. Very similar to what Arianne had mentioned on the licenses.

So with all of that being said, we kind of have that this bucket of common challenges. Now within each one of these, you can probably have multiple challenges that you might be experiencing.

But the biggest thing that we see is seasonality behind these types of filings, right? There are times where you might have a lot of filings, primarily end of year for some industries. You might be in an industry where that doesn't impact you, and you might actually have licenses due sporadically throughout the year. You might be in another industry where you have licenses that are tied to individuals that they're due on birthdays or other things. So there could be these really high highs of filing activities between licenses and annual reports, and there also could be really low lows. So you might go a month without anything, and then if you're anything like me, you forget that things are even due. And then you come back to that next month, and it might be a really high volume. So having this trend of ups and downs and maybe not understanding or having a very clear understanding of when things are coming due could be a big challenge.

I think there was a question, and Trent you might dive into this, a little bit later, of how are you even notified of some of these things coming due. And that also kind of comes into complexity of these things because they're not due at the same times again and the seasonality behind it, and you might not even be getting renewal notices. There might be notices coming from CSC if we're representing you as agent for annual reports. There might be a jurisdiction for a license that historically would have alerted you, but has maybe since stopped that. A lot of paper things used to go out, but that's changed. You might not even be the contact on file for a jurisdiction. So someone else might be getting a notice, and that's really something that changes every year and as your company changes and different things like that.

Aside from just understanding when things are due, the complexity of the filings is really challenging. Again, from an annual report perspective, there might be less complexity with some of the information that's due. But every state is different. So some states may require tax information or financial information, where other states may not, and that can get confusing. Like Arianne had mentioned, depending on your industry, you could have to share anything about yourself, about an officer or director, about a spouse, which sounds crazy, but that can happen, Social Security numbers, bonds, insurance documents, the list kind of goes on and on. So this idea that there are so many filings and so many different things required, depending on what licenses you have and where you're registered, that it can get really confusing.

Aside from that data, which is really again directly linked to complexity, is what do we even need? And aside from needing it, maybe someone in the organization has it, but do you have direct access to it and having all of that accessible to you? Maybe you have to correspond with a different team member for gross receipts, or maybe you have to get officer and director information from your legal department and you sit in tax, or other things like that. There's a lot of complexity behind data and documentation, where it's stored, how do you get to it, is it accessible to you, or is it even stored. And honestly, do we understand everything that's required because that can change year to year.

And then on the last phase, a lot of the things that we run into, when we have these conversations with our clients, are just where has that expertise gone. We're kind of in this phase of a lot of turnover or change and structure changes within organizations, just really anywhere and everywhere. And a lot of that institutional knowledge that we've had, that individual filing these items for many, many years maybe has gone away, or the idea that that institutional knowledge could even be correct is also going away. Regulations change all of the time. We're seeing changes happen, and maybe losing that or needing a way to build that institutional knowledge is a huge challenge for a lot of our clients that might be working in these phases.

And again, you might work in one area, you might work in another, you might work in both. So you could experience all of these or one of these just depending on your role within an organization. So again, a lot of stuff that we typically talk about each day.

With that being said, if you're experiencing kind of all of these challenges, there might be a consequence to you at some time. You might find yourself here because you've been non-compliant or out of compliance, maybe you missed something and you're trying to rectify it. And so within each place, there's maybe similar consequences, but also some different consequences depending on your industries and all that. So Trent, would you walk us through maybe the annual report side and how being out of good standing can impact the business?

Trent: Yeah, absolutely. So with the annual report, this is something that is a regulatory requirement. You need to file it whether or not you're updating information. And when I say that, it is even if the office and directors, the address is still the same as it was this time last year, you still need to file another annual report. That is your way of telling the state you are still operating. You still need to maintain your lawful ability to transact business. And, of course, you're going to pay a fee to the state as well as part of that renewal registration.

Now sometimes what we've come across is clients don't even realize when they have missed a report and they've fallen out of good standing. And now there is this period where on state records they are listed as not in good standing or past due or some other status that is open to the public in terms of their failure to file this required document on time. And so if you work with someone like CSC, typically if you're working with a team, we're providing notices in advance. We're letting you know after the fact. We're making sure you have information that is current and up to date and submitting that information on your behalf. But sometimes you may find out when you're doing business with somebody else and it says, "Oh, you're not in good standing," or, "This is going to impact your ability to transact in this state."

So that's obviously not a good way to find out that you're not compliant, and it can lead to things beyond just your ability to operate. But it can be penalties and fees and accruing interest. The longer that you miss that deadline and that you have failed to remedy it, you're going to be accruing additional filings and costs in order to bring your company back into good standing. Sometimes that means another form is required, not just the late annual report itself, and that additional payment. It could be a reinstatement or another form. Now there are even more filings and more payments, more complexity involved in returning you to good standing.

And sometimes we see things that are even far beyond just things that payment and money can cure. For example, if you were to miss your filing, let's say in Florida, that is due by May 1st for corporations and limited liability companies, if you don't file by May 1st, typically the third Friday in September is when the state will administratively cancel your registration. That means the state takes action on their own saying you missed your filing. You are now going to be administratively revoked or cancelled until such time that you take corrective action. Once that happens, a one-year timer starts where your name is reserved, allowing the opportunity to kind of reinstate and bring your company back into good standing. But if you don't do it within that one year, your name becomes open to the public, where another company may just by coincidence register or form a company with the same name, and now they own that name in the state of Florida. So that could itself bring challenges.

Sometimes we also see other jurisdictions where it's not as simple as just filing the late annual report and the payment. In Alaska, if you miss, you fall out of good standing and you are administratively cancelled or revoked, you need to requalify. What that means is you need to file a brand-new registration with the state, and now there's going to be a gap in the status of your company transacting lawfully, where from the time where it was administratively revoked to the time that you now file your documentation to reregister, there is forever a gap in your operating history in that state, which itself can cause challenges with operating and doing business there.

So this is something that is required by statute. It's something that is very important to make sure you file on time. And again, there are consequences beyond just monetary in terms of making sure that you file timely and get that compliance in check. And with that, Calla will talk about some of the business license consequences for non-compliance as well.

Calla: Right. Right. Thanks, Trent. So I mean a lot of it is a little similar, just in different verbiage. So from a license perspective, a lot of these are allowing you to do the work that you're doing. They're allowing you to operate in a retail space. They're allowing you to operate as a contractor or an insurance agent or other things like that. So if you are not meeting the license requirements or you've missed them, that may come back to you, where there'd be a delay in either providing a product or a service or even opening a site depending on what you're doing within, again, that kind of industry there.

Aside from that, a lot in the trade space, we have this idea that you have to bid on opportunities. So you might even need to be licensed before you actually are awarded a job. So in those cases, it can hinder your ability to bid on opportunities or jobs or get business because you might not be appropriately licensed for whatever your bid is or the state and all of those.

Aside from that, I think one thing we don't think about enough, but is really, really prevalent in today's day and age with social media and press is the idea that there is negative press behind these things. I'm not sure if any of you have ever been in a position where you've experienced this, or maybe gone to a place where you've experienced this or seen it in real time. Maybe you had seen a sign on a door stating something was going to get shut down. Or I think a couple years ago now, which sounds crazy to say, but there was this big news article that a really prevalent hockey arena was shut down because they didn't pay their business license, and that was going to change their entire schedule of all of their games and things that they had going on within the arena. So a lot of the idea all this is happening behind the scenes is it's not anymore. This can really get out there if one person comes to your store, or you are a contractor on a jobsite and you get shut down, that can lead to many more things just from a negative press perspective because we have this link to all social media and media outlets now today that we kind of all consume.

Aside from that, like Trent had mentioned with fines, penalties, and all of that, that's really big within the license space as well. They can come in different shapes and sizes and severities over time. If you miss one, it might just be, hey, let's get this back up and running. If you miss it twice, if it's really long, some jurisdictions will tack on additional fees for every single day that it's paste due. But penalties, fines, and lawsuits are all things that we just see first or want to avoid.

Business closures are really big for us. I know I've worked with many clients that operate in the retail space, where maybe one of their stores was not able to present a license and that did lead to the closure of their business, and maybe not even the closure of the whole business. I think Arianne touched base on grocery. They can shut down one area of your business that can be severely detrimental to revenue coming in. Maybe it's where you serve food, and aside from just buying groceries, serving hot food is a really big thing. If you don't have that food license, you might have that area of your business shut down.

And one thing I think we forget about or don't really think about very much is arrests. It sounds very, very extreme, which it is, but you could be in a position where you are someone listed on a license, you may be aware of it or you may not, that this could lead to an arrest if this license is not kept in compliance.

So a lot of maybe normal things that you'd think would happen from a consequence and maybe even some that seem a little extreme, depending on the area, but all of these things can happen depending on mostly how out of compliance you really are.

So I think from this perspective, we're talking about all the issues that we're having or common compliance challenges, and you're sending in a lot of what you're experiencing. So the biggest piece of this is: How can we help you? What do we have available that can help streamline your processes, maybe create those best practices for you, or just give you a space that's going to make you feel really confident in your compliance with annual reports, licenses, maybe again one or the other or both?

So that's really what we're here to discuss today is just how can we step in and help you. And we have really two areas of business here at CSC. We have the two pillars I should say. The idea of full-service solutions and these full-service solutions are really when CSC is becoming an extension of your team, and we're taking on the administrative work for you. We are providing you with a dedicated account manager in many cases, and we are the party that's tracking items, filing items, getting forms, and helping you perform a lot of this work. A little bit later in the session, Arianne specifically will heavily focus on our self-managed services. So it's really where we help propel you in a direction to be more efficient internally. We give you mostly technology that will help propel your process, make you more efficient without using CSC's administrative help. So, again, kind of two pillars — full-service and self-service.

So we'll focus first on the full-service options. We do have options within annual report prep and filing. Trent will heavily cover that in just a couple of seconds. How can CSC take on your annual report filings and help clear up a lot of that confusion within what's required or when things are due and submissions?

We do also have a very similar perspective on the license side. I will focus on our license research services. So if you are struggling with trying to understand license requirements in jurisdictions, how can CSC effectively help you uncover those requirements, whether it be new or if you have existing places of business? And then finally, in the full-service side, how can we take on your business license renewals? How can we track those licenses for you and make sure that they're filed on time?

So with that, Trent, you want to kick us off with annual reports?

Trent: Yeah, absolutely. So annual report preparation and file is just as the name suggests. It is a preparation where we will prepare the forms on your behalf, populate with the information, and we will file. We'll submit to the state, to the jurisdiction to make sure that you remain in compliance prior to the deadline. And so this service oftentimes is going to be done in conjunction with our statutory registered agent service. That is going to be a jurisdictional requirement for every single business that is formed and registered in any jurisdiction where you need to appoint a party to act as your agent to receive legal and government documents on behalf and forward them on to your attention. Again, the annual report typically done kind of in conjunction with that, because you have registration, you do business in the state, and you need to make sure you maintain your compliance from year to year through whatever filing cadence is required in that particular jurisdiction with that entity type.

Now our services are really kind of broken down to three basic functions or categories. The pre-filing service, this is going to be where we audit. We make sure the status of your companies are in good standing. And we're going to send you a notification about 45 to 60 days in advance of upcoming deadlines, letting you know these are the entities, these are the states, these are the deadlines that are coming due, to make sure that you are put on alert that you have filing requirements, and that we'll work with you to make sure the information we have in our system is up to date or needs to be updated. Or maybe some jurisdictions have information that changes from year to year, such as a financial component. We'll work with you to make sure we get the correct numbers to do the calculation and make sure that we are able to submit those on your behalf.

So that's the actual filing service and submission part, where we will submit these to the different states on your behalf and make sure that all sort of ancillary filing components are completed as well. Most jurisdictions, we'll go ahead and front the filing fee or the disbursement on your behalf. This really cuts down on kind of the back-and-forth of, oh, we need payment, we need to submit payment. We received payment, we didn't receive payment. This way we make sure that we focus first on the filing. We get it done, and then monthly, in arrears, you'll receive a consolidated invoice for all those different filings that we've completed on your behalf. We do this service in all 50 U.S. states, the District of Columbia, Guam, Puerto Rico, USVI, and the Canadian territories and provinces. So really, wherever you're registered within North America, this is something that we are able to assist on your behalf.

And then really kind of the third component of it is really tied into our entity management platform Navigator. But really once this has been submitted, that is where you can go to retrieve your filing evidence, not just this year, previous years as well. You can see where you're registered. You can see different deadlines and data around those registrations. It's tied into our database. It's audited by its own dedicated team to make sure that everything is going to be accurate at all times.

Calla: So moving into our full-service license services, if you will, .I know, again, there have been a lot of questions about researching. So the biggest thing that we help support our clients with is business license research services. We have a whole team of individuals that are dedicated to supporting you and helping you understand where you have licenses, maybe what the obligations are in other jurisdictions. And there are really two major perspectives that we focus on.

We do have some other ancillary research services, but for today's purposes, the biggest thing in this case would be new locations. So again, you can think of this as you're expanding, you're moving into new jurisdictions, you're moving into new markets, you're adding new products, services, other things. Maybe you're just starting a brand-new business and really what the locations can be are anything that you define them as. So we'll add a little bit of more complexity into license research here.

But what you can do is you can come to CSC and say, "I have this new location." You can give us an address. You can give us a city. You can give us a county. You can give us a state. And we can help you uncover the license obligations on the different levels of government that are assigned to your location. So really what you're doing, again, is providing us a location. You're giving us your business activities and explaining to us: What are you going to be doing? Are you operating a retail shop? Are you selling bedding? Are you selling candy? Are you a contractor offering electrical services in a new area, city, county? All of those things are going to impact the different license requirements. I think there was a question, and we probably will touch base on this a little bit more in the Q&A section, related to remote employees.

What are you doing in these jurisdictions that may trigger jurisdictional requirements, generating revenue? All of those things are items that you share with us, and then CSC can go out and uncover the license obligations for you and help you see what you need to do next. Do you have a license requirement? Is there a form? Is it an online filing? What's the cost? All of those items will be compiled in a report for you.

Aside from that, we have existing location research, which think of it's really easily named. It's for anywhere you're currently doing business, existing locations in your portfolio. And so it takes new location research and identifying requirements, but it takes it a step further and we help you understand what do you have. You may use this if you are taking over a role and no one left you data, or if you're missing things and think there are gaps. We can help uncover licenses that are currently on file, license numbers, expiration dates, any of their active or inactive statuses, gaps, a license that you should have but you don't, and maybe possibly you're overlicensed. It doesn't happen as much as we'd hope, but it is something that can happen that we can uncover through that research.

And I apologize for going through this pretty quickly. I know we had a lot of questions. We're kind of coming close up on time as well, so I want to be sure that we're getting to that.

Aside from research, you have the ability to partner with CSC for renewable services. And so, as you can see here on the slide, this is really when we become an extension of your team, very similar to the annual report service that Trent was mentioning. A little different. We do ask that you share data with us or that we are going to be doing that research for you to help uncover it. But what this service really does is it provides a centralized technology solution. So we take all of your data and we import it into a CSC technology, so you're able to view it anywhere, anytime, all of your license data at your fingertips.

There was a question I think that came in about security and sharing information. All of our portals within CSC are SOC 2 Type 2 compliant. We do treat the security of your information and data and documentation as we would treat our own. So you can really trust within our technology here. We do also in the license space have a technology portal called, our information request portal, that allows you to send information securely to us. We are dealing with a lot of non-public information within licensure, PII data, things like that. So you have a secure place to send that to CSC if we need it.

The biggest thing that we're providing in this service is the administrative relief behind managing these licenses. We become the party that's tracking expiration dates. We get the forms, we prep them. We log in to the portals. We make sure that the questions are answered. We actually extract data that we need from you and identify very clearly what is required. And then, from there, we are the submitting party. So we're taking all of those items that maybe seem like they're easy items, but when you mash them all together and with all the different things you have going on, they actually become the most complex. And we manage that for you.

And then from there, the fee advancement piece, CSC is going to be the submitting party. So we'll submit all the filing fees for you upon the submission of that filing. We'll invoice. You'll reimburse us later. It's just avoiding any missed payments or additional fees, needing to keep things on retainer.

So you're going to get all of these key pillars within the one solution and a place to go to see it all happening and a dedicated account manager to help propel your license services. And again, that's CSC conducting the work for you to make sure that you can remain hands-off as much as possible, but have that visual perspective to see it all coming to fruition.

I do want to give Arianne some time here for the self-managed software services, which are super important and can really help out. So Arianne, take us through License Pro.

Arianne: You got it. Okay. Well, so just to kind of recap, we've talked a lot about full-service options, annual report full-service options and business license full-service options. I'm going to jump into our self-service options for licensing.

So our product License Pro is really a product that people use in-house to manage their licensing. It's standalone. We do not provide services for you. It is technology designed to help you organize your licensing and manage that business process.

Some of the areas that we focus on in License Pro is having designers to build your own renewal workflows. As we've talked about a lot with the licensing discussion so far, licenses and permits can have different requirements. So you may have a license that requires wet signatures. You may have notary requirements. You may have certificates of insurance. These are all examples of steps that you might want to include in a workflow for your renewals to make sure that all the different team members, regardless of who manages licensing, know exactly what to expect. They don't have to have that institutional knowledge all the time. It's built into the application.

The software includes alerts and notifications, making sure everybody is on top of all the deadlines, whether that's the team doing the work, leadership, field management. Again, we can set up those notifications, whoever needs to be involved.

We also have custom workflows. This is a little bit different than the renewal workflow manager. This is designed to manage all of the other business processes that go along with business licensing. So that may be new opening processes. So creating standard operating procedures for new openings, remodels, reloads, quarterly reporting. It could be onboarding new employees if you guys have licensed professionals. So custom workflows enable you to actually manage other business processes that are adjacent or linked to your license work and customize those processes. We can have different people collaborating.

The software also includes automation around check requests, payment processing, email notifications, and a number of other reoccurring processes, like document management. We also provide a dashboard or homepage that includes KPIs and views to make sure, again, the leaders can manage it and users have visibility too.

And last but not least, we provide integrations with other internal systems. So you might need to bring in things like gross receipts, like your manager information, like your officer information from different applications so that the users have everything at their fingertips. One of the biggest challenges with licensing is that data collection. So being able to have it all pulled together is a big part of the features that we provide in License Pro.

So I'm going to hand it off to Calla just to kind of wrap up. But just to reiterate, License Pro is a self-service product. So this is something you would use in-house. And again, we can always provide more information, just like the other services we've covered today, if you guys have questions.

Calla: Great. Thanks, Arianne. And again, if you are interested in any of these services, please feel free to drop us a comment in the Q&A. We're happy to make some time after the calls. We'll also have someone reach out to you after the webinar just to set anything up if you are interested.

I think the biggest thing here is why partner with CSC? What do we have to offer you? Again, one of the biggest things here is we have industry-leading security, not just by way of our technology, but all of our data hosting facilities. Everything you do with us, you should feel really secure that the way that we're managing your data and documentation is the best for you because we only want the best for you, even ourselves, right?

The biggest thing here is that decreased administrative burden. We've talked a lot about full-service and even self-service. It doesn't matter where you are, what technology you choose, or what service route you choose. Everything that we have to offer is going to decrease the amount of time and energy you're spending on these licenses and annual reports or filings or compliance metrics because of the way that they're designed. They're going to help you in any way, shape, or form, whether it be capturing information to better propel your process or us doing it for you.

The biggest thing is increasing that transparency, giving you that full vantage point of all of the things you have going on and a place to see it all. And when you're partnering with us, the complexity is drastically reduced. We have services to help you uncover some of these items going on. We can read the applications for you and share information in a more digestible way. Or you can use our technology and create workflows that better help you understand how you have to manage those steps moving forward.

So all of these items that you're seeing here on the screen or that we've talked about today are reasons maybe why you should consider a partnership with CSC and all the areas that we can help out with. So if you're experiencing challenges in any one of these areas, let us know and we'll reach out to you after the webinar.