Insights and updates
from MinuteBox

Entity management, risk management, and compliance management are not corporate practices that people think about when forecasting revenue and profitability. However, there’s more profit to be made through legal operations than you may think.

A corporate compliance program helps organizations adhere to the laws and regulations of the land. In-house legal staff and compliance managers are responsible for enforcing compliance protocols that are designed to protect the interests of the corporation.

Here’s how the people responsible for managing corporate compliance programs can actually improve your organization’s bottom line and boost productivity.

Who are the compliance managers?

As many as 60% of corporations have an in-house Chief Compliance Officer and a team of compliance managers that report to the CCO. Additionally, most organizations have a Chief Legal Officer and a team of paralegals who help manage legal records for the corporation. Some companies are fortunate enough to have both departments operating in-house.

It’s these teams of hard-working professionals who protect the legal and financial interests of the corporate entity. Given the right resources and support from the global entity, these professionals can make their own contributions to the corporation’s bottom line.

How do compliance managers protect corporate interests?

Compliance managers maintain diligent records that document all the different elements of the corporate compliance program. These include things like:

• Documented policies and procedures
• Proper training protocols
• Whistleblower protection programs
• Minute book management practices
• Auditing and reporting policies
• Compliance enforcement protocols
• Non-compliance investigative procedures

Compliance managers and paralegal staff often use legal entity management technology to meticulously compartmentalize all legal and compliance records. These platforms are intuitive, helping compliance and legal managers save valuable working time while completing all clerical and administrative compliance tasks.

Why use entity management to maintain compliance?

Entity management software helps your legal and compliance teams follow federal regulations like the Corporate Transparency Act. The purpose of these federally regulated legislative policies is to enforce corporate compliance and crack down on white collar crimes.

Globally, corporate compliance requirements ensure transparency and accountability is upheld by legal entities that operate in multiple jurisdictions. That’s why it’s so important to give your compliance managers the resources they need to be as detailed and thorough with corporate recordkeeping as possible.

Entity management software provides a single source of truth for all corporate entity data and minute book documentation. If federal regulators request an audit of your corporate data, your compliance managers can open the entity management platform and provide instant answers to any pressing questions from regulators.

Additionally, entity management software like MinuteBox has a built-in compliance module. The module helps your legal and compliance teams monitor organizational charts, calendars, workflows, and other templates for any errors, statutory non-compliance, and date-based compliance tasks. These automated workflows help your organization follow the jurisdictional letter of the law so that you always remain in compliance.

How compliance managers support corporate profitability

Now that you understand how compliance and legal managers operate, how does that translate into an impact on the corporation’s bottom line? Here are several ways that your legal and compliance teams directly impact corporate profitability.

Reduce risks and costs of cybersecurity breaches

Creating a single source of truth for your corporate compliance program allows your team to monitor any risks of non-compliance. Your compliance managers can identify and squash any internal operational problems that risk violating compliance policies. This can even extend to external-facing operations when dealing with customers or vendors.

Additionally, a compliance program includes cybersecurity measures to protect sensitive corporate data. Entity management software like MinuteBox is protected by biometric and hardware key authentication solutions, protecting all sensitive data from anyone without authorized access to the platform. This approach helps compliance managers mitigate any cybersecurity risks, such as hacking or malware that could compromise corporate security.

Minimize non-compliance financial penalties

Companies that violate compliance laws are subjected to significant penalties from regulators. In some cases, these penalties can amount to tens of millions in fines that must be paid to the federal or provincial/state governments.

In extreme cases, violations of compliance protocols can result in jail time for senior executives of the corporation. The ongoing saga with FTX Founder Sam Bankman-Fried is a stark warning for other companies to respectfully follow compliance protocols. Bankman-Fried is currently facing multiple charges of fraud and conspiracy to misappropriate billions of dollars in FTX customer and investor money.

Maintaining a rigid compliance program allows your compliance managers to minimize the risk of incurring similar extreme penalties. By enforcing compliance policies, your compliance and legal teams can potentially save millions of dollars in operating expenses.

Strengthen your corporate reputation

Finally, by enforcing a corporate compliance program, legal and compliance managers reinforce the standing brand reputation of your corporation. Customers and vendor partners will choose to do more with your corporation if they can trust that your organization respects compliance laws.

By maintaining this responsible reputation, your corporation can create new business opportunities that bolster revenues and increase profitability. Reputation is everything in business, and your compliance managers will protect that reputation from crumbling within.

Are you ready to transform your legal and compliance teams into departments that directly contribute corporate profitability? Join the MinuteBox revolution and use your entity management platform to enforce compliance and maximize profits.

Efficiency is one of the core pillars of a fully functional legal entity. Time is a luxury that many corporations and general counsels have precious little to spare. In a time when technology enables people to uncover instant answers to their questions or concerns, it’s imperative that the process of completing or formalizing legal documentation be as efficient as possible.

That’s why a growing body of organizations are introducing document assembly technology to their operations. Using these types of platforms, general counsels can assemble minute books, corporate records, and legal contracts all to signature ready statuses with little to no manual changes necessary to complete the documentation.

How long does it take to draft legal documents?

There’s a growing need for innovative document automation technology due to the amount of time that companies spend drafting legal contracts. This is because it can take anywhere from several weeks to several months for lengthy or complex documents to reach the state where they are signature ready.

The length of time becomes even more daunting when multiple parties must agree upon minute book records before signing off on the agreement. Negotiating or renegotiating the terms of complex corporate documents also takes a significant amount of time, restricting an organization’s ability to productively move forward and achieve results.

These are just some of the common reasons that complicate the process of drafting and finalizing important legal documents. In order to modernize the documentation exercise into a more efficient one, companies need innovative technology to streamline the process.

What is the difference between document coding and document automation?

For many years, corporations and legal entities were required to store all minute book records and corporate documents within secure office space. Entire records would be stored in filing cabinets where legal professionals would pull and source specific records, file by file, whenever the need arose.

Advancements in technology have made this old way of maintaining corporate records obsolete. Now, all minute books and corporate documents can be digitized to reduce, if not eliminate the need for paper records to be stored at the office. Given that the average firm spends up to $2,000 per five drawer filing cabinet to store legal files, digitizing records is as much of a cost effective way of doing things as it is a time efficient solution.

However, even by digitizing records, there are more efficient ways to help your legal professionals complete their tasks. That’s the key difference between document coding and document automation.

What is document coding?

Legal document coding adds an extended piece of syntax code to standard legal documents. Firms will use document coding to expand upon minute book or corporate record templates and make them more compatible with legal document assembly software.

In the old days, document coding was an extremely difficult process. Legacy platforms were not as advanced as they are today, which required professionals to have advanced knowledge of coding syntax that matched the capabilities of a fully trained computer developer. This is a very tall order to ask of your legal professionals.

What is document automation?

Document automation is a more advanced and streamlined approach to document coding. It utilizes logic-based systems to help professionals insert additional bodies of text or data into standard legal documents. Think of it like pre-programmed modules that allow you to drag and drop additional information into your documents.

Using document automation technology, legal professionals are not required to have the coding expertise of a computer programmer. These no-code entity management solutions are the key to efficiently producing and finalizing legal documents so that organizations can move forward towards growth at faster and more efficient rates.

See What MinuteBox Can do For You

See features

Embrace document automation technology for best results

Given how easy and efficient it is to insert additional bodies of text or data with document automation technology, it’s no wonder there’s such growing demand for these solutions. By reducing the amount of time it takes to get contracts signature ready, your organization can reinvest valuable time and resources into areas of the business that directly contribute to future growth and prosperity.

Legal professionals, paralegals, and general counsels working on behalf of your firm can all save hours of time each and every day with modern technology. When you have more available hours to put towards boosting Legal Recurring Revenue and other means of growth for the business, you’re in a far better position to become a leading entity in your respective industry.

Are you ready to inject a little document automation into your corporate recordkeeping process? Join the MinuteBox revolution for a faster and more efficient way to maintain minute books, update corporate records, and eliminate the need for complex technical coding skills among your entire professional team.

Licensed attorneys charge the highest percentage of billable hours to legal clients. Paralegals also have opportunities to increase billable hours for a firm. The most common ways for paralegals to increase volumes of billable hours are through the following:

• Discovery work
• Legal document preparation
• Research and analysis
• Client communications

The last point is critical for billing more time to paying clients. ParalegalEDU is a resource that educates legal professionals on how to build a sustainable career. According to their research, the most important personality trait that aspiring paralegals require is people skills.

Why do paralegals need people skills?

Paralegals are on the front lines, handling client communications. They often act as a buffer between clients and practicing attorneys. They receive client messages over the phone or in their inbox, and they’re responsible for relaying those communications to the attorneys.

In small law firms, paralegals often function as office managers in addition to their clerical duties. In these positions, they act as the voice of the firm when clients call to discuss their cases. They’re also the first point of contact when clients arrive at the firm for an in-person meeting with their attorney.

In any scenario, there’s a great deal of client interaction that paralegals must manage. People skills allow paralegals to respond to clients in calm, reassuring ways. It’s not uncommon for clients in the midst of personal setbacks or corporate litigation to unleash their frustrations on paralegals.

How paralegals can service clients more effectively

Paralegals must maintain their professionalism regardless of how unprofessional a client may behave. It takes patience and discipline to maintain those skills.

However, there are ways that paralegals can improve the way they interact with clients. These approaches allow paralegals to provide faster, more helpful service to clients, which provides a number of business benefits to the entire firm.

Use entity management technology to expedite clerical work

There have been many statistics gathered on the typical law firm experience. According to the findings, only 2.5 hours in a standard eight hour workday are billable hours charged to clients. That means legal teams, and paralegals in particular, are spending nearly 70 percent of their working days on clerical and document work.

Instead of allowing your paralegals to fall into the documentation trap, invest in entity management technology to help streamline the clerical workload. By uploading all minute book records and corporate documents to cloud-based servers, your firm modernizes minute book management.

Paralegals can use advanced search parameters to find the documents in question in a matter of minutes. If clients are already in bad moods, your paralegals can calm those feelings by providing quick, efficient answers to their pressing legal questions. It improves the quality of service, boosts client satisfaction, and enhances the reputation of the firm.

Entity management software supports remote client meetings

At a time when more people want options for remote work, it enhances the client experience if you can accommodate those desires. Entity management software allows your firm to conduct all client meetings and document reviews at their convenience.

Since entity management platforms are cloud-based solutions, they’re accessible from anywhere. Simply have your paralegals share administrative access with your client’s main point of contact. Once they have access, they can view the records from the convenience of their own homes, their offices, or any destination with an internet connection.

Providing clients with the option to conduct meetings remotely makes things easier for them. An easier experience is a more enjoyable experience that increases the probability they’ll retain your firm’s services for future business.

Paralegals convert saved clerical time into client-facing service

Finally, since entity management software streamlines clerical and administrative tasks, paralegals will earn back large portions of their working calendars. They can use this saved time to provide more direct service to clients, including strategic discussions that take some of the workload off the practicing attorneys who will argue the merits of the case.

This is a perfect example of a win-win-win scenario. The client has an extra voice counseling them on how to best persevere through the case. The paralegal gets to spend more time helping build Legal Recurring Revenue for the firm, and they get to expand their responsibilities beyond the standard clerical and documentation work. The attorney also earns back more time to polish their arguments when negotiating cases.

Paralegals have great people skills; help them use those skills wisely

Managing client relationships is a difficult task in any environment. When those relationships are built around legal cases that risk hampering the client’s future, the clients are prone to be in bad moods when interacting with legal teams.
Paralegals have the skills to support clients, but the right legal technology gives them an added edge to deliver quality client service. Introduce entity management technology to your own legal community and convert those benefits into opportunities to improve client satisfaction.

Corporations hire experienced legal professionals to oversee legal entity management on behalf of the business. These hires can be either in-house, under the direction of general counsel, or as contracted members of an outside law firm.

In either scenario, legal professionals rely on their team of law clerks or paralegals to help administer entity management best practices. This includes assembling all corporate filings into one centralized database of records to maintain business compliance with regulatory laws.

How corporate entities maintain business compliance

Legal teams follow entity management practices, policies, and procedures to maintain business compliance with regulatory authorities. Entity management is a governance system that organizes the corporate records of a legal entity to improve business compliance and corporate transparency.

Effective entity management organizes records from an array of sources into structured minute book records. Examples of prominent sources to collect entity management data include:

• Organizational charts
• Organizational calendars
• Corporate workflows
• Statutory non-compliance records
• Date-based compliance records
• Clerical and administrative records

Many legal professionals use entity management software to assist with the management of corporate data in support of business compliance. Entity management software is a specialized system built by legal minds for legal minds. It simplifies how law firms and legal departments manage large amounts of corporate data in service of numerous legal entities.

Four tips to help paralegals maintain business compliance

Simplification goes a long way to helping paralegals and law clerks remain on top of the entire business compliance process. Each record of data must be inputted into the master entity management database, which requires diligent recordkeeping skills and vast amounts of time dedicated to this process.

So, how can you make life a little easier for your paralegal team, while still ensuring that business compliance is maintained? Entity management software is one of the best resources to simplify the workload. Here are four helpful ways these platforms will help your paralegal team maintain business compliance, and also preserve their own mental health.

1. No-code document assembly

One of the biggest reasons companies choose not to insert modern technology into their workflows is that platforms require technical expertise to manage. Many legal departments don’t have the staffing or resources to invest in a tech guru. In fact, according to the Association of Corporate Counsel, the median total of legal staff in any given department is just six people.

The chief benefit of entity management software is that it’s built to support the non-technically savvy legal department. The platform includes no-code document generation templates, allowing teams to leverage intuitive software that easily creates and customizes legal documents with no technical requirements. This approach significantly reduces the time it takes to create documents to a few simple minutes.

1. Time to consult with stakeholders

Paralegals and law clerks often wear multiple hats. In addition to managing corporate entity data, their responsibilities include serving as the primary point of contact between the heads of the legal department and the other key stakeholders of the business.

Scheduling time to converse with those stakeholders with fully briefed and informed documentation is a challenge for paralegals. Since the average team has only six functioning staff members, juggling all these responsibilities without sacrificing the requirements for effective business compliance is a tall order.

The simplicity of entity management software streamlines the entire business compliance workflow. Using these systems, legal teams save valuable hours on recordkeeping, enabling more prompt and effective meetings with key entity stakeholders. It’s a workflow that generates value and improves the efficiency of meetings throughout the entire organization.

1. Greater alignment between attorneys and paralegals

Any documentation submitted to regulators will undergo meticulous scrutiny. Business entities provide transparent records to regulators, who then review and make their judgment on whether the entities meet the standards for business compliance.

Sometimes, supportive positioning statements that provide additional context to the records make or break the case for regulators. If there’s misalignment between the legal professionals and paralegals who submit the records to regulators, the argument may become diluted or confusing.

By using a platform that centralizes all records and streamlines the time investment necessary to maintain those records, attorneys and clerks can dedicate more time to making their arguments in clear, concise, and aligned manners. It will also allow any misalignments or disagreements over submissions to be squashed without leaving paralegals feeling threatened or at risk of dismissal.

1. Paralegals will not succumb to burnout

The most consistent benefit of entity management systems is the time saving efficiencies they provide to resource-strapped legal teams. Valuable working time is granted back to legal departments, chiefly, the paralegals, whose primary duties are to maintain those records.
Paralegals are under enormous pressure to maintain business compliance. It’s natural to feel overwhelmed at times, especially if workloads become overwhelming due to rigid time constraints. Using entity management software, the work gets done faster, paralegals feel accomplished, and creeping thoughts of burnout dissipate into the subconscious. It’s a win all around for everyone!

Corporate mergers and acquisitions have been effectively implemented for many decades. In the United States, over 325,000 mergers and acquisitions have occurred since 1985, generating values worth nearly $35 trillion when adjusted for modern inflation.

Every merger and acquisition carries a certain degree of risk with the potential for more lucrative rewards. When conducting these corporate transactions, the acquiring company’s legal, compliance, financial, and operations departments conduct thorough due diligence to gain transparent insight into the target company’s structure and compliance.

What is the purpose of M&A due diligence?

Large corporations operate on a global level, often with multiple entities and subsidiaries affiliated under the corporate umbrella. The depth and breadth of a global corporate presence requires thorough due diligence of each reporting entity and subsidiary before a merger or acquisition can be completed.

During the discovery phase of a merger or acquisition process, legal and compliance teams review the target corporation’s corporate governance policies. These policies identify things like internal or external risk factors, as well as reporting data from all entities and subsidiaries.

Corporate governance data helps legal talent identify any risks that could subject their corporation to non-compliance penalties once the merger or acquisition is completed. Any gaps in the data can be flagged to the target company’s corporate leadership. If answers aren’t provided, it gives the acquiring company justification to pull out of the intended acquisition.

What’s included in the M&A due diligence checklist?

Forthright data transparency allows the merger or acquisition process to proceed uninhibited by unwanted surprises. All parties can satisfy their respective corporate interests and minimize risk by entering into full cooperative agreements to share corporate records.

Here are the most important items to review when conducting a merger or acquisition due diligence process.

Organizational charts

Organizational charts provide a transparent overview of the company’s corporate structure. They provide detailed accounts of executive leadership and their respective responsibilities. If you have questions about financial statements or compliance programs, organizational charts allow your team to directly contact the person in charge of those departments for answers.

Legal records

Legal records include entity and subsidiary management data, including all minute book records, cap tables, NUANS reports, incorporation agreements, IP rights, compliance programs, and more. Make sure that you receive a detailed accounting of all legal matters to gain deeper insight into the target company’s current legal standing.

Financial statements

One of the most important aspects of the due diligence process involves the financial statements of the target company. You need a thorough accounting of income statements, balance sheets, bookkeeping policies, growth forecasts, and operating budgets. This information will help you negotiate a fair acquisition price to complete the merger.

IT solutions

Part of any merger or acquisition process is the integration of two separate corporate entities and their distinct operating processes. You want an upfront understanding of what solutions are in use by the target company so you can decide what to retain and retire as you complete the integration process. Speak with the heads of the IT departments for more transparent records.

HR policies

HR reports help you understand current department headcounts, and the specific terms of employee agreements for each member of the target company. You can use this information to assist with the integration process once you complete the merger or acquisition.

How due diligence supports M&A risk management

Every corporate transaction carries a certain degree of risk, and mergers or acquisitions are amongst the biggest gambits corporate entities can undertake. The due diligence process is a preventative measure that mitigates risk through transparent entity and subsidiary data management.

Both sides of the merger or acquisition benefit from the due diligence process. The acquiring company gains an accurate valuation of the target company, as well as insight into any underlying non-compliance risks. Transparent disclosures of this information enable the acquiring company to negotiate with an open mind and conclusively determine if the transaction carries greater reward than risk.

Conversely, the target company remedies any gaps in their compliance programs to improve their negotiating position. Delivering a corporate structure with no gaps in compliance or governance processes increases the value of the business. As a result, shareholders from the target company can negotiate a greater acquisition price that improves their profitability.

Use entity management software to assist M&A due diligence

The key to any corporate merger or acquisition is transparency, and the due diligence process provides transparent insight into the underbelly of each target company in an acquisition process. Due diligence minimizes risk and helps move the acquisition process forward.

Entity management software is a helpful resource to assist both sides of a merger or acquisition. Entity management platforms provide a single source of truth for all corporate entity records, which offers significant time saving benefits during the due diligence process.

Rather than go seeking for all legal, compliance, financial, HR, and other information from individual department heads, entity management software compiles all this data in one convenient location. As the acquiring company, your legal team can review all entity and subsidiary records of the target company with their own legal department.

Working in tandem together, you can acquire a visualized overview of the current corporate standing of the target company. This shared workflow will save valuable time and help accelerate the acquisition process. The detailed records will give your acquiring company greater confidence in their acquisition, allowing both sides to agree on a fair price to complete the purchase and conduct the merger.

Make MinuteBox your standard for corporate entity data

Whether you have a merger or acquisition underway, or you intend to complete such a transaction in the future, entity management software can streamline the whole process. Get ahead of the game by integrating entity management software into your current operations today.
MinuteBox is the only entity management platform that has achieved both ISO 27001 and SOC 2 Type II certifications. Data transparency improves the acquisition process, but data security is also vital to protect your existing corporate interests. MinuteBox’s dual certifications are validated proof that it’s the best platform to support data security and corporate compliance.

Join the MinuteBox revolution today to standardize your minute book records and provide more transparent oversight of corporate entity data.

Employee ownership trusts (EOT) are legal company ownership structures that allow employees to become shareholders of a corporation without paying directly for those shares. EOTs are common corporate ownership structures in both the United States and the United Kingdom. Both nations have appropriate tax laws and other articles of legislation enacted to support these arrangements.

In Canada, EOTs have been less common, though the Canadian government is eager to change that. In the federal budget of 2022, a new proposal for employee ownership trusts was introduced as an amendment to the federal Income Tax Act. The purpose of the legislation is to encourage more employee ownership of businesses across Canada.

How do employee ownership trusts work?

When a company’s ownership is structured in a way that allows employees to hold shareholder rights without paying for the shares, it is an ownership structure in the form of an employee ownership trust. Shares are held in trusts, and the employees earn value from their shares through a percentage of the company’s profits.

Employees have options to earn additional shares each year they remain employed with the company. When workers choose to leave the company, or retire from the workforce altogether, the business buys back the shares in exchange for cash compensation.

In the US and the UK, data shows that employee-owned businesses are important contributors to local economies. These organizational structures allow businesses to:

• Accelerate growth with more strategic roadmaps
• Provide better compensation to retain workforces
• Decrease the potential for lay-offs in economic downturns
• Maintain viable jobs to support the economy

The Canadian employee ownership trust legislation

The proposed Canadian legislation was introduced in the 2022 Federal Budget, tabled by Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland. The proposal includes similar language to the US legislation that enables companies to issue EOTs on behalf of their employees.

According to the National Post, the biggest question surrounding the viability of EOTs revolves around how employee ownership could influence company decision-making and corporate policies. If the final Canadian legislation does mirror its US counterpart, the rights of employees in EOT-backed Canadian businesses will resemble the rights of workers in US companies with employee stock ownership plans (ESOPs).

Under ESOPs, the Board of Directors retains the right to appoint trustees and managing partners of a corporation. Unlike other shareholders, who sit on the Board of Directors as compensation for financial or capital investments in the business, employee shareholders have more limited voting rights on corporate matters. Most of the decisions put towards votes by employees are related to mergers and acquisitions of other companies.

How to track corporate shares issued to employees

If the employee ownership trust proposal in the 2022 Federal Budget is passed into law, Canadian companies will have an organizational structure to issue shares to their employees. This will require a company to make amendments to their established shareholder ledgers, incorporating share issuances to employees in the documentation.

In our guide on how to create the perfect shareholder ledger, we’ve outlined all of the information that is required when tracking and reporting on issued shares. Information that must be reported on within the shareholder ledger includes:

• The name, home address, and personal contact information of the shareholder that, in this case, is the employee
• Share certificate numbers that include the date, time, and value of the share transaction
• The total value of shares owned by the employee shareholder
• Current and projected capital share structures for the company

How to report employee share ownership using entity management software

Entity management software is a modern approach to reporting shareholder transactions. Unlike paper shareholder ledgers or multiple files stored on various pieces of software, entity management technology includes advanced and intuitive shareholder ledger templates.

This is an innovative approach to share transaction reporting that can be amended to include shares issued as part of an employee ownership trust. The entity management platform saves valuable time on the reporting process and eliminates the need for multiple files to accurately report on shareholder activity.

The technology includes built-in biometric and hardware key authentication, creating a secure environment to store all shareholder records. Advanced search features enable managers of shareholder ledgers to uncover specific shareholders, shareholder transactions, as well as dates and times of those transactions, in a matter of seconds. If there’s ever a dispute or concern about a past transaction, entity management software allows users to find the answers to their questions almost instantaneously.