Doing the Indiana registration yourself on INBiz

Begin with a single page of notes. It should hold the entity's exact legal name, its type, its home jurisdiction and the formation date, the street address where it actually operates, and whether its operating agreement provides for managers. Add the name and Indiana street address of the person or firm who will be your agent, and a note that they have said yes. Decide who will submit the filing: a person who submits for someone else has to take reasonable steps to identify that person. Your agent is also the first person a plaintiff serves: a plaintiff serves the registered agent first, then tries certified mail to the principal office, and only then asks the Secretary of State. The entity must give its agent, and keep current, the name, business address and phone number of an officer, director, employee or designated agent who can receive the agent's communications.

INBiz signs people in through Access Indiana. The Secretary of State says existing Access Indiana usernames and passwords continue to work on the refreshed site, and the site now works on a phone or tablet as well as a computer. A first-time user creates the Access Indiana account first, with an email address that will still be in use when the first entity report comes round, because the same login serves for every later filing.

The online price is $105. INBiz accepts Apple Pay and Google Pay along with cards, and lets you keep several payment methods in a wallet. A card payment settles the debt only once the office has actually received the money. Paper would cost $125, which is $20 more. Withdrawing a filed record before it is effective, or correcting one, earns no refund of the filing fee, so read every answer before you pay.

• The certificate ages beyond 60 days while an agent search drags on.
• The agent turns out to have only a post office box.
• The company's name is typed from a brochure and differs from the certificate by a comma.
• An LLC with managers leaves the managers statement out.
• The payment screen is abandoned before it completes.
• A second statement is started while the first is still posting.

The statement itself is not long. The slow parts are the certificate, the agent and the first login. What no filer controls is the wait after submission.

Save a copy of every screen or confirmation INBiz gives you, with the date. If the statement is questioned later, the saved copy shows what the company said and when. Store it with the certificate and the agent's consent, and give a second person access so the records outlast any one employee.

If one week of small tasks sounds like too much, we prepare and file the statement from a single set of answers for $199. Indiana's fee is its own line, and you approve the draft before it is submitted.

$199 plus the state fee, including your first year of registered agent service; after that the agent service renews at $149 a year.