Reviews
How to model filing history data so a name change never breaks a key
Filing history data modelling: one row per document, keys that survive a name change, verbatim office labels, and the validation checks worth automating.
Archive
September 2026
Maintenance
Filing history updates: comparing saved captures
Filing history updates can reflect company activity or register housekeeping. Compare saved captures, classify changes, and preserve a reliable record.
Guides
What order should you open filing history documents in?
Filing history search, step by step: reach the home-state entity page, sort oldest first, choose which images to open, and record what you did not check.
Industry
Filing history rows rank by weight: office actions first, periodic reports last
Filing history rows ranked by weight: office actions first, identity changes next, periodic reports last, and why adding the tiers up produces nothing at all.
Guides
An entity number lookup timeline: issue to retirement
An entity number lookup timeline: how a registry issues a file number, what leaves it unchanged, the events that change it, retirement, and what to record.
Features
Entity number lookup search: five test queries per register
Entity number lookup search made repeatable: five test queries that show how a register matches, what a nil result means, and what to record.
Industry
Company verification data reads best as one dated row per finding
Company verification data: a dated, auditable row schema for source, question, answer, retrieval date, limits, and evidence.
Rules
How to test a company's age claim in five minutes with one register
Testing a company age claim: what a formation date proves, why qualification dates mislead, and four lawful ways an old date lands on a new business.
Reviews
Company verification decay: which fields go stale and how to schedule a recheck
A field by field look at how company verification findings decay, what sets the recheck clock, and how to build a watch, refresh, or rebuild schedule.
Rules
Business Entity Search by State: Washington Fields
A business entity search by state in Washington shows the entity name, UBI number, status, registered agent, and governors — not licensing or solvency.
Features
Why business name search rankings can't exist
Business name search rankings are traffic products, not findings: no shared criterion and no outcome data exist, so score your own shortlist instead.
Rules
Business Entity Search Canada: Registry Lookup Step by Step
Business entity search Canada, step by step: the federal and provincial registries by name, the joint portal, and what a NUANS report costs.
Rules
How to Check a Company's Status Before Signing a Contract
How to check a company's status before signing: search the state registry, confirm the record and filing history, then check license, DBA and lien records.
Rules
SIC Code Lookup by Company: Reading Industry Codes in a Registry File
A SIC code lookup by company: use SEC EDGAR when available, verify the industry in OSHA's SIC Manual, and distinguish state registry fields from NAICS records.
Industry
Business name search data counts filings, not businesses: where the counts drift
Business registry data counts filings, not businesses. Here is why formation counts, closure counts and name frequency mislead, and how to read it.
Guides
What a business name search proves, and seven beliefs it does not
Seven business name search beliefs corrected: availability, registration, nil results, trade name filings, reservations and free domains prove less than they seem.
Costs
Seven verification gates: what stands between a name idea and a truly free choice
Business name search checks in order, cheapest first: seven gates, what a hit means, what silence does not, and how far up the ladder to go.
Reviews
Business name search timeline: the record after a rename
What a register records after a rename: the amendment, where the former name survives, why processing times differ by office, and the work after.
Industry
What a company verification directory can and can't confirm
A company verification directory maps business-check questions to the bodies that may hold answers and clarifies what those records can—and cannot—establish.
Guides
Company verification facts: what registries can show
Company verification facts explain what state business records can show—and what names, status labels, filings, and identifiers do not prove.
Costs
Company verification: what nine vendor items prove
A company verification list of nine items a vendor may send — website, certificate, badge, tax number — and what each one actually establishes.
Costs
Entity number lookup directory: build your own crosswalk
An entity number lookup directory that works is a crosswalk you build: one row per company per register, a source for every link, and dates you keep current.
Industry
Entity number lookup facts for a number you were handed
Entity number lookup facts for a number on an invoice or email: which register it belongs to, what a match confirms, and what a mismatch tells you to ask.
Features
Why do stripped zeros and missing prefixes break an entity number lookup?
Entity number lookups that fail: stripped zeros, missing prefixes, wrong jurisdictions and old series, with a checklist for the search that returns nothing.
Features
5 lessons worth learning about filing history by country
Filing history by country differs in the United States and the United Kingdom. Compare US state records with Companies House filings, accounts and charges.
Maintenance
Three different dates sit on every filing history row, and none agree
Filing history facts: the three dates on every row, why an index label is not the document, and what a register digital conversion hides from a reader.
Guides
Filing history list: what the register does not hold and where each item lives
A filing history covers only what an entity register accepted. It lists what is left out, from liens and lawsuits to licenses, and where each item is kept.
Costs
What a NUANS Report Costs in Canada and What You Can Skip
NUANS report costs in Canada run from about CAD 25 to CAD 150, and the report expires in roughly 90 days. Here is what else the search does not cover.
Rules
Business name search by year: why the year is the wrong key
Business name search by year is not how most registries work. Here is why the year is the wrong key, and how to find an entity by its old name and file number.
![Title: Treasury Dept. Ofc. U.S. Treasury, Express Clerks Cage, money to be redeemed, delivered from this cage to counters for verification, [1914] Abstract/medium: 1 negative : glass ; 8 x 6 in. Business name search directory: what each register holds](/covers/business-name-search-directory-640.webp?v=67742540)
Industry
Business name search directory: what each register holds
Business name search directory of keepers: the state entity index, assumed name records, state and federal trademark registers, and what each one settles.
Guides
Business name search monitoring: a quarterly watch after clearance
Monitor a business name after clearance: a quarterly search routine, triggers to search early, and how to grade a similar entity, trademark, or marketplace seller.
Features
A ten-step checklist for company verification, legal name first
A ten-step company verification checklist: pin the legal entity, read status and history, check authority, and record what no register can confirm.
Rules
A company name, compared to a state file number, makes an unreliable lookup key
Entity number lookup: why company names fail as keys, what a state file number survives, and which other identifiers prove nothing about registration.
Industry
What a filing history can tell you about an entity
Learn what a business entity filing history can reveal about continuity, gaps, clusters, and the limits of registry records before drawing conclusions.
Maintenance
Reading secretary of state search data with a sceptical eye
Secretary of state search data in four layers: the index, document images, certified copies and bulk access, and how to ask for what is not online.
Rules
Getting secretary of state search facts right the first time
Secretary of state search facts: the one claim each registry field will carry, the claim it will not, and the date rule that makes any of it evidence.
Reviews
Secretary of state search: exact, starts-with and contains
Secretary of state search matching: exact, starts-with and contains modes, how to tell which one an office runs, and a query set that survives literalism.
Features
Business name search: state approval is not the right to use it
Business name search at a state office checks availability only. What the approval covers, what it leaves open, and why trademark clearance is a risk call.
Guides
Secretary of state search: how to run one from cold
How to run a secretary of state search from cold: get the legal name and state, read the status correctly, and find the records the register does not hold.