A ten-step checklist for company verification, legal name first

Most failed checks fail before anyone searches anything. Someone reads the name on the website, types it into a registry, finds something plausible, and stops.

The website name is rarely the legal name. That plausible hit is rarely the right entity. Stopping leaves the two questions that cost money unanswered: can this counterparty be held to the contract, and are these payment details real?

What follows is a sequence, ordered so the cheap steps come before the expensive ones. A small order paid on delivery needs the first three. A credit line or a long contract needs all ten.

What to take away

Step 1: Get the legal name and state, in writing

Ask the counterparty for the exact legal entity name and the state where it is formed. Get both on something they produced: the quote, the draft contract, a tax form, an invoice.

Do not use the brand on the website. Do not reconstruct the name from an email signature. Half of all failed lookups fail at this step, and no searching skill compensates for starting with the wrong string.

Step 2: Find the entity at the office of record

Go to that state's filing office, reaching it through a government path rather than a search ad. Delaware runs its entity search through the Division of Corporations at corp.delaware.gov. California runs its own through the Secretary of State at bizfileOnline.sos.ca.gov.

The state by state list of office locations and search paths is in state entity directories.

Search broadly. Drop the suffix, use the most distinctive root word, and narrow by city or formation date rather than trying to type the legal name perfectly.

Capture five things when you find it: the exact registered name, the entity file number, the entity type, the formation date, and the jurisdiction. From here on, the file number is your handle.

Step 3: Close the name gap

If the name they trade under is not the registered name, that is not automatically a problem. It is the single most common finding in this exercise. Resolve it rather than ignoring it.

Look for an assumed name, trade name, DBA, or fictitious name registration linking the two. Depending on the state, that registration sits with the filing office or with a county clerk.

If no such registration exists, ask them to explain the relationship. Honest answers include a group structure where a parent trades under a subsidiary's brand, a recent name change, or a brand nobody ever registered.

Then decide the question that matters: which legal entity is signing your contract and receiving your credit? Write that entity's name and file number on the paperwork.

Step 4: Read the status, and note its date

Check registration status and record the exact string the office uses, the record's own update date, and the date you looked.

Active and current means the entity's paperwork with that one office is in order. It means nothing else. Revoked, administratively dissolved, or voluntarily dissolved is a stop. Do not sign or extend credit until you know what happened and who your counterparty is now.

Step 5: Read the filing history

Status is a single frame. The filing history is the film. Look for the cadence of periodic filings. Look for a long gap ended by a reinstatement. Look for a cluster of changes arriving together. These changes can include name, address, agent, or management.

The combination to notice is a dormant entity revived and renamed shortly before it approached you. That gives a new venture an old formation date. It proves nothing, and it is worth a direct question.

Step 6: Check the registered agent

Two findings matter here: a resignation on file, or a vacancy. Note also that the agent's address is a service address, not a place of business. That address says where service of process goes, not where the company works, and Registered agent lookup is the record that carries both findings before you sign.

Step 7: Establish signing authority

Compare whoever is signing against what the state records. Many states record very little, and absence proves nothing.

Where the amount justifies it, ask for documentary authority: a resolution or a secretary's certificate naming the signer. Officer lookup sets out what registry entries can and cannot support, and why the question stays fixed on the entity rather than the individual.

Step 8: Register the foreign entity question

An entity formed in one state and performing in another may be required to register in the second as a foreign entity. Whether that matters to your contract is a question for your own advisers. The fact is cheap to establish and belongs in the file.

Step 9: Check the operating address, insurance, and licenses

A registered agent address is not where work happens. Ask for the operating address and see whether it appears consistently elsewhere: on the license, the insurance certificate, the invoice header.

Get the insurance certificate from the insurer or broker, not forwarded by the counterparty. Regulated work needs a license from the relevant board, which is a separate register with its own status field. Confirm the license number directly with that board.

Step 10: The checks no register performs

Everything above establishes that an entity exists and is administratively current. None of it establishes that the business is real, solvent, or the one sending you the invoice.

Step 11: Write down what you could not establish

Record what you checked, where, on what date, what you found, and the part everyone skips: what you could not establish.

"No officers disclosed for this entity type in this state" and "no operating address provided" are useful lines in a file. A folder of undated screenshots is not.

Matching depth to exposure

Running all ten steps on a small one-off order wastes an afternoon and trains people to skip the process entirely. Set the tiers once, write them down, and apply them consistently.

The effort figures below are typical, not guarantees. They assume the legal name and state arrived in writing, and they stretch when a first search does not resolve the entity.

The inbound rule earns its place. A counterparty offering unusually good terms and pushing a short timeline is where verification pays for itself, and that is exactly the situation in which people feel rushed.

Stop and escalate

Any of these should halt the process rather than prompt a workaround.

What this sequence buys you

You know a specific legal entity exists, in a named state, under a name you can put in a contract, with an administrative history you read and a signature you can rely on. You also know which questions remain open.

You do not know whether they will pay. No register can tell you that. What the sequence removes are the failures that are entirely preventable: contracting with a brand instead of an entity, extending credit to a revoked shell, and wiring money to an account nobody checked.

Common questions

How long should the whole sequence take?

For a routine order, minutes: steps one to three and nothing else. The time goes into cases where something does not line up, and into material commitments where steps seven and nine earn their place.

The counterparty is annoyed that I am asking for their legal name. Should I drop it?

No. It is the most basic item in the exercise, and most companies exchange it without comment. Note the reaction rather than escalating it.

Everything checked out and they still did not pay. What did I miss?

Probably nothing on this list. Registry work establishes identity and administrative standing, not willingness or ability to pay. Those come from references, accounts, and terms, which is why step ten is separate from the nine before it.

Can I skip re-verification if we have dealt with them for years?

Re-check the status and anything new in the history when the exposure changes. A long relationship is good evidence about the past and none at all about a bank detail that changed last week.