Forming a California LLC Does Not Have To Take Forever

One of STARTright’s first LLCs that it helped business owners form back in August of 2008 was the California LLC.  When we developed our service using the California LLC we realized how many of the other services out there were not being honest.  We wanted setting up a California LLC, and later LLCs in other states to be affordable and teach the owner something as they formed their LLC.   With LLCs available in six states, and many more scheduled to become available in February, we feel we have met the users need for an affordable “forming an LLC” solution at a low cost.  STARTright costs $129 for an annual membership.  For those who either prefer to pay by the month, or just need a one time setup solution to form one LLC, STARTright’s monthly membership at $9.99 fits the bill.   

Today I want to write a quick note about California filings as the California LLC is one of the few LLC’s we offer a submission service for.  The business model for STARTright was to make forming an LLC yourself so easy that you would not need to pay extra costs except for the State LLC filing fees.  

If you are going to form a California LLC, here are some things about the submission process that you should understand. California has some interesting rules for the California LLC formation process. When forming a California LLC, you need to create the Articles of Organization for a California LLC. That is the easy part. California LLCs have the most basic and easy to fill out Articles of Organization in use. Next, you have to submit the Articles to the California Secretary of State who will stamp the files as received one they determine the LLC name is distinguishable from other LLC names in use by California LLCs.   Once the Articles are stamped as received, the California LLC is alive and well and can be used to do business from.

Now the tricky part is this. The California submission process allows for two ways of submitting the California LLC Articles of Organization. The first method is by mail. Though it may not take this long to actually have the Articles of Organization for the California LLC stamped as filed, the Office of the Secretary of State claims that they will not ensure any faster filing than that of 30 to 45 days.  This depends upon the volume of all filings received, not just California LLC filings.  That is a very long time to wait to start doing business in a California LLC.

The second option is to hand deliver the California LLC Articles of Organization. This is done by actually walking the California Articles of Organization in the front door of the Secretary of State office in Sacramento California. They want you to do this because they charge up to $15 for entrance. It is like a cover charge just to get your California LLC Articles of Organization in the door. This is by far the fasted method to get your California LLC formed. The California Secretary of State claims that they will do a standard processing for a walk-in during a 5 to 10 business day window. Unlike a California LLC that mails in the Articles, expedited filing is available to all California LLCs that walk the Articles through the door. With expedited filing, you can get the California LLC Articles stamped in either 24 hours ($250) or 4 hours ($400). This is not a cheap option, but it can be done fast.

The following is an email that we received from a user who went with the submissions service.  Their experience has been typical of many, but we cannot make any promises that turn around times will always be this fast.

I used your website to form a California LLC. I paid the $49 for the membership. I then decided to use the STARTright Submission Service to have my California LLC Articles of Organization delivered to the California Secretary of State. They told me it would take between 10 and 15 business days and I had to pay $100 for the submission service.  I also had to pay a $70 fee that would be taken to the secretary of state as the filing fee. Thus I paid: $49 membership fee to STARTrightllc.com, $100 STARTright submission service fee, and $70 state fee for filing. All this adds up to about $119.  Not bad, but I was not excited to wait half a month to get my business started.  I have seen other services that do a lot less in a lot longer time.  [Competitor's name removed] will do a California LLC for around $500 and I still would have had to pay the $70 state filing fee. They promise it to be done in 15 days.  Yikes!   Anyway, the STARTright service somehow got my California LLC Articles of Organization finished in less than 24 hours and had sent me an email with scanned in copies of all the documents.  This was a very good experience.

We hope the STARTright submission service can wow the socks off more of you.  Keep in mind that we do not get any of the $100.  We continue to pay a service in Sacramento to ensure fast and quality care of our customers’ California LLC filing documents.

Create an LLC, Maintain an LLC: How STARTright helps LLC Owners

STARTright Available for Utah LLC, California LLC and Arizona LLC

For those who do not know, STARTrightllc.com is a new web site where business owners may go to create and maintain an LLC.   The Utah LLC was the first to be available this summer in July.  The California LLC and the Arizona LLC followed quickly in  late July early August.   The main question I have heard from individuals however is, “What do you mean we can create an LLC and maintain an LLC?  Let me make this simple.  I will divide the STARTright LLC services into the “Form an LLC”  and the “maintain an LLC” functions of the website.

Form an LLC

STARTright is based on the solid legal research that shows that in all states, the LLC may be structured into 16 main LLC types.  These 16 LLC types are based upon 3 different factors.  Those factors are:

1. The number and type of members in the LLC
2. The management structure of the LLC
3. The tax structure of the LLC

From these three factors comes a numerous, but finite number of LLC types that may be formed.  STARTright takes these three LLC factors and builds its decision making process based on the three LLC factors.  Let me explain.   

When I was a kid, we read these books called “choose your own adventures”.  You would start the book and read along until you came to a point in the story where the hero (which was supposed to be you) had a decision to make.  If you chose decision “A”, you would turn to a page in the book that took up the story based upon that decision.  If you chose decision “B”, you went to a page in the book that took the story up from choice B.   By the end of the story, you had made 9 or 10 decisions.  If you laid out the decisions in a flow chart, it looked something like this.

 

LLC choose your own adventure

The way in which we have structured the LLC creation process in STARTright is very much the same.  The critical part of the LLC formation formula is not laying out the “choose your own LLC adventure” correctly.  As business lawyer, I have done that numerous times and understand how that works.  The critical component to STARTright working is whether the business owner who is using STARTright understands his options based on those LLC factors sufficiently to make the decision that will meet his business needs.   

The STARTright LLC video collection was developed to help the user understand the concepts surrounding the LLC.  At each step in the LLC creation process, the user can watch a video that explains concepts about the LLC.  By watching these videos the user understands where he or she is at in the decision process and can make the right choice and build an LLC that fits their needs.  These choices build the LLC articles of organization and a decision specific LLC operating agreement.  If the user then runs the LLC by this user agreement, they will ensure the protections promised them in the state LLC Act.

Maintain an LLC

STARTright maintains the LLC in three ways.  First, when the user receives the Articles of Organization back from the state, the user can log into the My STARTright portal and may enter the LLC state file number and date of formation.  Following this, a list of tasks that are commonly necessary in the state to finish proper business setup will appear in the tasks list.   By following these tasks, the user can get all of the necessary business registrations finished.  The second way in which the My STARTright portal helps to maintain an LLC is to provide a place for documents to be kept.  Most people struggle to hold on to their Articles of Organization and Operating Agreement.  In both cases, you can print these documents off, and then upload a signed copy.  This will ensure that you always have access to the most recent copy of your LLC documents.  The final way the LLC is maintained in the STARTright portal is to remind the LLC owner of any state filings that must be made. 

STARTright is the most efficient way to form an LLC on the web.  For a Utah LLC, California LLC or Arizona LLC, the cost is a mere $149 to create an account.  Once this account is set up, you can create multiple LLCs all year.