By John Marino
marino@caribbeanbusinesspr.com

A series of new Puerto Rico State Department services for businesses are available online starting this week, CARIBBEAN BUSINESS learned.

The new services, which Secretary of State Kenneth McClintock was expected to unveil today during a speech at the Santurce Rotary Club, include the registration of foreign corporations and limited-liability companies.

In addition, corporations that have filed annual reports for the past five years will be able to get their certificates of good standing over the Internet.  The State Department has identified about 25,000 corporations that are eligible to receive the service, which delivers this important document in five minutes to any place with an Internet connection.

The certificates are used by corporations to prove they comply with local laws and are authorized to do business in P.R.  They are often required for loans and other financial transactions.

Two other important services that can now be completed online are for the registration of special municipal-development corporations and limited-liability partnerships.

The State Department is also unveiling a new online database that facilitates researching data on corporations, which is public information.

New corporate registrations are surging 28% above last year’s pace, with 5,458 corporations registered online and 2,204 through traditional filing for a total of 7,662.  Last year, 5,520 corporations were registered on paper, before the advent of online registration.

In the past, one had to wait weeks for a government official to evaluate requests to register corporation after citizens filed personal requests and sent them in by mail.  Now, the process takes 15 to 20 minutes, and can be done seven days a week, 24 hours a day, McClintock said.  He said 30% of corporate-registration requests were made during nonworking hours, including weekends.

So far this year, the State Department has emitted 15, 035 certificates of good standing, both electronically and on paper.  That is 23% above the11,613 emitted last year, when all certificate were released via the traditional paper method.

The State Department has also been immersed in the process of digitizing the entire corporate history or P.R., by converting its paper documents into electronic documents

The implementation of SystemWORKS Version 2.0 in Missouri provides the Secretary of State with the operational capabilities for sophisticated financial management, automated workflow, document management and liens processing. SystemWORKS also provides a foundation for performing Business Entity (Corporations), Notary, and Trademark/Apostille functions in SystemWORKS. SystemWORKS 2.0 significantly increases the value proposition to existing and prospective customers.

Functional highlights provided in Version 2.0 of SystemWORKS include:

• Workflow Dashboard – Automated task routing streamlines processing of filings and requests.
• Configurable Security  – Configurable access to workflow tasks based upon skill level, office location, and area of expertise. FileONE has a patent pending for workflow security and related technologies.
• Lien Filing Configuration Engine – Allows for processing of new lien filing types without requiring additional software development.
• Financial Processing – Robust financial processing including payment processing, managing accounts receivable, processing adjustments such as NSF payments and refunds, as well as reconciliation and balance resolution processing.  Processing of credit card, ACH, and electronic check transactions are available in SystemWORKS with direct interface to applicable payment processors.
• Document Management – Create, upload, send, and track custom letters using pre-defined templates.  Ability to manage, view, and print document versions.  Enhanced document scanning for better usability, reconciliation, and overall tracking.
• Business Entity Configuration Engine – Enables configuration and processing of many standard business entity filings.
• Real-time Liens Customizations – Configure numerous lien filings and custom lien search types directly in the application without requiring software deployments or custom development.