We often think of a company as just that — one company.
But one company can serve as an umbrella to multiple legal entities — each with its own set of deadlines to meet to remain compliant. Typically, it falls to a single person within a company — the office manager, for example — to make sure all those deadlines are met and the companies stay legally compliant. And sometimes, that one person can manage everything just fine.
But some property management companies, for instance, can have portfolios of up to 50 entities. That takes managing those filing deadlines from manageable to unwieldy. And when you miss deadlines, you risk incurring costly late fees or other penalties that you’d much rather avoid, if you could.
That’s why Rob Finlay created Entity Keeper. He wanted a way to ensure organizations stay compliant by tracking entities, filing deadlines and more.
Finlay has a long history in entrepreneurship, building and scaling successful companies in real estate, asset management and technology. These companies include Lyra Intel, QuietStream Financial and Investor Management Services. COO Aynsley Brockway joined the Entity Keeper team in April to drive its progress forward. Her background includes 15 years of experience in marketing, real estate and investor relations.
Brockway explains that while the onus of tracking deadlines and completing filings often falls to a single person, Entity Tracker can support that person by ensuring companies store critical information and stay alert to upcoming filing deadlines.
“We wanted to create something that was a useful tool to un-silo our customers’ work,” Brockway explained.
Entity Keeper generates exportable reports on entity ownership and your entire organizational chart, tracks compliance due dates, sends automated reminders to avoid late fees and ensures your information can be transferred between staff during transitions or emergencies. This is all completed on a cloud-based platform with state-of-the-art file protection to keep organizations’ data secure.
Bringing Brockway onto the team in April spurred the growth of Entity Keeper, as they also partnered with Dualboot Partners to bring their platform's programming up to date. The company then determined which features could be added in the next three to four months to begin scaling their customer base.
The challenge now is to carve out the Entity Keeper marketing strategy to reach the diverse groups that use its services. The company hopes to begin reaching out to hospitals by the end of the year.
“It’s a crazy new world of marketing from 15 years ago,” Brockway noted. “You need your SEO and ads. You need to make sure you’re blogging every week. What is the best medium to get in front of these people?”
Fully understanding the breadth of the Entity Keeper customer base has been a welcome, yet unexpected, challenge. While the company was originally created to serve property management companies, it has expanded to serve health care, law and a few unexpected areas.
“We are setting up our marketing strategy to make sure we’re hitting all of our customer targets,” Brockway said. “There have been a few unexpected customers; energy companies and marinas have joined us.”
The team is also piloting a new venture called Subscription Keeper, which is expected to launch in mid-October. The new program links to an organization’s bank account (or integrates through a CSV) to determine how many subscriptions the company pays for. The platform sends a report to your team, which can be used to understand how many subscriptions within a company are going unused to reduce waste and save costs.
“The average business owner has no idea how many subscriptions they have,” Brockway said. “We give companies an insight into where they are wasting money on their monthly or annual subscriptions.”
The team loves being based in Charlotte, as it offers immense opportunities for networking and a unique openness to ideas.
“Charlotte offers a lot of young minds,” Brockway said. “There is a vibrancy here that can accept innovation and see the value in it. It’s young, vibrant and a good base for implementing new technologies.”
This article was co-written by Lexie Banks and David Stunja.
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