What do I need to do after incorporating?
FormationCompliance83(b)EIN
The state's approval creates the company; it does not organize it. What follows, in the order the deadlines fall:
- Issue the founder stock and get it paid for.
- File each founder's 83(b) election within 30 days of the issuance.
- Obtain the EIN.
- Open the business bank account.
- Register to do business in the state where you operate.
- Build the cap table.
- Set up one folder for the records an investor will ask for.
- Buy insurance before the first employee starts.
- Decide who is doing the bookkeeping.
Most of these take an afternoon. The one with a real deadline is the 83(b).
Stock and the 83(b)
Founder stock is cheap only while the company is worth almost nothing, so the purchase agreements should be signed and the shares paid for at formation, not after the first customer. Stock issued later, at a higher value, is either bought at that value or taxed as compensation on the difference. Then each founder whose shares vest files an 83(b) election, so that the shares are taxed on their formation value now rather than on their vested value later. Thirty days from the issuance, counted strictly, no extensions.
EIN, bank, and the operating state
Apply for the EIN once the state has approved the filing; online it takes minutes. Open a business account with the stamped certificate and the EIN letter and run every company dollar through it, because mixing company and personal money is the fastest way to lose the liability shield. If the company operates in a state other than the one it formed in, register there as a foreign corporation, appoint a registered agent there, and ask whether the state and city want a separate tax registration or business license. A Delaware company with its desk in California is a California taxpayer.
Records, cap table, insurance
Keep the charter, bylaws, consents, stock agreements, 83(b) elections and every contract in one folder from the first day; that folder is the data room your first investor will ask for. Keep a cap table that lists every share and option and who holds it, in a spreadsheet or a platform, and update it every time the board approves a grant. Before the first employee, get general liability insurance and the workers' compensation cover your state requires, and put payroll on a provider rather than doing withholding by hand.
A company formed through Arabella's Delaware packet signs its stock agreements and 83(b) elections in the app, and we file the EIN if you ask us to. Every formation's documents are in your saved folder. The bank, the insurance and the bookkeeper are yours.
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Written by the lawyers who built Arabella. This is legal information, not legal advice for your situation, and reading it does not make us your lawyers. For a real dispute or a high-stakes decision, talk to a licensed attorney. More questions.