Industry Insights, Legal Departments
Entity management and corporate housekeeping can quickly get overwhelming. Whether you're juggling multiple stakeholders, handling frequent acquisitions, or managing a complex group structure, the workload can pile up fast.
The right legal entity management software helps you stay on top. But how do you know which one is best?
Let Corporify guide you through 7 key features that will make a real difference:
What is legal entity management software?
Legal entity management software simplifies the way you manage legal entities by centralising all your entity documents and data. It tracks ownership structures, automates tasks like KYC and UBO obligations and facilitates complex transactions across multiple departments.
With effective entity management software, you’ll reduce your workload, ensure consistency and have easy access to your data. The result? More informed decisions. Plus, it helps you remain compliant with ever-changing regulations, ensuring compliance every step of the way.
Here’s what a digital tool can do for you:
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7 key features in legal entity management software
When it comes to choosing entity management systems for finance and legal departments, it’s difficult to know what to look for. That’s why we’ve outlined the seven most essential features you need to consider
1. Centralised data management
The first and most essential feature of entity management software?
Centralised data management or a single source of truth. No more searching through scattered spreadsheets, drives, or platforms – just one centralised location where all your entity data is stored, accessed and managed.
This feature lets you find all your entity information with a single click. Ownership records, compliance filings and legal documents are kept in one secure, easily accessible platform. It helps you keep everything organised, maintain control and always ensure compliance.
Why does it matter?
Keeping your entity and corporate data in one place ensures accuracy, saves time and makes collaboration easy. Plus, it significantly reduces the risk of mistakes caused by outdated or duplicated information. With everything consolidated, you can quickly retrieve, share and update your data when necessary, without worrying about version control.
2. Granular permission control
Another critical aspect of effective entity management is role-based permission rights. Whether they’re confidential files or organisational charts, controlling who can view, edit or share this information is crucial. Granular permission control lets you manage access levels in your legal entity management software with precision.
You can set specific access rights for different users, both inside and outside your business, supported by detailed user permissions. Permissions are tailored based on user roles, granting them access as viewers, editors or administrators. With granular permission control, you decide who sees what, ensuring sensitive legal data remains protected and confidential.
Sharing made easy
Too often, sensitive information is still shared through e-mail – one of the biggest cybersecurity risks. While e-mail is the go-to tool for external collaboration, it's not always safe.
Granular permission control offers a more secure alternative, allowing you to share information with colleagues or external partners such as auditors, board members or legal professionals (outside counsel, lawyers, etc.). In short, it makes sharing easy, secure and seamless for smoother collaboration.
3. Data security
Data security is a non-negotiable priority in today's digital age, especially when dealing with business entities. Legal entity management software should safeguard your business data and ensure compliance with regulations like GDPR.
Additionally, your software should use encrypted private clouds hosted by ISO 27001-certified providers. This ensures that all your data remains secure and protected from unauthorised access. With a cloud-based SaaS platform, there's no need to worry about costly installations or regular updates, as the software automatically updates in real-time.
Regular back-ups for peace of mind
Data security also means ensuring regular back-ups. In the event of a breach or system failure, you should be able to recover lost business data. With some platforms, like Corporify, you can go back as recent as two hours prior, ensuring that your data is never held hostage by ransomware attacks or unexpected failures.
4. Always up-to-date documents
Keeping your shareholder register, organisational charts and official paperwork up-to-date is essential for running a smooth operation. But too often information is scattered over different places or locally saved, causing confusion and outdated documents.
Software for managing legal entities can effectively address these challenges. By logging every modification made to legal entity records – such as updates to director information, share transfers or ownership changes – and combining this with a data-driven document generator, you’ll always ensure that the documents you produce are accurate and up to date.
Leave an audit trail
Another significant feature of legal entity management software? The inclusion of an audit trail. It allows you to delve into the document history, revealing which users made changes and when those alterations occurred. This capability enables you to retrieve the complete history and specific details surrounding files or legal entity data, enhancing transparency and accountability.
5. Automated compliance and corporate governance tasks
Good corporate governance and compliance are both critical but complex aspects of legal entity management.
You must consider local and international laws, adhere to corporate governance standards and keep up with evolving compliance requirements. From corporate housekeeping or corporate governance principles to anti-money laundering checks or annual filings, there’s a lot to stay on top of.
Fortunately, the right software can automate many of these tasks. With features like automated document drafting, you’ll save time while ensuring you meet regulatory and corporate governance standards.
Maintain entity compliance
Whether you’re managing shareholders, overseeing multiple entities or just looking to streamline corporate housekeeping: entity compliance can be a time-consuming process. A digital tool can simplify this by automating KYC administration and UBO listings, and generating reports. Drafting documents for your general meeting has never been easier.
6. Integrated e-signing tool
The new paper is digital, and your software shouldn’t fall behind. That’s why it’s essential to have integrated e-signing functionality. It allows you to sign documents and execute agreements faster and more sustainably, streamlining your business operations and enhancing legal efficiency.
No more printing, scanning or sending hard copies. No more in-person signing sessions for M&A deals or during the annual meeting season. And no more chasing stakeholders for physical signatures.
An added bonus? Integrated e-signing not only reduces the risk of manual errors but also helps you maintain compliance effortlessly while streamlining your processes.
Seamlessly integrate your e-signing tool
Before choosing your software, check which e-signing tools are supported. DocuSign, Adobe Acrobat Sign, Nitro, Penneo, ... there are plenty of options.
Not seeing your preferred tool listed? Reach out to the software’s support team – they may already be working on the integration. With integrated e-signing and this proactive approach, you can manage your agreements with confidence.
7. Customer support
No software is truly complete without responsive, accessible customer support. Look for a platform that not only assists with data migration and implementation but is also available to answer any questions that arise later on.
Check whether the software offers a dedicated support team and what their average response time is. This is especially important when it comes to legal entity management software. To efficiently manage your legal entities, you need more than just tech support – you need experts who understand the intricacies and time-sensitive nature of legal requirements.
Online helpdesk for added convenience
Another plus? An online helpdesk or knowledge base. Sometimes it’s quicker and more convenient to find answers yourself. A well-organised support page with concise videos and detailed explanations can be a real time-saver for your company. This way, you’ve got expert advice at your fingertips whenever you need it.
Does Corporify tick all the boxes?
✔ Single source of truth.
Corporify centralises all your legal data in one place, ensuring you can manage it efficiently without scattering information across different platforms.
✔ Granular permission rights.
With Corporify’s detailed permission settings, you control who sees what, ensuring that sensitive information is only accessed by the right people.
✔ Encrypted private clouds via ISO27001-certified hosting providers.
Corporify hosts your data on encrypted servers to guarantee your information is protected and meets stringent ISO compliance standards.
✔ Comprehensive audit trail.
Keep track of every change, who made it and when it happened – ensuring full transparency and accountability.
✔ Automated document drafting and compliance tasks.
Corporify saves time by automating repetitive compliance tasks, making sure you stay compliant without extra effort.
✔ Diverse e-signing functionalities.
From DocuSign to Adobe Acrobat Sign, Corporify integrates your preferred e-signing tool to help you sign documents quickly and securely.
✔ Highly responsive customer support.
Corporify offers highly responsive customer service, as well as a detailed knowledge base, ensuring expert help is always at hand.
✔ Bonus: easy set-up
Corporify offers an easy and fast set-up process, enabling quick data migration and intuitive implementation for streamlined legal entity management.
