The compliance calendar nobody hands you

Here's a partial list of what a typical small business owes somebody, on a specific date, every year:

• State annual report or statement of information
• Business license renewal — city, and often county
• Professional or trade license renewal
• Sales tax filings — monthly, quarterly or annual depending on volume
• Payroll tax deposits and quarterly returns
• State employment agency filings (in California, EDD)
• Workers' comp audit
• Insurance renewal
• Registered agent renewal
• Property tax, or your share through the lease
• Federal and state income tax
• Estimated tax payments, four times a year

Nobody sends you a master list. The state sends one notice, to whatever address you registered five years ago, and assumes you got it.

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Why the state filing is the dangerous one

Miss your annual report and you can lose good standing. It's a quiet status change with loud consequences:

• Banks decline loan applications
• Certifying bodies suspend certification applications
• Prime contractors can't add you as a subcontractor
• Landlords and insurers may consider you in breach
• In some states, prolonged failure leads to administrative dissolution — and your liability protection goes with it

Most owners discover it while applying for something else, which is the worst possible time.

The fix costs a modest filing fee and a form. The consequence of not knowing costs a deal.

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The pattern that causes misses

It's almost never negligence. It's this:

The address is stale. You registered at your first address, or your home, or your old accountant's office. Notices go there.

The dates aren't in one place. The state has one, the city has another, the IRS has four, your insurer has its own. No single system holds them all.

Nobody owns it. In a two-person business, "the other person is probably handling it" is the most expensive sentence in the English language.

The obligations changed and nobody told you. You added an employee, so now you have payroll filings. You crossed a revenue threshold, so your sales tax moved from annual to quarterly. You added a second location in a different city, so you need a second license.

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Build it once

Sit down for one hour and make a single list. For each item:

• What it is
• Which agency
• The due date
• The link to the actual filing page
• Who's responsible

Then put every date in the calendar the business actually uses, with a reminder 30 days out — not the day of. Thirty days is enough to find a document or call your accountant. The day of is enough to panic.

Update it every time the business changes. New employee, new location, new state, new revenue threshold, new license — each one adds obligations.

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California specifics

If you're operating in California, the ones that catch people most:

• Statement of Information with the Secretary of State — due on a schedule tied to your registration date, not the calendar year
• EDD payroll filings and deposits once you have employees, on a schedule set by your deposit amount
• Franchise Tax Board minimum franchise tax, owed whether or not the business made money
• CDTFA sales tax on a schedule that changes as your volume grows
• County property tax on business personal property — equipment, fixtures, furniture — which a lot of owners don't know exists
• City business license renewals, which are separate from everything above

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The short version

1. Make one list of every date, agency and link
2. Put them in the calendar you actually use, with 30-day reminders
3. Confirm your registered address is somewhere you'll see the mail
4. Assign an owner
5. Update it whenever the business changes

Or get it built for you. Enter your state and business details, or upload your documents, and get twelve months of filings, renewals and tax dates with a direct link to each agency page. Built deepest for California, researched for every other state. Start free — the compliance calendar comes with the Three Businesses plan, or free with an organization code from your chamber.

Informational, not tax or legal advice. Confirm your specific obligations with your accountant.