Are you expanding your business into an additional state? Congratulations — this is an important step in your company’s life cycle!
To ensure this process goes as smoothly as possible, we recommend hiring a reputable foreign qualification service to handle the legal paperwork on your behalf.
SunDoc Filings is one of the most popular foreign qualification services due to its consumer-friendly pricing model and responsive customer support. But is SunDoc Filings the best service for your company’s unique needs and circumstances?
The foreign qualification process is quite similar to the business formation process in many states, although the fact that each state creates its own rules and regulations can complicate things a bit. Essentially, foreign qualification is obtained by filing a form usually known as the Certificate of Authority, which grants your business the right to operate in an additional state.
SunDoc Filings is one of the most popular picks for foreign qualification services, for a handful of reasons. Let’s quickly review its pros and cons before we dig into the details.
SunDoc Filings’ foreign qualification service costs $99 plus your state’s fee. It includes a preliminary name search of your state’s business database, along with the filing of your Certificate of Authority (or similarly named document).
However, in most states, that’s all you get with SunDoc Filings, unlike most of its competitors, who also offer to prepare your documents. For what it’s worth, SunDoc Filings’ website does note that they “can help” with preparing your documents, but there’s no information about how much help or how much it would cost.
For those of you with California businesses though, SunDoc Filings has a unique advantage. Because this company is located in Sacramento, CA, SunDoc Filings representatives visit the Secretary of State’s office in person three times a day, giving this company the fastest turnaround times in the industry.
Unfortunately, due to the fact that it doesn’t offer to prepare your documents as part of its foreign qualification service, SunDoc Filings lacks value compared to many competitors. This is especially true when you consider that MyCompanyWorks hits this same price point while also preparing your Certificate of Authority application.
For domestic business formations, SunDoc Filings is an acceptable but uninspired option. At $79, it has a reasonable price point, but it’s a rather barebones package that doesn’t include many valuable features. For domestic service, ZenBusiness has a free package that’s nearly identical to the SunDoc Filings $79 offer.
SunDoc Filings is a smaller company than largescale operations like LegalZoom or Rocket Lawyer. SunDoc Filings has been around since 1999, and it’s served around 100,000 customers, so this company clearly isn’t inexperienced — it just has a lower volume of customers than some of its major competitors.
This company has an excellent customer feedback reputation. We found nearly 3,000 reviews of its services, and SunDoc Filings still holds down a strong 4.8/5 average rating score, indicating almost universal acclaim from its customers.
There isn’t anything that really stands out in a good or bad way regarding SunDoc Filings’ customer support. We’re not huge fans of their rather limited hours of availability (8 am to 5 pm ET on weekdays), but they have always responded to our questions with efficient, accurate answers.
That said, SunDoc Filings doesn’t offer the level of customization or personalization that you’ll get with some competitors, and it doesn’t boast the extended availability of companies like ZenBusiness.
The entire point of using a foreign qualification service is to make this part of your business run seamlessly with little-to-no effort on your part. SunDoc Filings certainly fits the bill, as it’s simple to place orders, renew services, and navigate its website.
The process of ordering foreign qualification service from SunDoc Filings couldn’t be much simpler. Here’s an overview of what you can expect when you click the “Get Started” button on the SunDoc Filings foreign qualification service page. Keep in mind that the process for foreign qualification can vary from state to state, but in most states, it will look something like this:
By far the largest collection of customer feedback for SunDoc Filings is found on Trustpilot, where this company has more than 2,900 reviews and a good average rating score of 4.8 out of 5. Clearly, SunDoc Filings has a satisfied customer base, as it’s nearly impossible to track down more than a small handful of negative feedback.
We found quite a few customers talking about how they appreciate SunDoc Filings’ user-friendly services, as well as plenty of comments about how fast its turnaround times are. Overall, there are certainly companies with a larger volume of customer feedback, but we were impressed by the quality of reviews with SunDoc Filings.
SunDoc Filings earned an honorable mention spot in our list of the best foreign qualification services available. While the fact that it doesn’t offer to prepare your foreign qualification documents certainly holds down SunDoc Filings’ placement in this guide, no other company can get your company qualified to do business in California quicker than SunDoc Filings.
While we realize that each business has its own unique needs and characteristics, we think SunDoc Filings has some unique advantages for companies expanding to California.
Disclaimer: The content on this page is for informational purposes only, and does not constitute legal, tax, or accounting advice. If you have specific questions about any of these topics, seek the counsel of a licensed professional.
Ready to Start Your LLC?