CreditGuard
Business Entity Formation
Phase 3 · Step 1: Form a proper, fundable entity — built from your goals, every decision presented for your approval, every step recorded
Each plan is built from the client's own circumstances; no templates are used. Nothing is recorded until you approve each decision. For every decision you will see the recommendation, the reasoning behind it, the alternative, and the trade-offs.
Your circumstances and objectives
Regenerating clears previous approvals so that each decision is made again on the updated facts.
Why this sequence. The Articles, the IRS EIN application, the bank account, the D&B record and every credit application request the same five items: legal name, business address, telephone number, website and email. Underwriting matches those strings across records automatically, so they are settled and recorded here first, then entered identically everywhere afterward. Establishing them in this order means nothing has to be corrected later — and a correction after the fact leaves two versions of your business on record, which is precisely what an underwriter treats as a discrepancy.
The single item that cannot be moved earlier is the EIN. The IRS instructs that a corporation or LLC be formed through the secretary of state before applying, and issues the number free and the same day once the state has approved the filing.
Structure, name, industry code, address, telephone, domain and email. Each is recorded here as the one approved version.
1. Decide the structure from your facts
Form where you operate. A privacy state (Delaware, Wyoming) for a business run elsewhere requires a second foreign registration — two filings, two agents, two fees, and an address mismatch underwriters notice.
Nothing is recorded until you approve it. You will see the recommendation, the reasoning and the alternatives; the decision is yours.
2. Select the legal name, confirm it is available, and hold it
The name is settled before anything else, because every record that follows carries it. Analyze it for risk, confirm it is available on the state record, and — if the rest of the setup will take more than a few days — reserve it with the state so it is held while you complete the address, telephone and email below.
Enter a name you are considering. The analysis rates it the way an underwriter's screen does — regulated terms, high-risk industry associations, distinctiveness — and explains the result. Then select the NAICS code that matches what the business actually does; the code carries its own risk tier and goes on the EIN, the bank account and D&B.
A neutral name is not concealment: the NAICS code and the description you give the bank must be accurate. The name simply avoids inviting an industry screen the business does not warrant.
A neutral category with no licensing burden and no concentration of declines that we are aware of. Our assessment: the file should be judged on its own merits.
Credit Guard's assessment, not a published lender rule
A neutral category with no licensing burden and no concentration of declines that we are aware of. Our assessment: the file should be judged on its own merits.
Credit Guard's assessment, not a published lender rule
A neutral category with no licensing burden and no concentration of declines that we are aware of. Our assessment: the file should be judged on its own merits.
Credit Guard's assessment, not a published lender rule
A neutral category with no licensing burden and no concentration of declines that we are aware of. Our assessment: the file should be judged on its own merits.
Credit Guard's assessment, not a published lender rule
A neutral category with no licensing burden and no concentration of declines that we are aware of. Our assessment: the file should be judged on its own merits.
Credit Guard's assessment, not a published lender rule
A neutral category with no licensing burden and no concentration of declines that we are aware of. Our assessment: the file should be judged on its own merits.
Credit Guard's assessment, not a published lender rule
A neutral category with no licensing burden and no concentration of declines that we are aware of. Our assessment: the file should be judged on its own merits.
Credit Guard's assessment, not a published lender rule
A neutral category with no licensing burden and no concentration of declines that we are aware of. Our assessment: the file should be judged on its own merits.
Credit Guard's assessment, not a published lender rule
A neutral category with no licensing burden and no concentration of declines that we are aware of. Our assessment: the file should be judged on its own merits.
Credit Guard's assessment, not a published lender rule
A neutral category with no licensing burden and no concentration of declines that we are aware of. Our assessment: the file should be judged on its own merits.
Credit Guard's assessment, not a published lender rule
A neutral category with no licensing burden and no concentration of declines that we are aware of. Our assessment: the file should be judged on its own merits.
Credit Guard's assessment, not a published lender rule
A neutral category with no licensing burden and no concentration of declines that we are aware of. Our assessment: the file should be judged on its own merits.
Credit Guard's assessment, not a published lender rule
A neutral category with no licensing burden and no concentration of declines that we are aware of. Our assessment: the file should be judged on its own merits.
Credit Guard's assessment, not a published lender rule
A neutral category with no licensing burden and no concentration of declines that we are aware of. Our assessment: the file should be judged on its own merits.
Credit Guard's assessment, not a published lender rule
A neutral category with no licensing burden and no concentration of declines that we are aware of. Our assessment: the file should be judged on its own merits.
Credit Guard's assessment, not a published lender rule
A neutral category with no licensing burden and no concentration of declines that we are aware of. Our assessment: the file should be judged on its own merits.
Credit Guard's assessment, not a published lender rule
177 codes in the library. Where a category appears on a published ineligibility or prohibition list, the citation is shown with the code. Every other tier is our assessment from licensing burden, cash-flow pattern and default history — no lender, card network or credit reporting agency publishes a risk rating per NAICS code, and the app does not imply otherwise. The complete NAICS list is published at census.gov/naics; if your activity is not here, search there and confirm before filing.
Most clients leave this empty. The legal name goes on every application; a DBA is registered only where the state or your bank requires it before you can accept payment under a brand.
The DBA decision, stated plainly. A neutral legal name keeps the terms lenders screen for off the entity record. Registering a brand as a trade name and attaching it to the bank account places those terms back onto the bank and payment-processor record. Option A: neutral legal name, brand used only on the website and marketing. Option B: neutral legal name plus a registered trade name, so payments can be accepted under the brand. Option C: the brand as the legal name — simplest, and screened on every application. Decide with that in view.
Credit Guard analyzes the name for risk; it does not hold a live connection to fifty state registries, and will not tell you a name is available when only the state can answer that. Search the state record directly, or use a filing service whose search applies that state's distinguishability rules and can reserve or file the name in the same session.
Checks the proposed name against the state record under that state's distinguishability rules, and moves straight into a reservation or filing if it is clear.
Reading the results. Active means the name is in use. Inactive or Name Reservation means the entity was dissolved or the reservation lapsed and the words may be available again — but a minor variation (adding "LLC", punctuation, or "The") does not make a name distinguishable. Confirm on the state portal before filing.
Aged and shelf companies — what is actually acquired
A name has no age; only an entity does. Filing a new company under a name shown as inactive creates a new entity: today's formation date, a new state file number, a new EIN, and no history. Nothing transfers with the words.
A shelf company is a formation date and nothing more. It was formed and then held: never operated, never banked, and in most cases never issued an EIN. The purchase price — frequently thousands of dollars — buys the one data point lenders weight least and verify most.
Underwriters measure different clocks. The date on the IRS EIN letter (CP-575), the age of the business bank account, deposits and tax returns, the D&B and business-credit files, and the date the current owner acquired the business. Most lenders reset time in business on a change of ownership and request that date on the application.
Acquiring an aged entity means purchasing it from its current owners (a membership-interest purchase), reinstating it with the state, and assuming everything it carries: undisclosed debts, tax liabilities, judgments, liens, and any prior use of its EIN. That requires a UCC and lien search, a court-records search, tax clearance, and a purchase agreement with seller indemnities before signing.
Representing time in business that does not exist on a credit application is fraud. Acquiring an aged entity and disclosing it accurately is lawful. Using one to imply an operating history that never occurred is the scheme lenders screen for.
The fundable path: file a new entity, obtain the EIN the same day, and open the business bank account the same week. Age cannot be purchased honestly; it is established from the day the clock starts.
3. Select the industry code (NAICS)
Select the most accurate code that carries low risk. It goes on the IRS EIN application, the bank account, the D&B record and every credit application — and it must read the same on all of them.
4. Establish the business address
Settled before the filing, because this address goes on the Articles, the EIN application, the bank account, the D&B record and your website — and changing it afterward means amending the state record and correcting every downstream file.
Why the business needs its own address. A distinct business address supports three things underwriters and courts look for: separation between the business and its owner, which is the same separation that preserves the liability shield; consistency, because one address repeated across every record is what automated matching rewards; and privacy, because the address on the state filing becomes public record.
Search the address before you commit to it — whatever type it is. Run it through your state's entity search and a general web search and review what is already registered there. A residential address is typically clear. A suite, executive office or mail-receiving location may already carry many companies. If any of them sit in a high-risk or restricted category (credit repair, lending, debt settlement, cannabis, cryptocurrency, adult content, multi-level marketing), or the address appears in complaint or fraud reports, select a different address. The lender runs the same search.
The two products called "virtual." A staffed executive suite or virtual office — an on-site receptionist, a lease, a physical location where the business can receive visitors — is a commercial address and is generally acceptable; retain the lease, as lenders may request it. A mail-forwarding or virtual-mailbox service (UPS Store, iPostal, PostScan and similar) is a CMRA: registered as such with the USPS, and that status is returned as a CMRA flag by the address-verification services lenders and processors use — visible to anyone who checks, and marking the address as a mail drop rather than a place of business. Use it to receive mail if you wish, but not as the address of record.
Residential address. Acceptable for a home-based business once it passes the search above. Use the full street address including any unit number. To keep it off the public filing, appoint a commercial agent at step 8 — the address on file must still be a real location.
A business address at a staffed office location, with a lease you can produce for a lender, live receptionist answering in the business name, and meeting rooms on site.
Business-centre address with reception, mail handling and meeting-room access; the widest location coverage of the three.
Address at a staffed executive suite, with an optional live receptionist answering in the business name.
Select a staffed location with a lease, not a mailbox plan. Search the specific address you are assigned before you accept it.
5. Establish the business telephone line
Established now so the same number appears on the filing record, the bank application, the D&B record and the website from the outset. A personal mobile number on a credit application is a scored negative; a dedicated line answered in the business name is verified favourably.
- A toll-free 800-series number reads as an established company and is inexpensive; a dedicated local number is equally acceptable. What matters is that the line is the business's own and is answered in the business name.
- Have the provider publish a directory-assistance (411 / CNAM) listing in the exact legal name, so the number can be checked against the business independently.
- Record the same number on your Google Business Profile, the website footer and every application.
Toll-free 800-series or local number, auto-attendant that answers in the business name, extensions, and a directory (CNAM/411) listing on request.
Toll-free or local business number forwarding to the phone you already carry, with a business greeting and extensions.
6. Register the domain that carries the name
Registered now for two reasons: the email address at step 7 depends on it, and it confirms the name you selected at step 2 is available as a domain before the name is filed with the state. Discovering afterward that the .com is taken is a reason clients re-file.
- Register the .com containing the legal name. Enable auto-renew and WHOIS privacy.
- The site itself is built later, in the Underwriter Package — it writes the name, address and telephone identically into the header, footer, contact page and structured data.
Register the .com that carries the legal name, with auto-renew and WHOIS privacy included.
7. Establish professional email on that domain
name@yourcompany.com, established before the filings so it is the contact address on the state record, the IRS application, the bank account and every vendor and lender file. A free-mail address is not an automatic decline, but it is scored, and it contradicts the website that carries your name.
name@yourcompany.com with calendar, storage and SPF/DKIM configured during setup, so lender correspondence delivers rather than bounces.
A lower-cost mailbox on the domain you just registered, in the same account as the domain.
Configure SPF and DKIM during setup so lender correspondence delivers rather than routing to spam.
Every field below is completed from the strings recorded above — copied, not retyped from memory.
8. Appoint your registered agent
Every state requires one: a person or company with a physical street address in the state (never a P.O. Box) who accepts legal papers during business hours. You may serve as your own agent if you have a street address there — it becomes public record. A commercial agent keeps your address off the filing and is the ordinary choice where privacy matters.
Commercial agent in all 50 states with a street address in your state. Privacy-first: its address goes on the public filing in place of yours, and it does not sell customer data.
Commercial agent with a street address in your state, bundled with the formation if you file through them.
The agent address and the business address serve different purposes and need not match. The business address on the filing is the one recorded at step 4, and it must be identical there.
9. File the Articles with the state
Select your home state at step 1 to see the filing office, portal, fee and state-specific rules.
10. Obtain the EIN from the IRS — after the state approves
The IRS directs that a corporation or LLC be formed through the secretary of state before applying. Once the approval is in hand the number is issued free, online, the same day — one application per responsible party per day. Apply only at IRS.gov; no fee is ever required for an EIN, and services that charge for one are selling a free form.
Use the legal name, business address and NAICS exactly as recorded above. You will enter your own Social Security number on the IRS form; Credit Guard never asks for it and never stores it. Retain the CP-575 confirmation letter — the bank and most lenders request it.
11. Operating agreement (the bank will request it)
Generated from a standard structure using your recorded facts — members, percentages, management, banking authority, and a banking resolution page the bank can retain. It states on its face that it should be reviewed by a state attorney.
12. S-corporation election — only if step 1 indicated it
Not applicable to your answers. Mark it complete to keep the record accurate.
13. Open the business bank account
Bring the state approval, the CP-575 EIN letter, the operating agreement and your identification. Complete the application with the same legal name, address, telephone, website and email recorded above — this is the point at which the consistency you established pays for itself. This account is where every lender will look for deposit history; it begins Step 2, Foundation.
Entity Setup Audit
2 agents analyze your entity structure and flag any fundability issues
Entity Formed? Next: Build Your Foundation
Once you have your EIN, it's time to set up your business infrastructure