Jan­ice Lear­mond-Criqui

Let me start off by say­ing that I love CROS—the Com­pa­nies Reg­istry On­line Sys­tem. It has sim­pli­fied many as­pects of com­pa­ny fil­ings, al­low­ing busi­ness own­ers, cor­po­rate sec­re­taries, and fil­ing clerks to com­plete process­es from the com­fort of their of­fices. It rep­re­sents progress, mod­erni­sa­tion, and a long-over­due step in­to the dig­i­tal age. But … like every sys­tem that sounds too good to be true, the dev­il is in the de­tails.

Re­cent­ly, I vis­it­ed the Reg­is­trar Gen­er­al De­part­ment—a trip that has be­come al­most rou­tine in my pro­fes­sion­al life—to do what should have been a straight­for­ward task: an amend­ment to a filed and reg­is­tered an­nu­al re­turn done on CROS. Sounds sim­ple, doesn’t it? Ex­cept, as any­one who has used the sys­tem knows, things are not al­ways as they seem once you reach the counter.

When “Filed and Reg­is­tered” Doesn’t Mean “Ac­cu­rate”

Here’s the first prob­lem: for sev­er­al of my most re­cent fil­ings, the in­for­ma­tion show­ing on their data­base is in­cor­rect. Let that sink in. You file your doc­u­ments on­line, get your con­fir­ma­tion that it’s been reg­is­tered—and yet, the da­ta re­flect­ed on their sys­tem tells a dif­fer­ent sto­ry. That’s why I went back to do an amend­ment.

My first piece of ad­vice to any­one fil­ing through CROS: dou­ble-check and triple-check every­thing. Don’t as­sume that what you sub­mit­ted is what will ap­pear. Re­view it again af­ter reg­is­tra­tion. Be­cause if you don’t, you may find your­self like me—back at the Reg­is­trar Gen­er­al’s counter, ex­plain­ing some­thing you thought was al­ready set­tled.

A Les­son in Bu­reau­crat­ic Sur­pris­es

As I reached the counter, the cus­tomer ser­vice rep­re­sen­ta­tive looked up and, with the con­fi­dence of some­one cer­tain of their au­thor­i­ty, in­formed me that the text at the top of my Amend­ed An­nu­al Re­turn was no longer ap­plic­a­ble.

I was mo­men­tar­i­ly speech­less. She went on to ex­plain—very mat­ter-of-fact—that a new process was now in place. At that point, all I could think was, ‘Here we go again.’

It’s not the first time a sim­ple vis­it has turned in­to a mul­ti-step re­turn trip. And each vis­it isn’t just time-con­sum­ing; it’s cost­ly. Every time I go to the Reg­is­trar Gen­er­al De­part­ment, I have to pay for park­ing. That may sound triv­ial to some, but when you con­sid­er mul­ti­ple trips caused by out­dat­ed or in­com­plete in­for­ma­tion, the cost adds up—in both time and mon­ey.

The New “Re­place­ment” vs “Amend­ed” Rule

Here’s the new process that every­one needs to know about:

When you file and reg­is­ter an an­nu­al re­turn on­line and lat­er dis­cov­er that there are er­rors on their sys­tem, you can no longer sim­ply use the word ‘amend­ed’ at the top of the doc­u­ment. You must now use the word re­place­ment. The date on the re­place­ment doc­u­ment should re­main the same date as the one orig­i­nal­ly filed and reg­is­tered on­line.

Now, if you’re able to re­file that doc­u­ment with­in 30 days of the orig­i­nal fil­ing, you’re in luck—you won’t have to pay the $40 fee again. How­ev­er, if more than 30 days have passed since the on­line fil­ing, then it is con­sid­ered an amend­ed an­nu­al re­turn, and you’ll have to pay an­oth­er $40 to re­file.

Sim­ple enough in the­o­ry—but imag­ine learn­ing this on­ly af­ter show­ing up in per­son, af­ter print­ing and sign­ing your doc­u­ments, and af­ter pay­ing for park­ing, of course.

Com­mu­ni­ca­tion Is Not Op­tion­al—It’s Es­sen­tial

In my pre­vi­ous ar­ti­cles, I’ve high­light­ed the many com­mu­ni­ca­tion gaps that con­tin­ue to frus­trate those who use CROS. This new “re­place­ment ver­sus amend­ed” rule is a per­fect ex­am­ple.

The Reg­is­trar Gen­er­al De­part­ment al­ready sends out au­to­mat­ed emails every year re­mind­ing com­pa­nies when their an­nu­al re­turn is due. So, why can’t that same sys­tem be used to no­ti­fy users of changes to pro­ce­dures?

An email blast to the reg­is­tered data­base would take min­utes to pre­pare and send. It would save thou­sands of peo­ple from wast­ed trips, con­fu­sion, and un­nec­es­sary ex­pense.

Di­rect­ing the pub­lic to “check the web­site” is not good enough. The web­site is not where most peo­ple look dai­ly—but every­one checks their email. Trans­paren­cy and com­mu­ni­ca­tion should not be op­tion­al fea­tures in pub­lic ser­vice; they should be the stan­dard.

In the End … Progress Needs Part­ner­ship

I tru­ly do love CROS. It rep­re­sents progress. But progress with­out prop­er com­mu­ni­ca­tion cre­ates chaos. Sys­tems are on­ly as ef­fi­cient as the peo­ple and process­es that sup­port them.

If we’re go­ing to em­brace dig­i­tal trans­for­ma­tion, then let’s do it prop­er­ly. Let’s en­sure the in­for­ma­tion is ac­cu­rate, the staff are con­sis­tent in their guid­ance, and the pub­lic is kept in­formed every step of the way.

Be­cause what good is an on­line sys­tem if it still re­quires us to line up, ex­plain, and re­file be­cause no one thought to send an email?