How to Investigate a Small Business
How to Investigate a Small Business
Learn how to investigate a small business with a targeted online search by going to the State Department of Corporations, the Better Business Bureau, the SEC and the Uniform Commercial Code.
If that doesn’t work, research companies by finding their business license filings or their telecommunications information. Find out how to do a “business background check”, or even start your own company who searches business backgrounds.
Read through all the various options and you’ll get a pretty good idea of the best way of investigating any small business you might do business with.
Department of Corporations
Go to your state’s Department of Corporations website and look up the business you want to research. There should be an option for “Search by Business Name”. If so, enter the full name of the business and see what comes up.
This should give you the documents when the small business incorporated, as well as any yearly filings on record.
Find the “sole proprietor” search function on the same website, if a small business owner is the sole proprietor of the company you’re researching.
Search the Better Business Bureau
The Better Business Bureau (BBB) also maintains a website where you can search company lists. Any complaint against that business may have been reported to the BBB.
You always hear people say, “I’m going to report them to the Better Business Bureau.” This is where all the complaints get published.
Securities and Exchange Commission
The Securities & Exchange Commission, better known as the SEC, is a federal regulatory agency. Any businesses which are publicly traded should be found on this site.
And now, this isn’t the really famous or powerful SEC: the Southeastern Conference in college football. (I know; it’s the first thing I think of, too, when I hear “SEC”.)
Uniform Commercial Code
The Uniform Commercial Code or UCC lists business filings, too. All you’ll find her is information on the company’s secured loans, but if you’re considering business with this firm, knowing the status of their secured loans helps you know where they stand financially.
You’ll have to search these by state, once you get to the UCC site.
More Suggestions for How to Investigate a Small Business
We have several other pages which discuss business records investigation, so I thought now would be a good time to direct you to those articles. I hope something you read today gives you the resource you need to learn about the small business that you need to know about.
How to Find Business License Records – This gives you four more options for researching company’s in your commercial sphere, specifically focusing on finding business license records.
How Does a Business Background Check Work? – We discuss performing a “business background check” on the company’s you’re are researching, or whom you have prospects of doing business with.
How to Find People’s Cell Phone Numbers – If you forgot the phone number of a potential business partner, or if you want to know who the heck these telemarketers or other business people who keep calling you are, here’s the scoop on how to find people’s mobile phones.
How to Start Your Own Background Check Business – For those who want to get serious about running background checks on businesses, here’s advice for starting a career in background searches of companies.
Related Posts
How to Find a Birth Certificate
How to Look Up Property Records
What Is a Fingerprint Background Check?
How Does a Business Background Check Work?
How to Find County Jail Records
This entry was posted on Friday, February 26th, 2010 at 5:30 am and is filed under Background Checks, Business Records, Private Investigation. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
[...] How to Investigate a Small Business – Many small businesses that are run as limited liability companies (LLC’s) are pretty much the private enterprise of a single owner, so checking on the background of a man’s LLC or private business is often akin to checking on his background. Here’s how you research a small business you’ve considered building a commercial relationship with. [...]
[...] discusses how to use the CoC and BBB to investigate businesses and get business licenses in other articles. Let me focus specifically on a couple of particular [...]
[...] How to Investigate a Small Business – If, for some reason, you need to investigate a small business in your community which you think is doing something shady, here are resources, like the Department of Corporations, the Securities and Exchange Commission (for bigger companies), the Better Business Bureau and the Uniform Commercial Code. You don’t have to go through their dumpster to find out the scoop on these people. [...]