Legal entity management is a governance system covering many facets of an organisation. The core function of legal entity management is to compile and control the corporate records of a company, which can include directors and officers, ownership structures, tax strategies, corporate names and mergers and acquisitions. Multiple departments a can be involved in legal entity management as a business function. This includes the legal, compliance, finance, tax and sometimes human resources.
The management of legal entities is the way to create a single source of truth to better manage the nature of compliance and tax legislation and the fear of uncertain regulatory changes and associated costs for all legal entities within an organisation. Company management is usually handled internally by the legal and tax team, which includes general counsel, corporate director, paralegal teams, and all tax department staff.
Compliance is a critical element of entity management and your organisation must walk a fine line to comply with local and national laws. In order to ensure that your legal entity management strategy does not break any laws, it's important to understand how to best remain compliant. With strong subsidiary governance, your organisation will be able to grow globally faster while reducing the risk for your legal subsidiaries.
Due to the dynamics of legal entity management, most global organizations are implementing dedicated entity management software -- often described as legal entity management software, subsidiary management software or corporate secretary software -- to replace manual methods such as spreadsheets, shared folders, Sharepoint and other legacy systems.
Entity management software provides several benefits including:
• Legal operations efficiencies through automation and workflow
• Better teamwork and collaboration by centralizing all information
• A single source of truth for corporate data to monitor and ensure compliance
• Protect the corporate veil by managing risk and compliance
Effective legal entity management software will allow your teams to work more efficiently and to better operate governance frameworks.