Hammond, Secretary of State's Office win international award for customer service

Posted
The South Carolina Secretary of State is pleased to announce that the SOS has won the 2018 International Association of Commercial Administrators (IACA) Merit Award for its Online Business Entities The IACA Merit Award recognizes jurisdictions that have developed innovation through the implementation of a new or improved product or service. Each submission is scored on effectiveness; originality; significance; transferability and lessons learned. South Carolina uses the Business Entities, Filing,Search and Document Retrieval System in the Secretary of State's Office. Launched to the public in January 2017, the system was used in 64 percent of business filings last year. “Now the Secretary of State’s Office can receive electronic filings for over 200 corporate applications anytime,” said Hammond. “This user-friendly process accelerates creating a new business or making changes to an existing business, providing accessibility to the office at all times of the day. South Carolina is committed to being on the forefront in the creation of new technology to increase efficiencies in an ever-changing global economy where business is transacted around the clock.” "The world-class system simplifies a major point of interaction between business and government and reduces turnaround time to 24 hours or less when compared to traditional paper-based filing," Hammond continued. "The effectiveness of this application has been stunning, achieving more than four times the projected adoption rate for online filings since its launch. The application has over 238 online forms as well as in-house business forms, and has processed 144,000 filings to date." The major features of the application for the public, Hammond said, include: • Online Business Filings; • Online Document and Certificate Requests; • Online Business Entity Search; • Online Registered Agent Search; • Online Business Profiles; and • Online Subscriber Portal (coming soon). This web-based application was built and is maintained at no cost to taxpayers through a partnership between the South Carolina Secretary of State's Office and South Carolina Interactive, doing business as SC.gov. This is the second merit award for Hammond's office. The first was for the online Uniform Commercial Code Filing System that was launched in 2011. " The Secretary of State’s Office continues to be a leader in the nation providing new technology solutions to businesses and citizens," Hammond said. To use or view the application, visit he Secretary of State's website at sos.sc.gov or visit businessfilings.sc.gov.