Ongoing Compliance & Growth

Annual report / periodic filing — most states require an annual or biennial report (sometimes called a franchise tax report) to keep your LLC/corporation in good standing, with its own filing fee. Miss it and the state can administratively dissolve your business.

Estimated quarterly taxes — if you expect to owe more than a small threshold in tax for the year, the IRS (and most states with income tax) expect quarterly estimated payments rather than one lump sum at filing time. Underpaying enough can trigger a penalty even if you pay in full by the deadline.

License/permit renewals — anything from Stage 4 that has an expiration date needs to be tracked and renewed on its own schedule.

This is the single highest-retention feature for a tool like this — nobody comes back to a static checklist a year later, but everybody needs a nudge before their annual report is due. Once accounts are live, this becomes a real calendar tied to your specific state and entity type, not just a paragraph telling you to remember it yourself.

The moment you have your first employee, payroll software (versus doing it by hand) becomes worth it fast — it handles tax withholding, filings, and the workers' comp trigger from Stage 8 in one place.