Not long ago, I handed a pre-printed stock certificate to a new paralegal assistant and asked her to type in the shareholder information. Imagine my surprise when she said she did not know how to use a typewriter. Last week, I had a call from a paralegal telling me that there were no typewriters anywhere in her office and she needed advice on the best way to print her stockholder information onto the client’s custom pre-printed stock certificate using a computer and printer.
For as long as corporate paralegals can remember, stock certificates were ordered, pre-printed with the company name, certificate numbers and authorized stock, in batches of 25 or 50 certificates at a time. As new issuances and transfers occurred, the shareholder and stock issuance information was hand-typed onto the face of these pre-printed certificates. Additionally, restrictive legends had to be typed onto the back of the certificates A time consuming and frustrating process. I always seemed to run out of certificates just when the client needed the new certificate immediately. I had to put everyone on hold until a new order came in a few days later. If the company name was changed or the authorized stock amended – again – new certificates would need to be ordered, or even more time consuming, the new information would need to be hand typed onto each certificate form. There is no erasing or “write-out” allowed. One typo would cause the certificate to be marked as “issued in error” and the paralegal had to start with the next pre-numbered certificate.
Today’s technology presents a new challenge for corporate paralegals. As law firms focus on equipping their offices with the most cutting edge computers, printers and scanners, typewriters have become a thing of the past and paralegals are hard pressed to find a working typewriter in their office. Unfortunately, even with all this great new technology, pre-printed or border only stock certificates are one of those old standards that law firms and clients are having a hard time giving up.
Typically, paralegals and legal assistants have managed to work around the lack of typewriters in their office by creating a template in Word that matches the spacing on their pre-printed certificates. These are tricky to create and almost never line up with the certificate quite right, resulting in a lot of “Issued in Error” certificates filling the minute books.
A much easier option is to invest in a software system that provides professional looking certificate templates that can be easily populated with your shareholder and ownership information. Corporate Focus is this type of system that, among a number of other features such as entity tracking, online minute book documents, and ownership administration, can solve all your stock certificate printing problems. It uses the stockholder information entered into the system for tracking and reporting purposes to also easily create professional looking certificates with, literally, a click of your mouse. Of course the system has templates for the most of the commonly used pre-printed stock certificates, such as such as Goes and Corpex, as well as templates for the “border only” certificates and “blank eagle”certificates. It adds all the necessary legal text and restricted stock legends, as well as the shareholder and other ownership information directly from the stock ledger data.
But, there really is no need to spend your time and your client’s money on expensive pre-printed or border only stock certificates. For a fraction of the cost, you could just purchase some high quality white paper and use the certificates that can be printed directly from Corporate Focus. It’s a remarkable breakthrough to see a white sheet of paper become a color stock certificate template filled in with all the legal text, the shareholder information, and the legend on the back. You can choose your favorite color too – green, orange, blue, red, or gold. You have to see it in action to understand how fast and easy stock certificate printing can be when you don’t have to line up to anything. You simply print it all.
If you’d like to see why Corporate Focus has become the #1 stock certificate tracking and printing system, and why the last few typewriters have been thrown out the window, check out this short video. It shows how professional looking stock certificate can be created with just a click of your mouse.
