Missing a filing is the most common, most preventable, and most embarrassing compliance failure a corporation can make. The filings calendar in Octelligence ties every recurring obligation — annual returns, business-name renewals, transparency-register updates, beneficial-ownership filings — to its due date and surfaces it in email a configurable number of days ahead.
Plan requirement. Compliance reminders and the filings calendar are a Growth-plan feature. Compliance tasks are also Growth and above. On Free and Starter, you can keep due dates in the corporation's notes but won't get scheduled reminders.
What's on the calendar
The default set varies by jurisdiction. For Canadian federal and provincial corporations, Octelligence includes:
- CBCA annual return — federal, due within 60 days of incorporation anniversary
- OBCA annual return — Ontario, due within six months of fiscal year-end
- BC, Alberta, Quebec, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Nova Scotia annual returns — jurisdiction-specific cadences
- ISC (Individuals with Significant Control) register update — CBCA federal, reviewed annually and updated within 15 days of any change
- Transparency register — Quebec and BC, with jurisdiction-specific cadences
- Business name registration renewal — provincial, typically every five years
For US Delaware corporations, the default set includes the annual report and franchise tax, plus registered agent renewal. UK private limited companies get confirmation statement reminders. Add custom reminders for anything else the corporation needs to track.
Step-by-step
Open Compliance › Reminders
From the corporation's workspace, open Compliance › Reminders. You'll see a list of every reminder configured for this corporation with due date, template, status, and next-notification date.
Add a reminder
Click New reminder and enter:
- Template — pick from the jurisdiction's catalog (CBCA annual return, OBCA annual return, etc.) or Custom for anything not pre-configured.
- Due date — the date the filing is actually due.
- Timezone — defaults to your account timezone; override if the filing deadline is set in a different one.
- Pre-due offsets — how many days before the due date to send reminders. The default is 60, 30, 14, and 7 days; adjust per the jurisdiction or your team's preference.
- Email subject & body (optional) — override the default reminder copy.
- Enabled — start with this on; toggle off later if you want to skip a cycle without losing the configuration.
Save. Octelligence schedules the notifications and shows the next one in the reminder's row.
Receive the reminder email
On each offset day, Octelligence sends an email at 9 AM in the configured timezone. The email lists the corporation, the filing, the due date, and the days remaining. It's sent to the corporation's Owner, with cc to Editors who have opted into compliance notifications.
Mark the filing complete
After you file, return to the reminder and click Mark complete. Octelligence records the completion date and rolls the reminder forward to the next cycle (next year for annual filings). The completed filing is logged with the user, date, and IP — useful at diligence to show a consistent compliance pattern.
Use compliance tasks for anything that's not a recurring filing
Reminders are for recurring statutory filings. For one-off compliance obligations — director residency review after an appointment, ISC update after a share transfer, post-financing close items — use the related Compliance tasks view. Tasks share the same notification engine but aren't tied to a recurring cadence.
Portfolio roll-up (firms)
Firms on Portfolio Licensing get a single calendar view across every client corporation. The roll-up dashboard groups by due date, jurisdiction, and client, so paralegals can plan a week of filings in one screen instead of opening twenty workspaces.
Common gotchas
Setting the due date to the filing window start rather than the deadline. CBCA's "within 60 days of anniversary" creates a window; the reminder's due date should be the end of that window so pre-due offsets land at the right time. Octelligence's templates set this correctly by default — verify on custom reminders.
Disabling a reminder instead of marking it complete. Disabling pauses notifications but doesn't record that the filing happened. Use Mark complete on the actual filing; use Disable only if you've decided to stop tracking a particular obligation.
Ignoring the ISC register. For CBCA federal corporations, the Individuals with Significant Control register has its own update requirement separate from the annual return. Issuances, transfers, and option exercises can all trigger ISC updates. Octelligence reminds you annually; act on changes within 15 days as they happen.
Sending reminders to the wrong inbox. The reminder email goes to the corporation's Owner by default. If the Owner is an inactive founder and the active operator is an Editor, either change the Owner or have the Editor opt in to compliance notifications. Reminders going to a dead inbox are reminders that don't work.