Step by Step Guide on How To Register Your Business Name With The Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC) Without A Lawyer And With Less Than N15,000

Why bother registering with CAC?

The importance of registering a business can never be over-emphasized.

• For one, when it comes to doing serious business, many agencies will never take you serious if your company is not registered.

• Secondly, you might have to discovered that people and that includes you and I, feel more comfortable paying for services and products into a corporate account with the name of an organisation than paying into Individual account. I once missed an important sale a couple of years ago because when my prospect made up his mind to buy, the account number I sent him was an individual account in my name. He thought it too risky because it was a sizable amount involved. People feel if the account is in a corporate name, the organization can be traced if the transaction went foul. If you register your company, you can use the documents to open a corporate account with less stress.

•  Moreover, if you have a business idea and you go ahead and register the business name, even if you spend 2 years perfecting the plan and raising the capital, for it, those 2 years from when the business was registered can count for you as years of experience.

• That your Ingenious Business name could be taken by someone else before you wake up.

What is CAC?

The Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC) was established by the Companies and Allied matters act, which was promulgated in 1990 to regulate the formation and management of companies in Nigeria. The CAC is in charge of registering businesses in Nigeria. They have offices all over Nigeria (especially all State Capitals) finding the one nearest to you should be very simple.

Registering a Business name

If you want to register a business name, you can do it in 2 ways.

• One is to engage the services of a lawyer and he will get it done for you with about N20,000. The trouble is that the next time you want to register another business name, you will have to pay him another N20,000. If you are a serial entrepreneur with many business ideas flowing in you, you will be spending too much money for this when you can actually spend less by understanding the information I am going to share with you here.

• The second way to get your business name registered is to do it yourself. Yes, you can walk into any branch of the corporate affairs commission and you will get your business registered.

The trouble with this is that if you do not know the secrets of going about it, you will spend months trying to get your business name registered. A friend of mine spent over 6 months trying to register his business name because he worked through an agent who really wasted his time and messed him up real bad. This report will show you how to avoid all that.

NOTE

For the sake of clarity, let me make it clear that this process is to get your business name registered and not a limited liability company or an NGO.

Getting started:

Once you are ready to register your business name with the corporate affairs commission, the first thing you should do is to go to their office nearest to you.

• Walk in to the nearest branch to you and ask for name  reservation form the costs  is just Two Hundred and Fifty Naira only (N250). You will be issued a receipt and a form. On the form, you will be asked to fill in a few details.

Simple Details like...

1. Your Name
2. Your Address
3. Your Desired Business Names
4.  A Space To Fill The Type Of Business You Want to Register (Choose Enterprises/Business Name)

You will be required to choose two business names. The reason is that if one is not available, they can reserve the other for you. If none of them is available, you will need to do it all over again. You will have to pay the N250 again and you will have to wait for the result.

How Long Does it Take to reserve My Business name with CAC

Interesting
When you ask for a name reservation, it takes about 2 weeks before the results are returned. It is sometimes as fast as one week or 10 days but it generally takes 2 weeks. Now imagine if the business name you choose is not available, you have to go through that 2 week process again. If the new
one is not available as well, you have to go over the process... again... and... again. That is why it takes people a long time to sort out.

How Do I Avoid This Extra 2 Weeks

I'm happy you asked this good question. What you need to do is to choose a name no one else would have chosen. Now, you have to be creative and shrewd about it. If you choose just any name, I can assure you someone has registered it.

               Do not think of Names Like...

                           Chuks Enterprises

                           Good Enterprises

                           Good Hope Enterprises

                           Adamu Musa Ventures

                           Wealth Resources Consulting

If you choose names like above, then, there are high chances that they have already been taken by someone else and as an entrepreneur, you don’t have time to waste experimenting on new names at every 2 week interval.

So be creative in choosing your Business name don't just rush and submit a name to avoid delay in the process.

Now Having sorted out the name issue and having submitted your form, you will have to wait till the result comes out (in 2 weeks). There is nothing you can do about that. You just have to wait. I then advise you  to get ready so that when the results come out, you will be much prepared to register immediately.

What you need

Prepare

• 2 passport photographs
• Stapler (believe it or not, some CAC branches do not have)
• The details of a partner (you cannot register alone, add someone...anyone)
• The partner's photographs.
• Your address (you can use your home address)
• Telephone number (use GSM)
• Local government area and a few other requirements.

Why  prepare ahead of time?

Majority of upstart entrepreneurs will fold their hands while waiting for the 2 weeks. But I advise you to work while you wait. Start gathering the materials you need one by one. Why? You see, your Business name reservation is just for a number of days, you have to register properly before the grace period expires and someone else can take up that name. We want to get your business name registered in record time so we want to move faster than normal. When name reservation results come out, what people normally do is to start studying the new documents they are provided with to fill. If you prepare early, you will get your registration done once the results are out.

Important Question! What is your Business?

I was a bit confused at this point. I didn’t actually know how to classify my Business. I am an Internet Marketing Consultant but that’s not all I do. I blog and publish online.

I wondered which one to leave out and which names to use but you see the CAC requires that you state what your business is all about. You have to state at least one thing. In the past you could state as much as 20. I have seen a company that registered in the early days of CAC. This Consulting firm is licensed to do more than 20 businesses including Car manufacturing but nowadays the rules of the game has changed. The maximum number of business you can list is three. They want to know what your business is about before they can register the name.

Don’t waste your time filling things like Internet Marketing, Brand and Strategy Consulting and Infopreneur in that form. That would just be a waste of your valuable time. There are some kinds of already laid down business objects that are allowed for a business name. It is up to you to find an object that best describes what your business is about.

Here are the objects allowed by the CAC

− Advertising/Public Relations

− Agricultural Produce

− Agricultural Tools, Machines And Allied Products

− Alternative Medical Practice

− Aluminium Manufacturing

− Architects/Town Planners

− Auto Dealers

− Auto Mechanics And Rewiring Services

− Auto Spare Parts Dealers

− Bakery And Fast Foods

− Beauty Industry (Salon, Pedic, Manic, Barbing ETC)

− Bookshops/Stationery Stores

− Car Washing Services

− Carpentry/Woodworks

− Chattered Secretaries

− Commission Agents

− Computer Training, Sales And Services

− Cosmetic Manufacturers/Dealers

− Day Care Centre

− Dealers And Distributors

− Electrical/Electronic Equipments Dealers

− Entertainment Industry/Events Managers

− Estate Agency/Maintenance

− Fashion Designers

− Fish Farming/Fisheries

− Food Products And Processing

− General Construction (Build/Civil Engr. Contractors)

− General Contracts

− General merchandise/Trading

− General Tax Consultants

− Guidance And Counselling

− Gymnastics And Stress Management

− Horticulture/Gardening/Landscaping/Equipment Services

− Hospitals/Clinics

− Hotel/Hospitality Industry

− Human Resource Manager

− Import/Export Of Goods And Services

− Industrial Chemical Supply And Service

− Interior/Exterior Decorations

− Internet Service Providers (Cyber Cafe)

− Jewellers

− Land And Quantity Surveyors

− Laundry/Dry Cleaning Services

− Legal Practice And Consultancy

− Livestock Management

− Management Consultants

− Maternity Home

− Mechanics/Welding

− Medical And Pharm. Products (Manufacturing, Sales And Services)

− Medical Services/Laboratory

− Others

− Patent Medicine Store/Chemist

− Petroleum Products Sales/Distribution

− Pharmaceutical Manufacture/Services

− Photography/Photo Equipment

− Plastic Manufacturing

− Poultry Farming

− Printing/Publishing

− Restaurant/Catering Services

− Road Transportation

− Schools (Nursery, Primary And Secondary Schools)

− Supermarkets/Departmental Stores

− Textile Manufacturers/Distributors

− Travel Agents

− Veterinary Clinic/Services

− Water Works/Borehole Drillers

Most businesses will fall under one of these, if not, just use General Merchandise.

Customized Bulk SMS:

Now You Are Prepared...

Once your name reservation is out, speak to any officer there and you will be given a file and some documents to fill. In some CAC branches, they would have given you this form and file right from the first day you applied for name reservation. You can fill the form right away with your name, phone number, and address including LGA, partner’s details, and passport photographs (you will staple it and make sure you write your name behind the passports and sign them). After you're done filling the documents, you can then submit for what is called “Verification”. You just need to submit. It's no longer in your hands.

Depending on the CAC branch you go to, the verification process time will vary. It is usually done within an hour so it is something you can wait for. You can ask them there so they can tell you how long it would take. Maximum is a day.

What they look for at the verification process are things like your objects, how you filled the form and so on. If you filled everything properly, your verification process would be a smooth, onetime thing. Once you pass the verification process, you will be required to pay your registration fees. As at the time of writing this report, it costs N10,000 for your registration. You can ask for the current price but I can bet it is well under N15,000.

Right at their office, you will pay the fee and obtain a receipt; you will submit your files and documents (because they will return it after the verification). You will be asked to come back in about one week for your certificate.

Can You Beat That? It’s that simple!

Just go back home or wherever and come back when you were asked to. On the day, you go there and you will be asked to sign. They will give you your certificate as well as some other documents you can keep. You will need such documents when you want to open a company bank account and for some other purposes.

That is it. Now go out there to register your business names. You can register as many as possible and you can even make money as a Corporate Affairs and Business name registration consultant. This way, you register others for a fee of about N15,000 to N20,000 each depending on you.

I wish you the best.