Financial Wisdom

A corporate seal is used as a business signature.  These seals clamp both sides of a sheet of paper and make an indent on the page that usually says your company name and state in which the corporation was formed. If you are using a third party incorporator like an online incorporation service or an attorney or a CPA to file your entity, you can often get a custom corporate seal stamp through them. Most of these entity formers will give you a corporate kit upon completion of your corporation.  This kit often includes a corporate seal, in addition to all the legal docs that you need to prove your authenticity as a newly formed business. Many corporate kits include custom corporate seals because most corporations use the corporate seal to issue stock certificates, which are also included in the corporate kit.

If your incorporator didn’t provide you with a corporate seal stamp, it would be wise for you to purchase one from another source.  The first place to start is online. My intent here is to educate on the purpose of a corporate seal and not necessarily to direct the reader to a specific seller so you will have to do your own research. There are many websites that offer you a variety of custom corporate seals, including stamps or a seal you can use to emboss legal docs. In addition to websites, you can also find brick-and-mortar shops that offer custom corporate seals. Finding places that offer discounts for purchasing more than one corporate seal is also nice because you have a back up just in case.

On a side note, some banks also require a corporate seal to execute a business signature prior to opening an account. A seal used to be required in order to sign the company operating agreement but that is no longer a requirement, although it can still be done.  Demonstrating the validity of your business by the use of a corporate seal is never a bad idea, even if the law doesn’t require it.

Tags: custom corporate seals, operating agreement