Not for profit organizations and businesses risk losing their legal ability to operate if they don’t file the proper paperwork.  To try and save businesses and organizations time and money the Secretary of State’s office is encouraging them to file online.

"We do see a lot of movement toward all these online filings and people seem to like them a lot," said Secretary of State Robin Carnahan. "They save time they save money and they’re easy. They really only take a few minutes to go online and get this done."

Despite the ease of filing an annual report, Carnahan said she’s still trying to work with the legislature to change the law so organizations and businesses only have to file every two years.

"But so far we’ve gotten that slowed down in the legislature and I’ll bring it up again this year," she said.

The Secretary of State’s Office will send out a second notice if a non-profit misses the August 31 st deadline and give them until November 30 th , but they’ll have to pay a late filing fee.

download or listen to Aurora Meyer’s story here.