Small Business Compliance Calendar
Every filing, renewal and licence with the working days of preparation it needs and the one input that has to exist first.
Free download · No account needed
Obligation Register
[Business] — compliance year [20__]
Lead Time and Blocking Input are required fields. A row without them is a date, and everybody already has the dates.
| ID | Obligation | Authority | Applies because | Due | Lead time, working days | Blocking input | Input ready | Days available | Short | Owner |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| OB-01 | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| OB-02 | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| OB-03 | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| OB-04 | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
The three fields, and why the third one is the point
| Due date | What the authority sets, with the weekend rule it actually applies |
| Lead time | Working days of preparation, including the part that is chasing other people |
| Blocking input | The one thing that must be finished before preparation can start, and the date it is really ready |
Due date minus lead time is a start date. Working days between the input and the deadline, minus the lead time, is the shortfall. Everything else in the pack is those two subtractions.
Nobody misses a filing because they did not know the date. They miss it because on the date everybody knew about, the thing the filing is made out of did not exist yet. So this pack gives every obligation two fields a deadline list does not carry: how many working days of preparation it needs, and the one input that has to be finished before that preparation can start.
Halden Mechanical is an invented HVAC company: incorporated in Delaware, three Texas locations, 34 employees, 61 subcontractors. Six of its obligations fell on three dates inside a thirteen-day window, which reads as one busy fortnight. Backed off by their own lead times the same six had to begin across four separate weeks, the earliest on 17 December, in a year the calendar did not cover. A due-date list structurally cannot show that. Five waited on one input, the payroll year closing, which happened on the twelfth working day of January.
Four of the fifteen could not fit their lead time between the input arriving and the deadline, fifty-two working days short between them. The worst needed thirty days and had six, waiting on a signed form back from all 61 subcontractors. That penalty is charged per return and again per payee statement, so 61 people is 122 chargeable failures and $7,320 on the first day of lateness. A notice from the state, an insurance renewal, or a customer's data request landing mid-season is separate work again, tracked in the data privacy and customer data pack.
What's in the pack
Obligation Register
One row per obligation, grouped by authority, each citing the registration, licence, location or headcount that switched it on for you rather than in general. Whether a jurisdiction belongs on this register at all is a separate question, answered first by entity and foreign-qualification tracking.
Deadline Calendar
The same rows in start-date order, grouped by week, with the collisions called out and one sentence per row on what that week is actually for.
Renewal Tracker
Renewals run from anniversaries rather than fixed dates, and each carries the condition attached to it, which is the part that takes the time.
Penalty Exposure
Every obligation priced on its own authority's basis: per return, percentage of the liability, fixed penalty plus interest, or revenue at risk.
How Lead Time Is Set
The four-minute method behind the rest of the pack, including the three-part estimate and the three honest answers to a shortfall.
Obligation Notes
Why each obligation applies, what the preparation really consists of, the trap in it, and what changed since last year.
Owner Assignment
A name against every row, with the preparer, the chaser and the signer separated, because some signatures cannot be delegated.
Lead Time Sweep
A weekly agent that runs against start dates rather than due dates, so the reminder arrives while there is still time to prepare.
How to use it
- 1
Open in River, or download it
Take the blank Word and CSV files away with no account, or install the pack in River and let the agent build the register from your own paperwork.
- 2
Send what you are registered for
Formation documents, state registrations, licences, insurance declarations and last year's filings. Your locations and headcounts are enough to begin.
- 3
Put a lead time and a blocking input on every row
The lead time is estimated in three parts, and the chase part, which is the one nobody counts, is usually the largest of them.
- 4
Read the shortfalls, then move an input
Where an obligation cannot fit its lead time, the cheapest fix is almost always an input arriving earlier rather than anybody working faster.
Frequently asked questions
Is this template free?
Yes. The four sheets and three documents download as Word and CSV files with no signup and no credit card. "Edit with AI" is the optional path where the agent reads your own registrations and filings and builds the register from them. The other packs sit in the template library.
What format are the downloaded files?
Word documents (.docx) for the three method and notes documents, and CSV (.csv) for the Obligation Register, Deadline Calendar, Renewal Tracker and Penalty Exposure, zipped together. They open natively in Word, Pages, Google Docs, Excel, Numbers and Sheets.
How is this different from a compliance calendar checklist?
Those are lists of dates for businesses in general, and the dates were never the hard part. This one is built from what you are actually registered for, and every row carries the preparation time and the one input that has to exist first, so it sorts on start dates.
Why does location matter so much?
Scope is where generic lists are most wrong. The OSHA annual summary posts at every establishment that owes one, and deciding which ones do runs its own separate size and industry tests, worked through in the workplace safety and posting pack. A company of 34 across three sites can have one establishment in scope for it and two out.
Does it tell me what my deadlines are?
It records what your own filings, notices and licences say, and asks you to confirm anything it cannot source. It is not legal or tax advice. Where something has already lapsed it says so and prices it, which is the point at which a professional is worth paying.
Which penalties does it price?
Whatever the authority publishes. Information returns run per return and are charged twice. Delaware adds a fixed penalty plus 1.5% a month on tax and penalty together. A lapsed licence has no dollar figure at all and is usually the largest exposure you have.
Who is this template for?
Owners with more than one location, more than one authority, or contractors on the payroll file, where nobody's whole job is compliance. It suits a small business workspace. Accounting firms tracking client filings want the client filing calendar instead. A location applying for a licence it does not have yet needs the licence and permit application pack first, not this one.
Find out which deadline you have already missed the start of
Download the blank pack as Word and CSV files, or open it in River and have your own registrations, licences and filings read and backed off the due dates first.
Edit with AI