← Back to Running a business

The Library / Running a business

Practical guide / Free to read

Act before the important date passes.

Give each business obligation an owner, meaningful dates, practical preparation, and evidence of what actually happened.

Begin with the obligations your business actually has

You might be preparing your first registration, looking after a shop, delivering client services, or handing responsibility to someone else. Start with one obligation you can identify: a policy, lease, service contract, domain, subscription, inspection, maintenance task, certification, training requirement, filing, supplier condition, or seasonal commitment.

The category list is a starting vocabulary, not a checklist of requirements every business must meet. In the United States, licensing and permit requirements depend on the activity and location. Check the relevant federal, state, and local authorities, and record the actual source for each obligation.

Name the responsible person and an optional backup. Record why the obligation matters, the relevant provider or authority, a reference, and where its actual conditions are recorded. People named here are planning labels; entering a name does not assign a shared account or notify anyone.

Background: SBA: Launch your business

Separate the dates and their meanings

A renewal date may be much later than the last day to give notice. A submission deadline may need documents, a payment, or an appointment well beforehand. Add every relevant date: preparation, decision, notice, submission, payment, expiry, renewal, follow-up, the obligation due date, or a custom date.

Choose whether each date requires action or is a reference milestone. A reference milestone can still need attention—for example, an expiry approaching while confirmation is missing—but it is not automatically treated as an unfinished task or exported as an action.

Keep unknown dates blank. Keep proposed dates marked unconfirmed. A confirmed date requires its source and the date you actually checked it. Record time cutoffs, time zones, delivery methods, and other conditions in the action or source notes where they matter. This planner compares calendar dates; it does not calculate contractual notice rules, holidays, business-day adjustments, or legal entitlements.

Check the actual agreement for notice periods, renewal conditions, payment terms, and the required way to give notice. Keep a traceable reference in the register rather than borrowing a notice period from an example.

Background: SBA: Launch your business

Prepare the work, not just the reminder

A useful entry says what someone can do next. List documents to gather, information to confirm, people to ask, appointments to arrange, approvals to obtain, and the action that completes the requirement. Assign a person or role and a planned date where you know them.

Link preceding steps only when the work really depends on them. The planner rejects dependency loops and prevents a dependent step being marked done while its prerequisites are unfinished. Completion dates also need to make sense in that order.

A Checklist Builder file can add a repeatable preparation process. Earlier checkmarks do not carry over. Review the imported wording and set dates, people, and dependencies for this occurrence. Long combined instructions are shortened to the field limit, so check the original checklist for details that matter.

Use the attention view as a working review

Choose a review date and a look-ahead period from 1 to 366 days. The attention view includes earlier unresolved dates, upcoming actions and milestones, waiting responses, missing owners or sources, and dates that still need verification. Filter the list to the question you are dealing with.

A passed date is a prompt to review the record; it is not an automatic finding that a contract ended or a legal requirement was breached. Unconfirmed dates remain explicitly labeled. Current records drive the review, even when you choose a past review date.

Several attention items can belong to one occurrence. An unverified deadline may appear both as approaching and as needing verification. All obligations remains available for searching people, categories, providers, references, open occurrences, and completed records.

Keep a request separate from a confirmed outcome

Record what was actually done, the date, and its evidence. Submitted, awaiting confirmation, and cancellation requested remain open states. Keep who you are waiting for and the next action together; a missing follow-up date is flagged for review.

Before recording completion or renewal, resolve the action dates and preparation steps. Each can be completed with evidence or explicitly marked no longer required with a reason. Reference milestones do not block completion merely because their date has not arrived.

A confirmed cancellation or no-longer-applicable outcome requires its actual date and evidence. It closes that occurrence without changing unfinished steps into completed ones. Closing stops that occurrence’s attention and calendar entries, so review any remaining responsibilities first. A recorded status describes your records; it does not submit an application, cancel a service, make a payment, or establish a legal outcome.

If a record was wrong, reopen the occurrence and explain why. Earlier outcome details remain in history. Date and preparation edits also preserve the previous entry and the reason for the change.

Choose the right kind of repetition

Use one-off for work that does not repeat. Use a fixed schedule when occurrences stay tied to an original anchor date. Use an interval after actual completion when the next period begins from the work’s actual completion or renewal. Use individually reviewed dates for irregular or separately confirmed occasions.

Fixed schedules always propose the next period after the latest recorded cycle reference. They do not jump over missed periods to reach today. You can prepare the next occurrence while earlier work remains unfinished; both stay visible. Completion-based schedules wait for the latest occurrence to be completed or renewed.

For month and year intervals, choose the rule explicitly. Keeping the anchor day uses the last day only when a month is too short, then returns to the original anchor day. The month-end option uses the final day of each target month. These are planning rules to check against the actual requirement. A changed schedule applies to later proposals and leaves earlier occurrences in place.

Preparing another occurrence is deliberate. It creates a proposed due date, copies the date descriptions and preparation, and clears the other dates, confirmations, evidence, and checkmarks. Verify each new deadline. A confirmed cancellation or no-longer-applicable latest occurrence must be reviewed or reopened before continuing the series.

Keep evidence that another person can follow

Useful evidence might be a certificate reference, a provider confirmation, a submitted application receipt, an inspection record, or the location of the checked contract. The register stores references and notes, not uploaded documents. Keep the original evidence in the appropriate place.

An occurrence label can identify the period, equipment check, or renewal. Previous occurrences remain selectable. History records include the earlier entry and your explanation, so a corrected deadline does not silently replace the old one.

For a handover, review the attention list with the next responsible person, confirm they can locate the sources, and agree which actions they are taking. Use Spending for the related cost and payment records. Opening another tool does not automatically transfer obligations or financial entries.

Choose what goes into your calendar

The calendar review offers confirmed, unresolved action dates plus planned preparation and follow-up dates through your review window. Earlier unresolved dates are included. Reference milestones and unverified obligation dates are excluded. Select the entries you actually want before downloading the .ics file.

Entries are all-day markers, labeled by their purpose. They include the obligation, occurrence, action, and responsible person shown in the review. Internal source references, private notes, and provider contact details are excluded. Check any time cutoff separately and choose a suitable calendar before importing business information.

The export follows the iCalendar file format. It creates a copy, not a live connection. Register edits, rescheduling, closure, and later exports do not reliably update or remove entries already imported into your calendar. Review those entries yourself; repeated imports may create duplicates. Notifications are controlled by your calendar application and its settings, not by this planner.

Background: IETF RFC 5545: iCalendar

Keep the register you can reopen

Download editable register (.json) keeps the obligations, occurrences, dates, preparation, repeat patterns, and history. Reopen it here to continue. Download after changes and before closing; account saving is not connected in this working draft. Opening a register replaces the open one after confirmation rather than merging records.

The PDF preview includes a clearly labeled Download PDF action. PDF and text are reading copies; calendar files contain the selected events. These outputs do not replace the editable register. Private reports may include contacts, notes, and evidence references, so review the intended audience before sharing.

A working register supports 100 obligations, 120 occurrences per obligation, 30 dates and 50 preparation steps per occurrence, and 150 changes in each history. Size checks preserve the earlier register when a record would exceed the working limit. Keep a copy before continuing in another register. These are file-handling limits, not a list of what your business ought to track.

Try it in your own situation

Build a register around one real obligation

  1. Identify the requirement, its source, the responsible person, and why it matters.
  2. Find every relevant date, especially any action required before expiry or renewal.
  3. Verify known dates and keep unknown ones visibly unresolved.
  4. List the documents, decisions, and preparation needed; link real dependencies.
  5. Review the earliest action, waiting responses, and dates that need checking.
  6. Record what actually happened and keep a confirmation reference.
  7. If it repeats, review the pattern and prepare the next occurrence without losing unfinished work.
  8. Download the editable register and any action list or calendar entries you need.

Keep exploring.

Make business spending easier to act on. Explore Running a business
Sources and further reading

Original Brass Charter examples and exercises, with background reading from the sources below.

  • SBA: Launch your business

    US business structures, registrations, and licensing background.

  • IETF RFC 5545: iCalendar

    Primary specification for the calendar file format used by the export. Import behavior and notifications depend on the receiving calendar application.

Keep your open draft?

Continuing will discard your unsaved changes. You can return to the draft and save or download it first.