Have you gone through it yet? It’s only recently SEC decided to go full online and make the business registration process digital from start to finish. Though not fully seamless, fully smooth, or full time-saving, it’s definitely a step into providing more Filipinos with a more comfortable means of creating partnerships and incorporations.

The first process is to create your account via the CRS SEC portal. From there you simply need to fill in the online form in creating a partnership or an incorporation. You don’t need to submit and type of document here, you just need to have the information of partners or incoporators prepared. This can include their full names, addresses, birth dates, and Tax Identification Numbers.

After providing such info, and completing 100% of your registration, you will simply have to WAIT. Your entry will be “In Progress” this whole time, and you will have to wait for SEC’s turn to email you back for submission of notarized documents online. For me, this took about 1 month before I received an email.

Do note that your completed form on the CRS portal will generate its own PDF files containing the Cover Sheet and Articles, which then need to be notarized and uploaded online as PDF as well. Personally had trouble with this step mainly because the files didn’t upload. I do hope it got fixed already, but mine had trouble submitting and just kept on resetting. If this isn’t your problem, good for you. Just submit and wait. If this is the same case as yours, then contact SEC manually early in the morning – they tend to be not-so-entertaining at around 3pm-ish onwards. What they did with mine was personally receive my notarized documents.

2 Weeks after receiving my notarized documents, I received another email from SEC with instructions on how to pay. I had 4 options:

1. Landbank Online Account
   – can’t do this I don’t have a Landbank Account
   – additonal PHP10 transaction fee
2. Debit Card payments (through Landbank Portal)
   – would’ve done this, but BDO isn’t in the list of debit cards they accepted (they didn’t find ways!)
   – additonal PHP20 transaction fee
3. GCash Payment (through Landbank Portal)
   – with recent marketing of GCash wanting to be like Paypal of the PH, this is an option but really, you’d have to load up somewhere and you can’t convert current prepaid load to GCash.
   – additonal PHP30 transaction fee (WOW)
4. Over-the-counter (Landbank Only)
   – apparently, not all Landbanks accept this. Weird. There’s no Landbank in Makati accepting this payment. WOW. In the CBD too. But yeah, only a couple of banks in the Quezon City and Greenhills area accept this. Better call the nearest Landbank if you plan to do this.
   – no additional fee

Now given the options above, I would’ve loved to go 4, but was forced to go 3 due to the circumstances. But yes. Once you’ve sacrificed your PHP30 (imagine how much money that is when multiplied by all the possible applications), it’s an immediate confirmation on your screen, with no confirmation in your email or affirmation in your status (still “In Progress), so be sure to screenshot that just in case something goes wrong. Either way, I received the SMS confirmation too so I guess that’ll do.

Just a thought, what if I’m not a techie person to begin with? I didn’t have a Landbank Account, I don’t use a Debit and only use a Passbook, and I’m not too fancy with the GCash payment system? Does that mean I have no other choice but to go to Quezon City to find an actual specific Landbank branch that accepts this over-the-counter payment? Weird.

At this moment, 3 months after submitting my registration, I assume that the next step will be receiving the certificate of registration (COR), either by retrieving it from SEC, or by having it delivered in our registered business address. Who knows. There’s no email or status informing what comes next. I guess I just have to wait.

Now if only they improve on their response system, maybe add a Live Chat for support, confirm every action and inform every next step via email, and enable accessibility to pay this not only just by Landbank but by EVERY bank in the Philippines.

Reference: SEC Launches CRS

UPDATE 03/23/19

I’ve been getting a lot of questions via DM on my social media and to give you an update, it’s been a year and my SEC CRS Registration has had no process after payment. My online application still says “IN PROGRESS” and it would seem, after calling them, that my application needs to be updated with payment. Even after providing them a GCASH reference, they are asking for a hard copy. LOL. Haven’t had progress yet.

Also asked a friend who has a contact in SEC for help. According to the contact, they can’t find my file, and “CRS is broken” :))

In any case, I’d advise you guys to not fully trust the CRS system just yet, rather, do the process personally or at least be guided by somebody from SEC. Feels dangerous to DIY, despite the intention of such platform, and it seems they haven’t really mastered the digital process before unrolling it, and many steps might be unlinked, such as the payment confirmations done in other platforms.

Best of luck!