Services · Mobile app development · Business setup apps
Our company formation app development service in Chicago is for the accounting practices, small business law firms and formation agencies that help Chicagoans start companies. We build a client app and a staff workspace covering Illinois Secretary of State filings, the city's business license steps, EIN requests and the annual reports that follow, so your team stops chasing documents by email and every new client sees exactly what happens next.
Starting a business in Chicago usually means two governments: Springfield for the entity and City Hall for the license. A good client portal keeps both tracks visible in one place, with the zoning and license questions asked early rather than after the LLC already exists. Owners can also check progress themselves at any hour.
200+ companies across the US and the UAEFrom a first store to a listed developer
Inside the app
In Illinois, LLCs and corporations are formed through the Secretary of State's Department of Business Services, and LLCs file an annual report before the first day of their anniversary month. In Chicago, the Department of Business Affairs and Consumer Protection issues business licenses, and a license application needs zoning approval for the location before it can move forward. For a restaurant founder in Logan Square or a consultant leasing a desk in the Loop, those are separate offices with separate timelines. Your clients do not care which agency holds things up; they want one place to see progress. The capabilities below connect the state side, the city side and the federal EIN step, and give your staff the queues and reminders that keep a growing client list compliant year after year. Dashboards show which steps hold orders up, by agency and by staff member.
Questions mapped to the Illinois Articles of Organization and corporate filings: company name, principal office, registered agent, management type, members or directors, and effective date. Answers feed straight into the filing your staff submit, with nothing retyped from an email thread.
Illinois filings prepared from one clean record.
Before formation is finished, the app asks where the business will operate and what it will do, then flags that a zoning review and a city license may be needed. Your team confirms the license type and the client sees a second checklist for the City of Chicago steps.
No surprises about zoning after the lease is signed.
Stamped articles, the Illinois file number, the EIN confirmation letter, operating agreements and license certificates stored per company, available to the owner on a phone and to your staff in the admin view, with access logged.
Clients stop asking you to resend the same documents.
If you verify owners with selfies or face matching, Illinois' Biometric Information Privacy Act requires a written policy, notice and a written release before collection. We build the notice, consent capture and retention schedule into the flow, or design document-only verification if you would rather avoid biometrics.
Identity checks that respect one of the strictest biometric laws in the country.
Each company's anniversary month calculated from its Illinois filing date, with reminders well before the report is due, a pre-filled review screen for the owner and a task for your staff to file.
Fewer client companies drifting out of good standing.
Many Chicago founders are more comfortable in Spanish, and some firms serve other language communities too. We design intake, status messages and notifications in English and the languages your clients actually use, written by people rather than machine translated at the end.
Founders complete forms themselves instead of booking a call to get help.
A board showing every order by stage: intake incomplete, ready for review, filed with the state, awaiting EIN, license in progress. Partners see workload by staff member, and reviewers can send a question back to the client without leaving the order.
Each formation has an owner and a visible next step.
Links to the CRM, practice management and accounting tools your firm already uses, so a formed company appears as a client record for bookkeeping, payroll or tax work without anyone copying details across.
Formation flows straight into the rest of your services.
Your engagement terms signed in the app, state and city fees itemized for the client, and payment by card, Apple Pay, Google Pay or bank transfer through a processor that keeps card data off your servers.
Work starts only when terms are signed and paid.
Chicago formation work often arrives through bankers, commercial brokers, chambers and community business groups. Each partner gets a referral link or code, the app records which orders came from whom, and partners can see the status of their referrals without phoning your office.
You learn which relationships actually send new companies.
Who this suits
The firms that benefit most are those where new business setup is a steady stream of work handled by a small team, and where the setup leads to longer relationships such as bookkeeping, payroll, tax or legal retainers. If formation for you is a handful of matters a year, a simple intake form may be enough. If it is a weekly flow across Chicago neighborhoods and suburbs, these are the four patterns we see. Each points to a different set of features for the first release.
For a CPA practice, the LLC is the door into years of tax and advisory work. The app captures owner, tax classification and payroll intentions at intake, so the first meeting with the accountant is about strategy rather than collecting basics. We connect it to the systems your practice already runs, and EIN and S corporation election tasks are created automatically when a client asks for them. Year end deadlines then appear in the same calendar as the Illinois annual report.
Formation becomes the start of a longer engagement.
Attorneys need to control what is filed and what advice is given. The app keeps the attorney review step mandatory before any filing, stores engagement letters and conflict check details, and gives clients status updates that are factual without straying into advice. Founders get answers on a phone; the lawyer keeps the judgement calls. Client messages are tied to the matter, which keeps them out of personal texts.
Hospitality and storefront founders face the city side hardest: zoning, licenses and inspections tied to a specific address. We build the location and license tracking first, with the Illinois entity filing as one stage of a longer checklist the client can follow from lease to opening day. Owners can upload lease drafts and floor plans for your team to review against the license requirements.
Here the city license, not the LLC, sets the pace.
Some Chicago formation businesses also handle companies registering in Indiana or Wisconsin as the client expands. The app stores state rules separately, so your team can add a neighboring state's filings and annual obligations when the volume justifies it, without changing how Illinois orders work. Reporting shows volume by state, so you can see when expansion is worth it.
Working with Codeeo
We are not based in Chicago and do not claim to be. Codeeo's team of 80+ people works from Dubai, Riyadh and Karachi and has delivered 200+ projects across the UAE and the US, and we are rated 4.7 from 23 Google reviews. Chicago clients work with us remotely: discovery, design reviews and release demos all run by video call, with written notes after each session. Most firms pick a fixed scope first release and then a monthly retainer for improvements. Larger firms sometimes keep a dedicated developer on the product once the portal becomes central to how they win new clients.
A defined build with a deadline
We agree what the product has to do, write it down with a price and a date, and build exactly that. Changes are priced before they are made, not discovered on the invoice.
A product that keeps evolving
Named engineers who work your hours, join your standups and stay on the codebase. You direct the backlog; we own the quality of what ships.
Something live that needs looking after
A monthly block of hours for improvements, fixes and the small requests that otherwise wait months. Unused hours carry for a quarter.
Technology
Cross platform mobile apps for iOS and Android, a web portal for clients who prefer a laptop, and a secure admin system, hosted in a cloud account your firm owns. We choose tools your future developers or IT provider can support. Access is role based, so a receptionist, a bookkeeper and a partner each see only what their job needs.
01Mobile
02Data and cloud
03Marketing and tracking
The city license track, the EIN and the yearly Illinois report.
The entity filing with the Illinois Secretary of State is often the quickest step. Chicago founders then need an EIN from the IRS and, for many business types and locations, a city license that depends on zoning approval. After that comes the Illinois annual report every year. An app that only covers the first filing leaves your staff handling the slower steps by email, which is where most client frustration starts. Seeing all three tracks in one timeline also helps your staff explain realistic opening dates to owners.
Schedule a free consultation and get a written recommendation, with costs, before you commit to anything.
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