Business License & Permit Register & Renewal Tracker

The problem this kills

You are juggling business licenses and permits across several entities, locations, and jurisdictions - a food handler's permit here, a fire inspection certificate there, a state business license, a local zoning permit, a professional registration. They all expire on different dates. Some renewals take weeks or months of lead time. The list lives in a spreadsheet that nobody updates, and the certificate PDFs are scattered across email and shared drives.

Then one day a permit lapses. Maybe you get fined. Maybe a location can't legally operate until it's reinstated. Maybe an auditor asks for a certificate you can't find. The cost of one missed renewal dwarfs the afternoon it takes to build the tool that prevents it.

A calendar reminder isn't enough - it doesn't track who owns the renewal, whether it's been submitted, whether the new certificate is on file, or which permits are quietly expiring next month.

What you'll build

A private, team-only web app that is the single source of truth for every license and permit you hold:

• A complete register - every license by entity, location, jurisdiction, type, number, issue date, expiry date, fee, and responsible owner.
• Smart renewal lead times - because some renewals take a day and others take months, each license carries its own lead time, and reminders fire from there.
• Tiered email reminders - gentle nudges far out, firmer ones as the expiry nears, and escalation to the compliance manager when it's getting tight.
• A submit-then-approve gate - the owner records a renewal as submitted; the compliance manager reviews, uploads the new certificate, and only then does the expiry date roll forward.
• An archive of every certificate - new certs replace old ones on the record, but prior versions are kept for audit.
• A one-click register export - a clean CSV with each license tagged active, expiring, expired, or in-renewal.

What's inside the Implementation Plan

The plan is a single markdown file you paste into an AI coding agent (Claude Code). It builds the whole tool with you, step by step, in plain language - no coding background needed.

It starts by interviewing you about your business. Before writing a single line, the plan has the agent ask you about your real licenses, your jurisdictions, your naming and numbering conventions, who owns which renewals, your true lead times, and your messy edge cases. It reflects a short tailored spec back to you, gets your thumbs-up, and only then builds - so you get a register shaped around how you actually operate, not a generic template you have to bend to fit.

From there it walks you through: setting up your accounts, importing your existing list, configuring lead times and reminder tiers, wiring up the email reminders, building the submit-and-approve renewal flow with certificate upload and archiving, and the CSV export - with a ready-to-paste prompt at the end of every step.

The governance it includes (this is the point)

This isn't a toy spreadsheet replacement - it's built like a compliance system from the first step:

• Login so only your team can open it.
• Row-level security so each organization only ever sees its own licenses.
• A complete audit trail - who imported, who submitted a renewal, who approved it, and exactly when.
• A human-in-the-loop approval gate - the AI and the owner draft and submit, but a person reviews, uploads the new certificate, and approves before any expiry date is written forward.
• Duplicate guards - the same license (entity + license number) can't be imported or created twice.

Who it's for

Compliance managers, office managers, and operations leaders who are responsible for keeping licenses and permits current across multiple locations and jurisdictions - and who are tired of relying on memory, sticky notes, and a stale spreadsheet to stay legal.

You don't need to write code. You need your license list, your certificate files, and an afternoon.

You've got this - paste the first prompt and let the agent interview you.