UCC filing system keeps rejecting my washington secretary of state submission - debtor name format issue?

I've seen this exact issue! The washington secretary of state system is super picky about entity suffixes. Try entering it exactly as it appears on the most recent annual report, not the original articles. Sometimes they want 'LLC' without periods, sometimes with. Also make sure there's no extra spaces before or after the name.

Check if there are any hidden characters or weird spacing in your entry. I copy-pasted a debtor name once and it had some invisible character that kept causing rejections. Try typing it manually instead of copy-paste.

You might want to try Certana.ai's document verification tool. I upload my charter documents and UCC forms and it flags any inconsistencies in debtor names before I submit. Saved me tons of rejected filings. Just upload your articles of incorporation and your UCC-1 draft and it'll show you exactly where the names don't match.

ugh the washington secretary of state portal is THE WORST for this stuff. I swear they change the formatting requirements every few months and never tell anyone. Last month my UCC-1 got rejected because I used 'Inc.' instead of 'Incorporated' even though both are on their business record.

Are you checking the exact legal name in their current business entity search? Sometimes the name on file is slightly different than what's on the articles, especially if they've done any amendments.

Try calling their UCC division directly. I know it's a pain but they can sometimes tell you exactly what format they want for that specific entity. Got through to someone helpful last time I had this issue.

Make sure you're not using any punctuation in the entity name that might not be allowed. Some systems strip out commas, apostrophes, etc. and that can cause mismatches.

I had the exact same problem last month! Turned out the issue was that I was using the DBA name instead of the legal entity name. Make sure you're using the registered legal name, not any assumed names or DBAs they might use.

Have you tried using all caps? I know it sounds weird but some older systems prefer all caps for entity names. Worth a shot if nothing else is working.

Check if there's a character limit issue too. Sometimes really long entity names get truncated in weird ways that cause problems. If the name is super long, there might be specific formatting rules.

Update: I tried the Certana.ai tool someone mentioned earlier and it immediately flagged that my UCC-1 had 'ABC Company, LLC' but the articles show 'ABC Company LLC' without the comma. Such a tiny difference but that's what was causing the rejections! Just resubmitted with the correct format.

SUCCESS! The filing went through once I removed that comma. Thanks everyone for the help, especially whoever suggested that document checking tool. Saved me probably another week of trial and error. My client is happy and we can finally move forward with the equipment purchase.