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How do I complete Business Onboarding Through Legl?
How do I complete Business Onboarding Through Legl?

Due diligence for UK & International Companies

Tré avatar
Written by Tré
Updated over a week ago

Seamlessly onboard business clients with Legl’s entity-level visibility. Linking UBOs, Directors and Shareholders into a single manageable and monitored entity.

Get instant access to group structure, directors, credit information, PEPs & sanctions and more for international businesses across 160 countries. Effectively manage risk, get the information you need quickly, and maintain complete audit trials for business clients, all in one place.

  • Reliable results
    Automated generation of sanction & company reports enables compliance teams to have consistent and predictable processes that give control and oversight.

  • Real-time compliance
    Get data back in seconds, and run instant screening checks on directors, UBOs or PSCs without the need to go back and forth with the client.

  • Processes in one place
    Bolster your existing compliance processes, including KYC and AML workflows, with additional no code workflows to improve your firm-wide approach to risk.

Follow this guide to onboard a business client and complete relevant due diligence on all associated individuals.

This product will enable you to replicate existing processes in an automated way leveraging technology that can retrieve information in an instant, providing detailed insight into clients so you can open files in minutes.

You will be able to identify the company structure and key players in seconds. Allowing you to link identified persons of interest to the company and generate detailed AML and KYC reports on related parties and UBOs. From there, leverage Legl’s no code workflows to complete full CDD, source of funds checks and more.

The result is entity level visibility in a single manageable and monitored entity, providing a full audit trail of compliance checks completed and daily monitoring in case any of this information changes.

This article covers the following:


Creating a business in Legl

The onboarding process in Legl starts with the creation of a business contact. This becomes your single source of truth for all compliance checks completed against that business and associated individuals. You will have entity level visibility, a full audit trail and daily monitoring if any information changes.

1) Begin by navigating to the Business tab of Engage in the Legl dashboard and clicking 'New business search'.

2) You can search for your company using either the company name or company registration number. Further narrow your search by selecting the jurisdiction the company is located in.

We will surface all results found for your search term. These will be separated by matches for businesses that have already been added to your Legl account by someone in your firm, ‘existing contacts’, and those matches that are returned from our company registry search. From this list you can select the relevant entity by clicking on the corresponding row.

Once selected, you will be navigated to a new business page. From here you can begin to complete the necessary compliance checks.


Completing a Sanctions screening against the company

A Sanctions Screening allows you to instantly verify whether the company is on any sanctions lists. This is a real time, global search.

1) From within the business page, navigate to the ‘Sanctions screening’ section in the top right corner and click ‘Start screening’.

2) If the search has come back a ‘clear’, or once you have received any results returned, you can mark the report as Reviewed by clicking ‘Mark as reviewed’ in the top right corner.

If your firm has monitoring enabled, we will automatically start monitoring this search for changes on a daily basis.

Once complete, you can also download a PDF copy of the report.

If you need to escalate to another member of your team to review, you can change the assigned reviewer by clicking “change” under the reviewer name at the top of the report. The new reviewer will receive an email with a link back to the report.

Once complete, you can navigate back to the business by clicking ‘back’. The sanctions status of the business will be updated to reflect that a screening has been completed. Any changes to the sanctions status of this business will appear in the ‘monitoring’ tab and you will be notified via email.

From the business page you can surface further details about the business by running a Company Report.


Running a Company Report

1) From within the business page, navigate to the ‘Company Report’ section in the top right corner and click ‘Create report’.

2) This will return all the data we have found for the company entity and from here you can complete several actions.

  • Download the full company report as a PDF to save in your case management system.

  • Download the last 5 years of the company's financial history.

  • View the structure and ownership and run due diligence checks on associated individuals.

  • View the company history, credit rating and financial commentary, and any CCJs connected with the company

The structure and ownership overview will identify all individuals and further companies you may be required to complete due diligence on. This includes the person of significant control, all identified directors, the group structure including any parent or subsidiary entities, and the shareholders along with the percent ownership they hold.


Use Instant Screening to run an instant PEPs/Sanctions check on an individual

Instant screening allows you to run a Watchlist screening (PEPs and Sanctions check) on an individual (such as directors, shareholders, or PSCs) from a new or existing Company Report, without having to send them an Engage Request.

1) On the Structure and Ownership overview select the PSC, director or shareholder you would like to run Instant Screening on. Please note this will only be available for individuals marked Person.

2) Using the autofilled details, select an existing contact, or click Continue to create a new one.

If the individual is an existing contact, any associations to other businesses will be surfaced at this point.

3) Confirm the Contact Details

4) The Date of Birth will be pulled through from the company report, if available.

If you know the country of residency, select it from the dropdown. If Unknown is selected, the search will not attempt to filter on country. Click Continue.

Tip: We recommend that you add as much information as you know about the contact at this point, as it will help to narrow the watchlist results and reduce the occurrence of false positives

5) If needed, assign a reviewer and add a matter reference. Click continue to run the check.

6) Click "view results" to be taken to the report.

This report will be saved against the individual contact. It will also be visible within the business contact, to ensure this page always provides a full entity overview.

From here, you can leverage Legl’s Engage features to complete additional due diligence on the business or related associates. This could be sending a CDD request, a source


Sending an Engage request to an associated individual

1) On the business page for your client click ‘Create Engage Request’.

2) Begin entering the details of the individual. If an existing contact exists, they will be shown in the list of options to select from. If not, a new contact will be created and automatically linked to the business.

3) Once you’ve entered or selected the contact information, select which workflow you would like to send them.

The Standard CDD will collect a photo of their ID, verify that ID along with their identity, complete enhanced AML checks including PEPs and Sanctions and verify their identity using biometric technology. Alternatively, any of the custom no-code workflows created by your firm will also appear in this list.

4) Then simply select ‘Send Email’ to instantly send the request to the client via a firm branded email. You will receive a BCC copy of all emails for your records, alternatively you can elect to include your as CC on the email so it is visible to the client.

If enabled, your client will receive periodic automated reminders until the request has been completed.

If you would prefer to send the request via other means, you can use the ‘copy shareable link’ functionally share the unique request link via other means.

5) When your client has completed this request you will receive an email so you can log in and review the results. When entering Legl via the link in the email, you will see your client's request is ‘ready for review’.

6) Simply click on the request to view it and if you are happy with the results mark the report as reviewed and submit.

The business page for your client is now your single source of truth for all compliance activities completed for the business and any associated individuals. If your firm has ongoing monitoring enabled, then any changes to this information will be flagged in the monitoring alerts tab and you will be notified via email.


Watch the step-by-step video below

Onboarding Process for Business Clients 👥 - Watch Video


FAQs and Troubleshooting

Company Report: I have searched for a company to run a report on and a dark grey circle is displayed under the company name - what does this mean?

The grey dark circle with a dash is displayed when the search has been unable to find and return a company status (e.g. Active, Inactive, Dissolved etc).

Company Report: The company I have searched for does not display any address information or 'last report change' - why is this?

The lack of information shown on the company's search results occurs when the search has been unable to locate this information from Legl's sources. This does not necessarily mean that there will be no information when running the report, however it can indicate there may be limited information for this company available.

Company Report: There is limited information for a company I need to verify, how can I manually gather company information via Legl?

In instances where there is limited public information or you require more information than what is returned in a company report, you can create and send a workflow to your client requesting them to provide you with the additional details you require. For example, you may wish to include a Document Request step asking that they upload a certificate of incorporation, and/or you may want to include a Customisable Form step requesting them to answer a questionnaire you have created.

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