Last July, during a critical credit facility process, Accolade believed their entities were in good standing.
Their provider had confirmed it.
But when they attempted to pull Certificates of Good Standing, they couldn’t.
Entities had quietly fallen out of compliance. Documentation failed. What followed was a stressful, last-minute scramble over the 4th of July holiday to resolve issues and secure the necessary filings under tight deadlines.
For a team responsible for a growing portfolio of entities, the incident exposed a serious problem: they lacked visibility and control over their compliance status.
That was the moment Accolade decided to move to Discern.
For years, Accolade relied on a traditional entity management provider. But as the Accolade organization grew and more entities were added, the system became increasingly difficult to manage.
The team faced persistent challenges:
Routine compliance tasks became unnecessarily time-consuming. Projects that should have been straightforward often required one to two full days to complete.
“It felt like firing emails off into an abyss.” - Patrick Abrahamsen, VP Finance
The company implemented Discern to bring visibility, control, and automation to their entity management.
Despite the risks involved in switching compliance systems, the onboarding process was fast and straightforward.
“There’s always a big fear when you switch providers because this stuff has to work. But the onboarding process with Discern was much easier than we ever imagined.” — Caitlin Mulligan, General Counsel
Discern provided a single platform where internal teams and external law firms could work together, with full visibility into entity status, filings, and compliance obligations.
With Discern, compliance tasks that previously took 1–2 days now take just a few hours.
Up to 80% faster completion times allow the team to move quickly while remaining confident filings were completed correctly - eliminating the question of ‘did this actually get filed?’”
One of the biggest operational wins has been the automation of annual entity taxes due June 1st.
Before Discern:
That meant about 16 hours of manual work every year.
With Discern’s auto-filing functionality, the process is now automated—reducing manual work by over 90% and eliminating the risk of missed deadlines.
Instead of waiting 6–8 weeks for answers, the team now receives responsive support and clear guidance when issues arise.
Most importantly, they now have immediate visibility into the status of their entities, allowing them to identify and resolve issues before they become problems.
With Discern, the team has transformed entity management from a constant source of stress into a streamlined, reliable process.
“You can’t really put a price on peace of mind. There are a lot of stressful parts of our jobs, and now this isn’t one of them.” — Caitlin Mulligan, General Counsel
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