01
You send business context
Company legal name, your role, UEI, primary NAICS, the certification held and its published date, rough headcount, and anything that changed recently. Prefer a call? Say so, and one is arranged by reply.
Eligibility-watch desk
Getting certified was the easy part.Staying certified is a clock.
Certification runs on recurring checkpoints: annual review, recertification, and reporting triggered by business events. The rule sets the interval; your records decide whether the next attestation holds.
For existing 8(a) and HUBZone firms: one monthly evidence-watch packet and one consolidated clarification round for $400/month, flat.
The check costs nothing and commits you to nothing.
Public record — what anyone can read
Open SBA's certification search and certified firms appear with their dates The statute requires a public HUBZone list, refreshed at least yearly. It includes name, address and type of business, so far as practicable. The statute says nothing about dates; they are visible because of how the search is built.
A listing shows status. It cannot show whether your supporting records agree.
CONSTRAINT — Canyon never certifies, never guarantees certification, never guarantees an award.
Anyone promising those is selling a claim they cannot make.
01The rules and the events that move them
The rule gives an interval. Your correspondence gives the date.
Each row links to its rule. A rule is not your calendar. Your firm's actual due dates come from its agency correspondence or portal. The monthly packet marks every date as confirmed from there or estimated from the rule.
Rules and triggers
8(a) annual review
- What the rule says
- Nine enumerated items, every program year. The term is nine years. Firms in the program on 13 March 2020 and still in it on 13 January 2021 got one more year. The exception: firms that declined in writing. That extension changes which year is your last.
- How often, or how long
- Yearly, over a nine- or ten-year term
HUBZone recertification and residency
- What the rule says
- Recertify in the 90 calendar days before each three-year anniversary. Residency is re-tested then, at each HUBZone offer and during performance. A firm with no HUBZone award in the past twelve months represents 35%. One with an award represents it is attempting to maintain 35%. One performing a contract may recertify at no lower than 20% with substantive, documented effort. One employee moving across a zone boundary can change the evidence.
- How often, or how long
- Every three years, and at each offer
8(a) control — an investor gets a consent right
- What the rule says
- No non-disadvantaged individual may exercise actual control or hold the power to control the firm. Supermajority voting rules can defeat the disadvantaged owners' control. A consent right can raise that question even when ownership percentages are untouched.
- How often, or how long
- Whenever governing documents change
- Source
- 13 CFR 124.106 ↗
Either program — ownership changes hands
- What the rule says
- A merger, acquisition or change of controlling interest.
- How often, or how long
- Recertify within 30 days
- Source
- 13 CFR 125.12 ↗
Underneath both — a joint venture or new partner
- What the rule says
- Affiliation can change which receipts and employees count toward your size standard.
- How often, or how long
- Continuous; tested at protest
- Source
- 13 CFR 121 ↗
This is the desk's complete scope: existing 8(a) and HUBZone firms. WOSB, EDWOSB, SDVOSB and VOSB programs are not watched or advised on here. Read the source before you rely on any summary, this one included.
02The monthly method
A desk, not a dashboard.
Ramiro Montes prepares one evidence-watch packet each month, then answers one consolidated round of questions on it.
- 01
Check dated sources
Each packet records when the public 8(a) and HUBZone sources were checked and what changed since the last one. A monthly check, not continuous monitoring.
- 02
Mark each date's basis
Every checkpoint on the calendar is labelled confirmed or estimated, on the basis set out under the rules above.
- 03
Name exceptions and actions
What changed, the action each item needs from the firm's responsible person, and the specific records to pull — every line with its source.
- 04
Clarify once
One consolidated round of questions on each packet. Anything beyond that is quoted separately; see what the price does not cover.
Constructed specimen · no real firmFinding sheet, sample format
Firm: withheld — a specimen names nobody
- Return riskOperating agreement grants a consent right over ordinary business decisions to a non-qualifying member. Reads against the control test.13 CFR 124.106
- ThinResidency evidence is a spreadsheet, not employee-level documentation reconcilable to payroll for the review period.13 CFR 126.200
- ContradictionPrincipal office address in SAM does not match the address used in the certification record.13 CFR 126.200
- CalendarNext annual submission: the nine items at 124.112(b). That section sets no filing date, so this one is marked estimated until program correspondence confirms it.13 CFR 124.112(b)
03Published monthly scope
$400 per month for the evidence watch.
For existing 8(a) and HUBZone firms: one monthly evidence-watch packet and one consolidated clarification round.
Eligibility-watch desk
$400/month
Flat, per firm, per month. No setup fee and no annual commitment.
What it covers
- One monthly evidence-watch packet for an existing 8(a) or HUBZone firm, with dated public-source checks
- A calendar marking each firm date confirmed from agency correspondence or portal, or estimated from a public interval
- Changes and exceptions, owner actions and specific evidence requests, with sources cited
- One consolidated clarification round for that month's packet
What it is not
- Certification or any outcome. Only the SBA certifies — including SDVOSB and VOSB, through its VetCert program. The full boundary is at the foot of this page.
- Packet assembly and event work. Annual review, recertification or application packet assembly, and event-specific advisory work are each scoped and priced separately, in writing.
- Signing or submitting. The client signs and submits; Canyon does not decide eligibility.
- Legal, accounting or audit opinions. Material ownership, control, size or legal questions go to appropriately qualified advisers.
04The free readiness check
Make us prove it on your own record first.
No charge and no obligation. Start here, or ask about paid work if you already know what you need.
02
The record is read against the rule
The public registers, checked against the sections that govern your 8(a) or HUBZone certification. If something specific is needed to go further, the reply names it and how to send it.
03
You get a finding sheet
The format of the specimen above: each finding cited, each record request specific. Yours to keep and act on without us.
Before you write
Keep the first email to business context only. Ordinary email is not a secure channel. Send no attachments of any kind: no ownership documents, payroll or personnel files. Include no Social Security numbers or other personal information. When a specific record is needed later, the reply names it and the transfer method available for it.
Write the first email →05The questions a skeptic asks
Straight answers about scope and responsibility.
Can you get me certified, or keep me certified?
No. Only the SBA decides certification and continued eligibility, and nothing this desk does guarantees either. The packet shows what to check and what to confirm.
Where do the dates come from? Isn't that surveillance?
From the same public registers anyone can open. The record panel at the top of this page cites the statute and explains why the dates show. Findings about a specific firm go only to that firm; no firm is named here or anywhere public.
What is my actual legal exposure here?
The attestation is the signer's. An honest mistake is not False Claims Act territory. A knowingly false statement is. The law treats reckless disregard for the truth as knowing. Exposure runs to treble damages, suspension and debarment. That is why each finding points to a record you can check before you sign.
Who does the work?
Ramiro Montes, alone, at a new independent desk. He is not an attorney and has no compliance credential of any kind. What he offers is the reading itself. The source sits beside every finding so you can test it.
Confirm the next checkpoint
You can find out what's on your record before someone else does.
Send the business context listed under the free check. The finding sheet that comes back cites every source and marks each date it could not confirm.