By Stewart Yerton

The Hawai‘i Department of Commerce and Consumer Affairs’ new, $2.1 million “Business Express” registration system is causing what users describe as interminable delays in processing documents needed to start and operate businesses. Processes that previously might take a few days are taking weeks or months. 

For them, the Business Express system is far from speedy.

In a statement provided by spokesman William Nhieu, DCCA acknowledges it’s facing problems merging three 20-year-old systems into one new one — a task that involves migrating millions of documents and business records and training staff to use the new system. Staff are finding problems and continually working with the vendor, Aalta LLC, to work out bugs, the statement said.

“As with any transition of this scale, staff who had years of familiarity with the legacy systems are now completing training and building day-to-day proficiency with the new platform,” the statement said.

Whatever the reason, Danielle McKim says the delays are frustrating. McKim has been running businesses in Hawaiʻi for 30 years, dealing with the often frustratingly slow culture of the state’s bureaucracy, but nothing, she says, prepared her for this. She’s trying to start a real estate services business but learned that the system is bogged down with delays when she tried to register.

“This just feels like another kick in the face,” said McKim, who noted CNBC in July ranked Hawaiʻi as the worst U.S. state to do business in. “I can understand it’s Hawaiʻi and things take time, but this is horrific.”

McKim’s views are echoed on a Reddit channel where users are sharing horror stories about delays with the business registration system. One Reddit user says the process, which in the past took three to five days, is now taking eight weeks. Another user wrote of having to miss a scheduled business conference, which required a business registration to attend, because of the delays.

DCCA couldn’t say how many applications were backlogged or how long wait times are now, but confirmed the problem is significant enough that the agency has brought on more staff to process applications.

With small businesses serving as a major part of the Hawaiʻi economy, anything that slows the ability to start new ones has broad impact, said Sherry Menor McNamara, president and chief executive of the Chamber of Commerce Hawaiʻi.

“Any time there’s a delay,” she said, “we’re slowing the growth of our economy.”

Read the full story here.