The main readiness questions are often whether ownership, payroll, project evidence and the future assignment tell the same story. Lack of a large human-resources department is manageable; missing eligibility facts require substantive attention.
Assign document owners
Have one person coordinate corporate records and another explain the specialist’s work, even if those are overlapping roles in a small team. Confirm foreign operations will continue and review any new-office requirements. Establish a realistic preparation sequence before requesting processing estimates; an urgent business need cannot fill gaps in foreign employment or specialised knowledge.
Assign an owner to each document before agreeing any date, because in a small business the person who can produce the records is usually the person least able to stop doing their job. Identify who retrieves employment and payroll records, who assembles the corporate documents, who writes the account of the employee's work, and who is responsible for chasing an accountant or a former bookkeeper. Give each a realistic date.
The most common delay in a small-company filing is not complexity but capacity, and it is entirely predictable. Allow additional time where records are held by an external accountant or in a system the business has since replaced, and confirm the employee's qualifying foreign employment early rather than late, since that is the item most likely to require reconstruction.