Philadelphia has had a reputation as a tough place to comply with all the permits, licenses, taxes, and fees it demands for doing business here.

"We need to keep up our tax filings and our city business certifications. There has been no one resource [in City Hall] where we can find all that," said Lawrence A. James, president of Connexus Technology L.L.C., a North Delaware Avenue-based information systems and staffing contractor.

"I end up running around the city trying to find contacts who can help. We've had to do this by foot because there's no central location [for figuring out] how to locate the decision-makers."

Michael Nutter ran for mayor promising to make basic government less onerous for small firms. The city's new Web page, www.phila.gov/business, set to go online today, is designed to make it easier by listing where you have to go, whom you have to see, and what you have to do to open or expand a business.

People who'd rather be running their firms "have had to spend a lot of time in the Municipal Services Building" figuring out city rules and practices, said Sara Merriman, director of policy for the city Commerce Department.

"We've now captured all of the city business information, the forms, the licenses, the permits, the direction you need to go, and we've put it in one place," Merriman explained.

"This Web site puts us in the 21st century," Angelo R. Perryman, head of Perryman Building & Construction Services Inc., of West Philadelphia, told me. Perryman is a member of the city's Chamber of Commerce board. His firm does jobs up and down the East Coast, and he is glad to see Philadelphia finally start to catch up with Washington and New York in using the Web to cut administrative hassles.

The site's still "a work in progress," said Ellen Yin, owner of Old City's Fork restaurant, who worked with a city focus group to advise Commerce on the site. "The ability to apply online would be helpful; the ability to pay fees online would be helpful," Yin said. "How can we make it not so complicated?"

You still cannot apply or pay online, notes Kevin Dow, chief operating officer at the Commerce Department. Plans are to add a "much more robust user interface" next year.

Insurance tech

IPipeline, an insurance-sales software-maker based in Exton, says it has raised $15 million from investors, led by Mike DiPiano's New Spring Capital, of Radnor, and Fidelity Ventures, of Boston, to buy more firms.

One deal iPipeline announced this week: The purchase of AgencyWorks L.L.C., a life insurance agency-software firm with headquarters in Utah, to form what iPipeline head Tim Wallace calls "the largest insurance network in the industry." Clients include John Hancock, MetLife Inc., Nationwide Mutual Insurance Co. and other national firms.

iPipeline employs 68 in Exton, and about 30 more around the country. AgencyWorks employs about 40 in Utah, who will keep their jobs under company president Andrea Evans.

"We are hiring approximately 20 individuals [due to] organic growth over the next couple of months," and hope to hire more than 20 next year, iPipeline spokesman Mike Persiano told me.

Improving Ben's plan

Pennsylvania Insurance Commissioner Joel Ario has signed off on reorganization plans for the 257-year-old, Ben Franklin-founded Philadelphia Contributionship for the Insurance of Houses from Loss by Fire, known as the Hand-in-Hand for the sign that marks 5,000 homes and buildings it insures.

The Hand-in-Hand wants to set up a holding company, making it easier to merge with other firms and finance the company's home-alarm business, Vector Security Holdings.

According to the plan, policyholders who are now members of the Contributionship will become members of the new holding company. Ario noted the Contribution- ship has a $190 million surplus.

Ario's move clears the way for a Dec. 4 reorganization vote at the Contribution- ship's office, 212 S. Fourth St., at 11 a.m., according to a proxy statement Contributionship president Robert Whitlock sent members last week.

Retired lawyer and Contributionship member Carl Esser, who questioned how an initial proposal benefited members last summer, tells me the detailed final proposal is "well done" and he won't oppose it.

Contact staff writer Joseph N. DiStefano at 215-854-5194 or JoeD@phillynews.com.