Using my community resources

This morning I met with an advisor at my local Small Business Development Center. I can't recommend doing this HIGHLY enough! My only regret? Not making the appointment several months ago!!! My scheduled appointment was for an hour and a half, but I was actually there a little longer getting all of my questions answered. I have a "follow up" appointment next month to make sure I'm on track with my business plan. For those of you out there with questions about starting up your own small business... make that call! It's a free service that is there to help you through this process! I'd been waiting to set up my EIN {Employee Identification Number} before talking it through with my advisor about if my company would be okay as a DBA for now, or if I should incorporate it into an LLC. For now, I've made the decision to stay at the DBA level, until my sales can justify the switch.

As soon as I got home, I filed for both my EIN, and Federal Tax ID # {my NY customers will now be paying sales tax... but everyone outside of NY will still enjoy tax free products!} Both forms were filed online and were very easy to complete. After my online filing for my EIN, I was able to go to my bank and open a business checking account. I will now be using QuickBooks Pro 2010 to keep all of my expenses and profits {???} organized!

Time to take a break and get dinner going... I've been going a mile a minute since I got out of bed this morning!