I have been business for years. Both Small and large.Keep it as small as you can the more employees the more you waste your time taking care of them. Pay your self weekly and make sure you understand that You are a business expense. If you don't pay yourself you are distorting your expenses. Same as your goods. They are the price that they are.

Keep accurate records and decide how much you want to spend in a year and do not deep into your household money. Don't expect to make a profit for at least 3 years. REMEMBER PAY YOUR A SALARY for all the time you spend/ Post office, Paperwork ETC.

I took accounting in college a few years ago, (my minor), we had to have our own company & turn our books in at the end for our final exam. I used Quick Books, and got an A, it is very easy to use, and has very simple basic instructions! Good luck!

Sole Proprietor ship= S Corporation.Your Checks should say Company name DBA( doing business as) with your signature.

NYS Sales tax is collected quarterly. You have to remember to do it - they don't mail the forms anymore. They like you to do it online so they get their $$$ quicker, but I'm still mailing the form and the check.

I found having the accountant set up Quick Books was invaluable. I know a little about bookkeeping, which makes me very dangerous. If you ever have to talk to the IRS, it will be a big comfort to know that your deductions are legitimate and correctly accounted for. I have equipment and computers, and nary a clue about things like depreciation and tax issues. I probably spend less than 15 minutes a day making all my entries.

You should have in your area an SBA, small business group they are retired business people who offer their services for free. Look in the phone book.

When yo do your income taxes We do Turbo tax. Buy it in the store onLINE is awful. the program will do the calculations for you. I had 2 ACCOUNTS AND A FINANCIAL PLANNER BOTH PRETTY USELESS.i HAVE BEEN DOING MY OWN FOR YEARS IT'S REALLY EASY AND IF YOU HAVE A QUESTION YOU CAN CALL THE IRS THEY ARE REALLY HELPFUL.

I agree with everyone. I use Quickbooks for my District management position and at home. Worth the money for updates, classes and such.

You can try a free trial of QB's:

http://www.intuit.com/

If you choose not to keep using it you have the option to stop after the trial. I would buy it in store later.

I wholeheartedly agree with this, by having an accountant set up your program initially, it will save you a LOT of headaches and quite possibly $$$ down the road. PLUS you know that it is set up correctly. They say simple, easy, etc... but there are ins/outs that you NEED to know and without this knowledge your fines/fees can easily be greater than the money you tried to save :wink:

They can quickly set up the individual accounts within these programs, and accurately, so that when tax time comes around, you know what you owe the state, payroll taxes, IRS, etc... and your books will all balance.

When I did business taxes, if their spread sheets didn't balance or look correct, the clients either had to fix them before I would continue, or pay me to go through everything and that could be very costly.

For now, yes, you can use Excel or an equivalent for spreadsheets... but I would take them to a tax preparer when tax times comes around.

Some expenses you can take 100% at the end of the year, others have to be amortized. If you don't completely understand what this means... it is another reason to get professional help at tax time .

It also wouldn't hurt for you to call the IRS and find out right now which of your major expenditures are going to be deducted at 100% and which won't. This way you won't be surprised come January. Basically, anything electric will be amortized, so a computer would not be 100% deductible. It would be spread out over a number of years. You will find this to be true of many of your start up expenses....

If you take in your spread sheets, and you are SURE they are accurate, then you and the IRS shouldn't have a problem 6 months down the road :wink:

We had clients who would bring in their spread sheets quarterly for us to look over... we charged a very nominal fee to make sure everything balanced and looked okay. I think we charged $50 every quarter.

The small business that I worked for had an accountant that we gave all the monthly & quarterly information to. We used a variety of different programs in the 19 years I worked there, but used QuickBocks for about the last 3 years. It is pretty straightforward to use, but finding the reports you want can sometimes be a challenge.