Are You an Actress?
January 15, 2008 · Written by Heather Juma
Are you an actress? You may not think so because surely you’ve never starred in a movie on the big screen; but are you acting like a small business owner?
You may have a name, a product, a service, and even a website, but are you really a woman entrepreneur? There are a few things that you will need to do right from the get go to avoid the confusion between your personal self and your business self.
The first thing you must set up, in order to differentiate between who you are and who you are while running your business is to look at the first thing you may have thought of while considering becoming an entrepreneur–Money! Set up a separate checking account for your business. I hear a lot of complaints about this from people because so many banks want a lot of information before they will set up a business account; and some banks charge high fees for business accounts. “Like you can afford that right now” is what you are probably thinking.
However, the process is quite simple.
Go to the bank of your choice and find the best checking account deal you can find. Open an account under your name, put some money in it, and you’re all set! Use this bank account for your business now. This is important because you should not be “co-mingling” your business and personal finances. Also, this makes it a lot easier to keep track of expenses and see how successful your business is over time. Now, I only suggest doing this if you are just getting started and you are starting a small, home-based business. You should also be a solo-entrepreneur, so you shouldn’t be doing this is you are a corporation or LLC.
You will also need a separate credit card. You may not be able to get a credit card in your company’s name yet, so use one of your personal credit cards and designate that card solely for business expenses. Remember, the key here is to keep your personal and business finances separate from now on; so you have one checking account and one credit card for your home-based business and another of each for you, personally.
Hint: Make sure you are using all the tax strategies you can and making everything legally possible a business tax deduction. You may want to read the following book for a quick overview to get you started–Lower Your Taxes Big Time by Sandy Botkin.
Set up your systems from day one. This may seem like a hassle, but do it now and you will save yourself a lot of time and a major headache in the future. Set up a filing system for your business and running with the theme here, keep your business and personal files separate. Use bookkeeping and accounting software right from the start. Again, this may seem like a hassle, but you are going to be busy once your business takes off, so it is best to set all the systems up right from day one.
Take the time now, you will be glad you did! You can also visit TaxMama for tips on tax savings!
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I also agree that it’s important to keep your business separate from personal life—and what does this more than having two separate accounts. It may seem like a hassle in the beginning but becoming professional requires professional responsibilities.