We’ve chatted about why you need to really understand your numbers, now it’s time to go deeper with your infrastructure and foundation.

1. Business entity types - should you be a sole proprietor, LLC, or S-Corp? Don’t just go to legalzoom - understand what each of those is and what you actually need. Get registered with the IRS and your state, and possibly your county.
2. Set up a business bank account.
3. Set up contracts and insurance if you need to have liability or errors & omissions insurance.
4. Make sales! Track everything the way we’ve discussed.
5. If you decide to pay estimated quarterly taxes, do it personally through your SSN, even if you have an EIN! You don’t need to file separate taxes until you’re an S-Corp.

We cover ALL of this in the “Get Your Finance Sh*t Together” self-study course at confidentmoneypodcast.com!

Join our community at confidentmoneypodcast.com where we’ll share tips and resources, and you can suggest topics for future episodes.

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FTC/Affiliate Disclaimer: By using some of these links, at no extra cost to you, I may earn a small commission or referral fee, which helps me continue to produce content like this, support my business, and my team.

DISCLAIMER: I am not a financial advisor and this is not financial advice. My podcast is for educational purposes and is my personal opinion only. To make the best financial decision for your situation, please do your own research and if needed, seek the advice of a fee-based, fiduciary.

Music credit: Neon Fairies by Wolves 

A Podcast Launch Bestie production

Okay, welcome back.

So for all of you that are listening today, we, if you're listening in real

time, when this has just launched, this is Thanksgiving week, uh, for

those of you in the us, or it's a national day of mourning, if you don't

observe Thanksgiving in the U S and so for us in our family, It will just

be my husband and my sister and her cat and myself and I am so excited.

Um, my sister and I are almost seven years apart.

And now that she is in her mid twenties and I'm in my early

thirties, we've gotten along really, really well the last few years.

And.

Frequently get mistaken for twins, which is very flattering since I am older.

I will take being mistaken for a 25 year old any day.

So we have, this is going to be a really educational listen.

I'm going to tell you the exact pieces you need.

So go ahead and grab a notebook to write all of this down.

We're going to talk about exactly what you need to have.

In order to set your business foundation up for success.

So I'll wait for just a hot second or pause this, go get a notebook,

pull your laptop up, pull your phone notes up, whatever you need.

And we're going to walk through all the foundational information that you need.

So you know why strategy is important?

You know why just having tips is not going to cut it.

And you understand, like you've heard some of the other podcast or

we have chatted about exactly why you need to understand your numbers in

order to have a successful business.

So we're going to kick off number one with your infrastructure and your foundation.

So this is.

Business entity types and registration.

So this is like, should you be a sole proprietor or should you be an LLC?

Should you be an escort?

Should you be a partnership nailing down?

Which one of those is the right fit for you and your circumstances?

You need to make sure that you are then registered.

Once you pick that entity type, you need to be registered with the IRS and

registered in the state that you live.

And sometimes you also have to be registered in your

county, which is really fun.

Um, that's not as common.

And once you have those pieces done, please we'll talk, we'll go into this in

more depth, but like don't do legal zone.

It is going to cost you so much more.

And.

They really don't do everything that you need.

So if you need help a go to combat money podcast.com, because we teach this in my

course, get your finance shit together.

And we also do business entity setups.

So reach out, let us know if you need help with it.

Um, but make sure most importantly, that you're setting yourself up for

success with what you're choosing.

So a lot of times.

Oh, God, I've had clients that will do a partnership and they

don't really need a partnership.

Maybe they set up a partnership when they're going to be doing like a one-time.

You know, shared joint venture and they don't know if it's going to

be a recurring partnership yet.

Um, instead of setting up a brand new business for that, it would have been a

lot easier for one of those partners to just run the business and their joint

venture through one of their businesses and pay the other one out their fair share

until you figure out that it's something that's going to actually be going.

Um, the other thing that I have seen happen.

Is people either getting bad advice or thinking they're going to grow faster

or not understanding what happens when you choose certain entities.

So nine times out of 10, even more than that, probably 9.9 times

out of 10, I'm going to recommend either a sole proprietor, a single

member, LLC, or a single member, LLC, with an S-corp election.

Um, I had a couple of people come to me that were made secret.

And see Corp's have a whole lot of other filings that have to happen.

They have quarterly filings that need to happen.

They have more in depth end of year taxes.

And for most of us, especially when we're just getting started.

And the first few years of our business, they're not necessary for

us to have a C Corp, designation.

So just making sure that you're really picking the entity type that is right

for you and your business, because like that's where you're starting.

If you start off on the wrong foot there, then the whole

thing, like, yeah, it's fixable.

Uh, but it can mean, you know, getting a different registration set up later,

opening different bank accounts later.

So take a hot second, make sure that you're set up the right way.

So then next, what you're going to want to do is you're going to want

to open a business bank account.

We've talked about that.

Why do you need a business bank account?

You need a business bank account, especially if you're an LLC or an LLC

with an S-corp election or an S-corp.

But even if you're a sole proprietor, you need a separate business bank account

because a lets you treat your business like a business B, it allows you to

actually see the profitability before you ever get your accounting software set.

And see it, lets you see if you're profitable, once you're looking

at your income and expenses and D it makes it so much easier for tax

time, because I can not tell you.

And we do cleanups all the time for people and it can be a monster of

a project, especially if you have, you know, seven or eight different

accounts between credit card accounts, personal accounts, PayPal, Venmo,

and everything is all over the place.

If you're doing it yourself, there's a very good chance.

Things will be missed.

And if you're having someone else do it, you're going to be paying more

than you would be need to be paying.

If you had one, two or even three dedicated accounts.

So a makes things way cleaner right off the bat to have separate business

accounts and makes it much easier if you decide to outsource in the future, if you

have everything running through there.

So what that looks like.

Setting up somewhere like chase Wells Fargo, bank of America, you know,

they're the big banks, but you want to make sure, especially if you know,

you're going to be working with an accounting software, you want to make

sure that the bank that you go with integrates with the accounting software

chases, my personal favorites, uh, for a lot of reasons, this is not paid.

Chase B.

Hear this?

Hello.

The only downfall is that you generally can't set an account up online.

They'll say that you can you'll get started.

Then they'll say you have to come in and call your local branch, make an

appointment portion out an hour to an hour and a half, ask them what you need before.

But generally you need your state registration, your IRS

registration, and sometimes the certificate of good standing.

And then your.

You go in, you open the business bank account, and if you're a sole proprietor

or switching to an LLC, or if you've been just like running it under your

personal name and you're opening, you know, a legitimate business with a

different name, with a new EIN, all of those will have to have a new bank

account set up because if you're moving from having a social security number

to having an EAN, or you're moving from one EIN to another EIN, our social

security numbers or identifying number.

For your business.

So if you switch entity types, so like from a sole proprietor to a single

member, LLC, you get a new EIN number.

When you get a new EA number, you have to open a new bank account.

I know that was EIN a lot of times.

So just hold your butts for a second.

You've picked what type of entity you're going to be in?

What works best for you right now?

Again, one of my favorites when you're just getting started generally as

a single member, LLC, it's really easy to convert to an S Corp later.

Number two, they're going to open business bank accounts.

I normally recommend a checking, a savings and a credit card if you're able to do it.

That's the other reason that I like.

They're really good about giving newer or first-time business

owners, decent lines of credit.

Most of my clients get approved for somewhere between five and $10,000

credit cards for their business.

Again, using the business EIN the reason it can be so difficult is

because your business is brand new generally, and doesn't have any credit.

And until you've established credit, some of the banks can be really hesitant.

Wells Fargo, for example, my credit score when I applied for it, like seven

years ago was in the high seven hundreds.

And it was just good for those of you that aren't up to speed on credit scores, which

the flashcard talked about in season two.

Um, Wells Fargo gave me a $600 line of credit on my credit card.

For my business.

Keep in mind, I had almost a $20,000 credit card with them personally.

Um, I had to put a deposit down of $600 that they held for, I think,

a year to prove that my business wasn't going to run rampant with the

credit, you know, all $600 of it.

And after that year, they then gave me the $600 back and converted

it to a regular credit cards.

Avoid my Wells Fargo debacle.

If you can, um, chase is really great for actually giving you

a workable line of credit.

So once that's done.

Figure out what you need, nail your services down, nail your

pricing down, make sure that you're charging enough, make sure that

you're confident in your prices.

You're confident in your service or your product offerings and figure

out if you need to have liability insurance, Arizona, missions,

insurance, um, you know, anything that you need to be covered there.

And also true.

And see if you need to have your contract set up.

Um, generally this is something that you can get.

There's multiple different places where you can find contracts.

I really recommend not just copying and pasting one, getting one, putting

a little bit of cash up front and making sure that you're covered between

a contract and LLC and insurance.

You should be in a really good spot in your business.

So registration, entity type business bank account.

Contracts and insurance, then here comes the good part.

We could start selling and making money.

So we're launching, we're selling, we're making money, we're

increasing our prices and we're tracking our income and expenses.

So again, with that business bank account set up that you have going on generally.

Put all of your expenses on the credit card.

If you've got one, all of your income comes into the checking and your taxes.

Your tech savings goes into your savings account, and then you can still pay

yourself as needed from there, but either get zero set up, get QuickBooks,

set up, get something taken care of so that you can start tracking.

Your business, right?

Offs, your deductions, your income, so that you're not having to do

it all at the end of the year.

Can you do it all at the end of the year?

Yes.

Is there a chance you're going to miss things.

You're going to make errors.

You're going to be super stressed, trying to do it at the last

minute apps fricking lately.

Uh, With one exception.

I had one person sweet human that she is come to me two weeks before the

tax deadline, three or four years ago.

I think it was three years ago now.

Hey, I know I have nothing together for last year.

I really want your help.

And I really want to get my taxes filed on time.

And she got ahold of us at just the right time.

I'd wrapped up all of her other returns everyone's taken care of.

And she was so.

Fucking proactive.

We got everything done like her entire year in that two weeks and got

her taxes filed on time, but it was such a collaborative effort and we

put so many hours in to get it done.

And had she been doing that every month or every week or even every

quarter, she would have been in such a less stressed out space and still

been able to get our taxes filed on.

She's now a regular client of mine.

She's a retainer client as an associate bookkeeping client

and a, her everything is done.

It's done.

And she's so happy.

Like we take care of all of that, which has been so good, but we cover

how to set up different accounting, softwares, how to audit proof, your

business, what receipts you need to be saving, how to price yourself.

Business budgeting and the reports that you need to be looking

at and advanced accounting.

So like when you have something you pay for a coach and a

personal card, how do you get that into your accounting software?

What actually counts as a.

Expense.

And how should I categorize things as an advertising?

Is it contractors, you know, where do things fall?

How many different categories should I create?

How detailed do I need to be?

How many different categories do I need to have?

So we cover all of that in the, get your finance shit together, self

study course, and it's self paced.

You were able to either dive in and go through all of it in order, but you can

also hop in like, say it's tax time.

Say it's time to file 10 90 nines for your contractors.

You can just hop in and pull standalone modules out and go through

them on their own as you need them.

So you don't have to sit here and commit like hours and hours

to go through the entire thing.

So make sure you go to confident money podcast.com.

And you check that out cause it's get your finance shit together.

Self-study course super, super beneficial.

Especially coming into tax time.

It gives you everything that you need to go from.

I think I have a business.

I want to do two.

I filed my taxes as a business owner, so covers infrastructure

and foundation getting stuff.

How to do, you know what you need to do free with your bank accounts, income,

and expenses that are deductible, how to count them, how to categorize

them, how to set up your different accounting, softwares, how to audit.

How to calculate and pay quarterly estimated taxes, how to file your taxes

and TurboTax, how to pay your taxes online and self-employment retirement options.

And then a whole bunch of different like state resources, federal resources,

uh, email templates for things like when you need a w nine from someone

also what w nine even is what a 10 99 is when you need to send them.

So it is like, I still can't believe how many things we covered in here.

So if you're needing that, go check it out.

confident money podcast.com or go directly to the website.

Caitlin magnuson.com and the get your financial debt together.

Self study course.

Um, it is literally.

People.

Absolutely love it.

And they love that it's self paced.

So business foundations covered everything that you need.

You don't need.

If you're a single member, LLC, if you're a sole proprietor for tax time,

cause it's like one of the biggest questions you don't have separate tax

returns until you become an escort.

You have a couple of extra sheets or schedules in your personal taxes.

And also number one, tip, if you decide like you skip ahead or you end up in

the middle of this and you decide to pay quarterly estimated taxes, pay

quarterly estimated taxes as an individual with your social security number.

Even if you have an EA.

Because your business does not have income taxes at this point, all of the

profit passes through to you personally.

And we'll dive into that further actually in just a couple of episodes.

So.

Enjoy your week.

I hope that you are all doing something that is supportive, whether that's

hanging out with family, doing your own thing, ordering takeout.

Our family favorite.

sister, my husband and I all don't like Turkey.

So we're going to be doing a roasted chicken, which I'm very excited

for and are famous or infamous, depending on where we're at.

Uh, candied bourbon pecan sweet potatoes.

So if you've had sweet potatoes with marshmallows and you're like,

ah, these are nothing like that.

It is literally.

Sweet potatoes with bourbon and a egg.

And I use a coconut cream because I'm dairy free and the topping is

shortening or, you know, some sort of butter substitute pecans and brown sugar

and oh, and a bunch of vanilla in it.

And then you basically cook it with that crust on top.

So good.

So good.

So SU and tons of olives because we still definitely do alien thinkers in our house.

So I hope you guys have a great rest of your week tune in next week.

We are going to be continuing to chat through all of the things that you

need to know to set your business up for success, to maximize your taxes