The Military Home Programs' Blog

After three moves in four years, my resume screamed at potential employers, “we move a lot.” I know many of my fellow military spouses have had this same experience, which leads us to looking at alternatives such as starting our own businesses. And all of our businesses have one thing in common – they require accurate bookkeeping, potential business licenses, and liability protection. Yikes!

The downfall is, if you don’t set up your business correctly from the start, you may end up spending a fortune in attorney and accounting fees to fix any mistakes. To keep this from happening, here are some easy tips to follow to ensure you get off to the right start!!

First and foremost, separate your business income and expenses from your personal ones. This will help tremendously when it comes to tax time. If you don’t have fancy letterhead or a huge sum of money to start, that’s okay. Just open a separate checking account to keep track of your business income and expenses. Some banks offer free business checking accounts. Also, designate one of your credit cards specifically for your business expenses and do not use it for anything else. You may also want to meet with a tax preparer to ensure you understand not only what deductions are available to you but also how to keep proper records for these deductions, such as your auto expenses or a home office deduction.

Second, look into any state requirements for a business license or any regulations that you need to be aware of to run your type of business for the state you run your business in.

And finally, make sure you have liability protection. This can be done by something as simple as purchasing insurance or it can become more complicated and expensive by setting up a limited liability company or a corporation. There are small business attorneys who will do a one hour consultation for free to discuss with you if and when you need to take your business to the next level of protection.

Many of us are experts in our fields but running our own businesses is new for us. So follow these simple steps and rest easy knowing you are off to a great start!