Making It Real:
by Melissa Olivero
http://www.melsatticimages.com/

So what will make your business real to you? Letting your home state and the IRS know that you are in business. It sounds scary, doesn't it? It really isn't though, I promise.

I can only speak for what we did as Florida residents to set up my husband's corporation. We are very lucky to live here in that almost all the necessary paperwork was able to be completed online. I will also mention that a close family friend who happens to be an accountant was sitting next to us as we did this.

So, the first thing we did was to find our state's Division of Corporations (http://www.sunbiz.org/). Then we checked to see if the Corporation name was already being used. In his case, that is: Olivero, Inc. We also checked to see if the DBA names (Doing Business As) were being used. In his case, those are: Almost Anything Services and MelsAttic™. Once those were cleared, then we filed the appropriate paperwork and paid the fees.

He also had to apply for an EIN number (Employer Identification Number). You can find all the needed information here at the IRS site.

Once his Articles of Incorporation, Fictitious Name and other documentation, he then opened a business account. Washington Mutual offers a free business checking account.

That's about it. He is working on setting up a finance software program to help keep everything in order. We are looking into offline advertising though most business comes from word of mouth.

The following is a listing of individual state websites' business sections:

Alabama
Alaska
Arizona
Arkansas
California
Colorado
Connecticut
Delaware
Florida
Georgia
Hawaii
Idaho
Illinois
Indiana
Iowa
Kansas
Kentucky
Louisiana
Maine
Maryland
Massachusetts
Michigan
Minnesota
Mississippi
Missouri
Montana
Nebraska
Nevada
New Hampshire
New Jersey
New Mexico
New York
North Carolina
North Dakota
Ohio
Oklahoma
Oregon
Pennsylvania
Rhode Island
South Carolina
South Dakota
Tennessee
Texas
Utah
Vermont
Virginia
Washington
West Virginia
Wisconsin
Wyoming

Hopefully, this will help get you going with confidence.