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Tips for New Designers
Miscellaneous words of wisdom, in no particular order.
1. When you start your business, contact:
- Your local Small Business Administration. They can give
you tips and the phone numbers you'll need to get going.
- Your county courthouse to get a D.B.A. (Doing Business
As), so you can legally conduct business under your business
name rather than your personal name.
- Your state comptroller to get a tax license and ID number.
- Research county and state requirements to see if there's
anything else you need to conduct business where you are.
Laws vary county to county and state to state.
- ***An accountant or tax advisor*** I was unpleasantly
surprised when I found out I had to pay a hefty penalty
at tax time because I didn't file quarterly estimated tax
payments. Estimated what!? And find out what expenses you
can claim on your tax return (save your receipts!).
2. Create admin and project tracking functions or
purchase small business software that will keep track of your
projects and billing. Once you get going and have more than
a handful of projects going on all at once, you'll need a
way to stay organized. I made my own system on MS Access that
works well for me. Here's what I keep track of:
- Contacts: Addresses, etc. for clients, subcontractors
and misc. points of contact.
- Estimates
- Projects (to track tasks and due dates)
- Invoices
- Payments received
- Expenses
- Archives of the above for each year.
3. Configure the signature line at the bottom of your
e-mails to display:
- Company name
- URL
- Address
- Phone
- FAX
- ICQ#
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