Where are you located in Michigan?
What license are you waiting on? Is it the Painting/decorating license under Maintenance and Alteration?
Yes, the best way to go for now is LLC. It protects everything of yours personally outside of your company.
Ok, here we go:
First go to your county gov building and ask where in that building do I get a DBA (Doing Business As). So, that means have a name for your business before you do this. They will search while you wait if any other company has that name in the county. If not, pay $10 and fill out the form. Simple as that!!
Next, very important, have your accountant set up the LLC. If you don't have one, find one. Don't try to figure this out by yourself. Yes, there will be a fee. Mine wasn't bad because he has been doing my individual taxes for years. He called Lansing right then and there and within 15 minutes we were set. There are 4 forms to he filled out for the LLC - Articles of Organization, EIN, Michigan Taxes, Liability Questionaire. The Articles of Organization I had to send to Lansing along with $50. I received the confirmation in the mail within 2 weeks.
You do not, I repeat, do not need your License to set up the LLC.
Next, I then signed up for a class to get the Residential Builders License. This covers all the trades under Maintenance and Alteration. You only may want to get just the Painting/decorating license instead.
Remember, per Michigan State Law, you have to be licensed if receiving $600 or more for a job.
So far heres what you got:
DBA
LLC
License
Now, with the DBA in hand, go to your bank and set up a business checking account with a debit card. If you don't have a copy of the DBA they won't do it.
Next, go get Liability Insurance. Call around and get quotes. Be specific on the type of painting you are going to do. I started out with $350,000, but within two years jumped to $1M. My suggestion - get $1M to start.
If you spray, you better tell them, if you work over two stories you better tell them, etc. etc. etc. Remember, it's your ass if you have a claim and it's not covered.
This can go on forever, just call me at 269-998-0616, Miller's Painting, LLC Portage MI.
It's really tough on a small business owner financially when you run your business 100% legal.
Call, please
Mike Miller
PS - Once all this legal stuff is accomplished, you'll look back and say, boy that was easy setting all this up.
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