by Amanda Siska
Are You Ready?
What are your goals for your business? What do you want to spend your time doing? A lot of people get to a place with their business where they’re happy making their products, and they sell fairly well at craft events or online. The next step sounds like it should be selling wholesale, but there are quite a few steps that you should consider before diving right in. Here are some of the highlights that I touched on in my recent workshop for I Heart Art: Portland. The first step is to ask yourself a lot of questions:
- Do you need a business license?
- Do you need a tax permit?
- Do you need a federal tax ID number?
- Do you need other permits or approvals?
Having employees involves quite a bit of legal documentation and often specific types of insurance (like worker’s compensation insurance, unemployment insurance, and liability insurance). Make sure everything is legit so you can easily expand when you need to, and you can claim all the proper deductions on your taxes.
