One of the questions I get all the time is how to open up a business account specifically a business bank account and get a DBA. If you do not know what a DBA is, it is a legal document that you file showing that you are “doing business as” a name other than your own. This allows you to do all of the things you need to do including opening bank accounts using that name. I have completed this process a few times now and it is very important if you are going to be starting a business. In fact, you cannot open a business bank account without a DBA or some other document showing that you are a legal business and what kind of a business entity your company is. There are a number of different types and I will talk about that in another video. Some of those different types there are LLC, S-Corp, C-Corp or just being a sole proprietor. So, for instance, with Effective Ecommerce, my company, I turned it into a DBA. Since there is not a lot of liability, I felt there was no reason to deal with all of the headaches and paperwork and pay all the money needed to turn it into an LLC or an S-Corp. It is not like a lot of people are going to be able to sue me over something and if they did, they probably would not win. So, I do not really need to protect myself. Now, if you are selling supplements or something that potentially could be dangerous, an LLC is probably much more interesting but that is the subject of another video. So, let’s save that for another time.

The first step if you want to get a business bank account is to become some kind of an entity. I recommend just going with the DBA. If you are not sure which one to do, you might want to talk to an accountant or lawyer. I talked to a tax account about this and he said that if I was doing under $500,000 a year, I should just set it up as a DBA because it is so much cheaper. You can go on Legal Zoom. It is only $99 and you can get a DBA. So the whole process is to fill out and file the appropriate paperwork which Legal Zoom walks you through. You then have to post an ad, which Legal Zoom will also do for you, in some kind of a newspaper declaring that you are a business so that the public is notified of your business name. This protects you from someone else wanting to use your name or trying to say that you are stealing their name. So, to avoid complications, pay the $99, go to legalzoom.com, file for a DBA. Once you get your DBA paperwork, you can take it to a bank. I personally highly recommend going with US Bank. The reason is a lot of other banks want to charge you. US Bank said they will allow you to have a small business account for free which is really nice. I do not remember exactly what the minimums are but it is pretty low minimums or maybe there is no minimum. I will have to double check on that but that would be the next step and then once you have your bank account, I recommend for tax purposes all of your business transactions go through that bank account. Also, get a separate dedicated credit card that all your business expenses go through. Those two things make taxes so much easier. Do not intermingle your personal and business transactions. There are so many different reasons not to do that.

So, that is it for this video. If you have any questions, please leave them in the comments section below. If you liked this vide, make sure you click the “Subscribe” button. Last, if you want some free tools, a bunch of different checklists and other marketing tools, I have my free ecommerce success pact. You can get it by clicking up here.

That is it for this video.. I hope you enjoyed it and if you have any questions, please let me know. Thank you so much.