Home Businesses and Business Checking
If you have started a home business, you might not think much about how the income from that business is separated from the rest of your personal finances–at first. Most financial planners encourage people starting a home business to take great pains to keep business expenses and income separate. The Internal Revenue Service requires self-employed people and home business owners to justify any deductions and expenses for the business, and it’s far easier to show exactly what those expenses are by ordering checks specifically for your business. Keeping your custom personal checks reserved for personal business is a way to keep the business paper trail uncluttered and easy to prove.
When you order checks for your business, you will need to provide a tax identification number or your Social Security number. For security reasons, it’s best to leave this data off of the checks itself, but there is plenty of information that should be included when you order checks online. Start with the company logo, name and address. Be sure to add your website address and phone number. You may wonder why it’s so important to include all this information, but when you have a new business and need to order goods or services, you want people to be made aware of who you are and what you do when you pay them for those business-related expenses.
Some people would rather get an ATM debit card or corporate credit card and pay that way; by ordering checks online you get your name and website in front of people in ways paying by credit card never could. It’s a shrewd marketing technique especially useful for service-based businesses or websites. You should keep the colors and designs of your business checks simple and easy to read, just like any other type of marketing. In the early stages of your business growth, any chance to expose your brand to a potential customer is worth its weight in gold.
The key to making a business checking account work for the business is to get in the habit of using your business checks every time you need to spend money to make money. It is difficult for some to get used to the second set of checks, but over time it becomes habit. Ordering checks especially for your business needs will keep the IRS and your tax preparer happy.
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