CREATING YOUR “FUNDATION”

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Must be able to be used in your domain.  if its not available in your domain DO NOT Proceed until you have found one that is available and a match.

Create a Godaddy Account at GoDaddy.com After creating your account choose your domain name (my business.com) and get professional email (Info@myBusiness.com) This email MUST be active for ALL of the following steps as you will use it for EVERYTHING beyond this.

Know your NAICS and SIC Codes.  Avoid High Risk Industries. Check your business against the codes at NAICS.com Choosing the proper code is one of the most Important things you can do in creating a fully fundable company and avoid being declined. You will be listing your NAICS and SIC on your articles of incorporation, as well as providing to the bank when you open your account so they don’t assign you one, which may be incorrect. In the steps to follow. 

Your registered agent helps keep your business private and will receive any official documents if served on your companies behalf.  We recommend Yourregisteredagents.com You will need this for the Articles of Incorporation. 

File Articles of Incorporation with your Secretary of the State (In Florida it is Sunbiz.org). It is Improtant that you ONLY use the information you have created in the previous steps.  DO NOT DEVIATE!!   If you used “st” when setting up your office use “st” nerve, If you spelled out ”street” spell it out here.  Everything from this point forward MUST ALWAYS MATCH!!  Once articles have been approved and emailed to you PRINT and SAVE!  You will need this to open your bank account.

For the EIN go to IRS.Gov and get it for free.  Remember NO DEVIATIONNS!  Use EXACTLY the same information you used when registering your business.  The IRS will Issue your EIN immediately and it is IMPORTANT that you PRINT the EIN page right away and save it.  You will need it to open your bank accounts.  If you Do not print and save it will cost you weeks if not months on creating your profile

This is the step that takes the most time.  You can register with D&B for free, however it can take up to 30 days to get your D&B Number that will be used establishing your business credit file.  They do offer paid services to get it faster, however it IS NOT necessary to pay to get your number

If you Used Opus this is already done for you.  If you chose another service you will have to handle this on your own.

Get your business listed on Google and Yelp.  If you used Opus as your service CLICK HERE for a step by step guide to your listing.  If you used another service please contact them as to their best practices for this step

Create Business Accounts for social media.  FB, IG, X, Tik Tok, etc. (The more the better). The contact info on your pages must match all of the information that was filed with Secretary of State, IRS and such.  Creditors do look for Social Media like the rest of us. 

Open one Account with a National Major Bank and A second account with a local or national credit union. 

Even if you are not intending to accept credit cards, it is important that you have 2 credit card processors as you are trying to create as thick a profile as you can.  Processors like Square, Stripe, Godaddy Payments and Clover should be used.  If you are going to accept credit card payments it is important so if one of the processors goes down or freezes your account for audit (this happens more than you’d imagine), you have another processor available and no down time