Online Service Business

If you want to start a small business, but you do not want to open a storefront or buy trucks or employ a large staff, you might consider an online service business. Starting a small business as a home business allows you to use your computer and internet connection to make money.

You will still need a business plan for business start up. Writing and preparing a business plan will force you to consider every aspect of your business and you will be less likely to be surprised by an unanticipated issue or problem. 

There are four major considerations in starting an online business: 

1.    Do you need a web site to promote and run your home service business? An online business web site allows you to provide information to your prospective clients, gives your clients a central point of contact and, depending on how you intend to collect your fees, a service business web site can provide a location to collect payments. Which brings us to our next point!

2.  Starting a small business online also requires that you develop a payment collection methodology. You do not have to buy software or pay someone to create a detailed payment system. You can provide a payment method for your home service business by using the most popular online payment processing web site. All you need is a free account, which you can set up in about five minutes. In exchange the online processing company will charge a small percentage of your service business income as a processing fee. You can create and copy the HTML code directly onto your web site and you don’t need to be a programmer to do so. The code is created for you and all you have to do is copy and paste it onto your site. You can find this payment processing company by using your search engine and searching for keywords like ‘online payment processing’.

3.    You’ll need a small business bookkeeping system. You can buy this software at any office store or online. Whenever you bill and collect fees from a client, you will enter the transaction in the bookkeeping software program. At the end of the year, you can easily run reports to use for your tax filing.

4.    Go to the county seat in your community and get the forms to open a small business. For most small service businesses, most owners will establish a ‘sole proprietorship’. These businesses are easy to open and you can continue to file your taxes as an individual. You will also have to explore the state tax requirements for your business. In many states, service businesses do not have to charge state taxes. Make sure you understand whether you have to collect taxes from clients and pay them to the state so you do not get into a situation where you have to pay back taxes or penalties.