Recap:

It's been about 7 months that I've been assisting as the intern for the back-office operations.  Overall, once the initial craze was over, the back office work has settled down and, for the most part, turned routine: involving weekly bills to be paid, payroll cards to be added, following up with vendors and lots and lots of filing away of invoices. When people see stores and businesses, I don't think they realize exactly how much back office work is involved!

As the final step of my blog, I wanted to summarize the initial start-up steps that I've learned during my internship with Honeyfish Poke Ventures, LLC.  Hopefully, my list below can serve as a helpful "back-office handy dandy tool" for young entrepreneurs starting business for the first time.

Step 1:  Initial decisions related to business:
              a. Type of business to begin
              b. Partners to work with
              c. Decide on a business name: Doing Business Name ("DBA")

Step 2:  I learned that everything about business is location, location and location.  We need to look for a good solid location to open a business.  Many things to consider, including foot traffic, car traffic, and weekday vs. weekend environment.

Step 3:  Step up business entity by filing form LLC-1, Article of Organization with the CA Secretary of State. There are many different type of business entities to set up.  Depending on the type of business and number of business partners, the correct type of business entity can be decided.  Some of the options are C-corporation, S-corporation, Limited Liability Company, Limited Partnership and General Partnerships.

Step 4:  File for federal identification number ("FEIN") with the Internal Revenue Service by applying online with www.IRS.gov.  Every business entity must file a tax return using the assigned FEIN.

Step 5:  File State Employment ID # with Employment Development Dept ("EDD").

Step 6:  File Fictitious Business Name statement with the county recorder's office.  Prior to opening a business for profit, a business name must be chosen that is not already in use ("DBA"), and registered with the county.

Step 7:  Apply for business license at local city hall.

Step 8:  Open a bank account in the name of the business. Need to provide proof of Article of Organization, Fictitious Business Name and FEIN filings.

Step 9:  Open accounts with vendors and distributors.

Step 10: Set up Point of Service ("POS") system, which includes credit card system and cash registers.

Step 11:  File reseller's certificate with the CA State Board of Equalization.

Step 12: Set up job postings to hire employees.  A very common, popular place is the Craigslist and also on the business' website (if there is one already set up).  Once the interviews have been completed and employees hired, coordinate schedule for the initial training sessions.

Step 13: Set-up payroll service with payroll companies. This step must be done immediately shortly after hiring new employees since they will need to be paid as soon as they begin training.

Step 14: Create advertisements, such as Yelp accounts and the business's own website.

Step 15: Within the first 90 days of opening business, file State of Information form LLC12 with the Secretary of State.

Now, you are ready to open for business!  This process has been very exciting for me.  Even if I couldn't be hands-on with some of the steps, this experience gave me a solid beginner's experience of what setting up a business really entails. I never would have guessed at all the behind the scene steps required to set up a single business.  Looking forward to opening a business of my own one of these days and I am ready!

Now back to back-office work again.

It has been almost 2 and a half months since our LLC was formed. Now, the final step of the initial set-up filings, the Statement of Information. 

Within the first 90 days of formation of a California LLC, we are required to file a form called Statement of Information, Form LLC 12. This form is a mandatory form that needs to be filed with the CA secretary of state, where we report the information of the LLC, including name, address, and the owner's information. We are required to put in the most updated partnership information as it currently stands. However, if for some reason there are changes that occur on the information that was disclosed with the original filings, we can update that information by filing a new form, LLC 12. This form must be filed every two years.

Looks like the filing fee is fairly reasonable, only $25. However, I found out that if we fail to file it or forget to update it or forget to file every two years, there are penalties. I am not sure if a reminder notice will be sent to us, so we better make sure to put it on our calendar of to do two years later. This form must be mailed with a $25 check addressed to the CA SOS. It appears that many things are still done by paper. It seems it would be so much easier to be filed online.

Business is underway. Unfortunately, it is still a little slow, mainly due to the constant rain. I wanted to talk about hiring employees today.

It seems finding the right employee could be very hard. We first advertised open positions on Craigslist and our website @ http://www.honeyfishpoke.com/

We received almost 30 applicants. Application pool included older adults and young adults looking for full time positions, and students are usually looking for part time jobs, hoping that it will turn into full time summer jobs later. We were very fortunate that we hired a very dependable store general manager. He used to be one of my dad's past employees. Because my dad liked him as an employee, he had kept in touch. The story is that when he left for the army, my dad mentioned to him that he will always have a job for him if he ever wanted to return. Upon finishing his enlistment, he called my dad to let him know that he will be moving to Arizona instead of settling down in California. My dad was disappointed but he wished him well. Couple months later, he called my dad and said he wanted to move back to California after all. My dad was ecstatic and offered him a job as the store general manager. The timing was as if it was meant to be.

My dad and the store manager interviewed approximately 20 applicants. Within a span of 5-7 days, they hired 10 applicants. These 10 new employees will be rotated between morning shift, night shift, and weekend shift. My dad mentioned how difficult it is to gauge what type of employee a person will end up being. It turns out in the first few weeks of the business, 3 of his newly hired employees ended up leaving, either by our choice or theirs.

Now that the employees were hired, our next step was to set up a payroll system by contracting with a payroll company. We decided to use Paychex. Options were reviewed and decided. I didn't realize that payroll system needs to be up and running. I realized that as soon as employees are hired, their hours needed to be accounted for immediately, including the time they spend training.

The rain has finally stopped. We are hoping our business will have a little more momentum. With poke being a cold dish, weather seemed to have a big impact on number of customers. I guess rain probably has an impact on people's behavior. They do not seem to want to come out of the house to eat. Lunch has not been too bad, but dinner time, I have been told, has been pretty slow. Now that rain is over, hello customers!

Our yelp reviews are doing pretty good. We are currently at 4.5 stars with 12 reviews. Hopefully we can keep this up. Staying 4 stars or above is important!

It has been a couple days since the business has fully opened. However, mother nature has not been cooperating with us. Off and on, rain is keeping customers indoors. We are thinking about some advertisements. 

Usually, around this time after initial business set up, the main website for a business should also be created. Depending on how much funds we have at our disposal, we can either hire an outside consultant to create a website for us, or we can set one up by using a self-service website.

We were also finally able to create a yelp account for this location. Yelp seems to have a huge impact to popularity of a restaurant. I don't blame them. I, too, search through yelp reviews before deciding where to eat. It is amazing how important yelp has become.

We are now in full business. Now that we have employees working for our store, we need to make arrangements to pay them payroll. We have contacted and set up an account at Paychex, the payroll company.

Once the account has been set up, the payroll company processes all paychecks and issues direct diposits to our employees. Some younger employees(We have student employees working part time) who do not necessarily have bank accounts may ask us for hard copies of the checks. We pay our payroll on a by montly basis. My dad will collect all hours worked by employee and submit this and their hourly rate to the payroll company so that the payroll checks can be calculated and issued.

We had a successful soft opening over the weekend. We are all very excited. Our business location shows lot of potential.

Our next step for the back office set up involves filing a  reseller's certificate with the CA State Board of Equalization, A reseller's certificate is basically a registration of our business of our business with the state to let the know that we are collecting and paying sales taxes. This is a mandatory requirement for all businesses. Once the certificate is approved, we will be receiving a monthly reminder from the State Board of Equalization for the monthly payments due which reflects reporting of the total sales and use tax from our customers. This payment will be made online through a bank draft. We then follow with a quarterly tax return to reconcile the amounts.