Today we applied for a business license at the City Hall of La Habra. What I found out was that every city has a different procedure for receiving a business license.

Now that most of the necessary legal findings have been done, we are now ready to open a bank account for our business. You may think that setting up a bank account may not be very important so early in the setup, but it turns out bank accounts are necessary early in order to be able to accept credit card purchases. This is because there are more credit card users than cash customers. Even I use credit card.

Opening up a new bank account turned out to be very simple. My father already had a contact person he has been working with at the bank from his earlier businesses. So we were able to process all necessary paperwork via email and a simple phone call. We emailed them a certified copy of the SOS Article of Organization, Fictitious Business Name Statement, and the Federal ID Number. The bank account will be opened in the name of our new business entity. I learned how important it is to have good business connections.

Once the bank account was set up, we moved on to set up something called the Point of Service ("POS").  It's basically a register system used at the stores to manage cash and credit card registers.

One final account to open involved managing relationships with vendors and distributors. Separate accounts were required for each and every supply necessary to run our store. Most of the accounts were set up so that the necessary supplies would be delivered directly to our store.

We are almost towards the end of our back office filings. I am excited to announce that we are targeting the soft opening this weekend! (Soft opening refers to inviting various potential customers to try out our food without charging them)

So today my dad received the certified copy of the form LLC-1, Secretary of State Articles of Organization. And as SunDoc promised, it was processed within 24 hours. The first step neccessary to open a business is now complete. The form included a certified stamp by the Secretary of California, the date it was filed, and the SOS number of our LLC.

The next step is to file for a Federal Employment Indentification Number(FEIN) with the IRS. We were able to apply for this online at www.IRS.gov. The FEIN number was available immediately as soon as we completed the online form. I learned that form 941, Employer’s Quarterly Federal Tax Return, must be filed every quarter to report wages and payroll tax information. Then form 940, Employer's Annual Federal Unemployment Tax Return, must also be filed annually.

Similar to the FEIN, we needed to also file for the State Employment Identification Number with the Employment Development Department. This again, we were able to do by going to www.edd.ca.gov.

One additional preliminary step included filing the Ficticious Business Name Statement with the Orange County Recorder's Office. This is a public notice that is filed with the county that provides information about the business that is about to open in their county. It includes the DBA(Doing Business As) name and the ownership information of the DBA. Upon filing online, we received a form stamped by Hugh Nguyen, the Orange County Clerk Recorder.

The first thing that I get to participate in is to help with the business entity set up. Once it is set up, it will be the legal owner of the Poke bowl business. Then the entity, in turn, will be owned by my dad and his partners. This entity/owner relationship is necessary to avoid various legal issues.

Our business entity is going to be in the form of a partnership called a Limited Liability Company("LLC").

So today my dad and I went to to the California Secrertary of State office located in Downtown Los Angeles to form the LLC. However, we found out that the LLC forms are usually filed online and then must be mailed directly to the Sacramento office. It turns out, in order to do an in-person expedited service, we would need to drive all the way to Sacramento. So we came back home and did online research to figure out a way to resolve our issue. It was ironic that we went to the physical office to expedite our filings, but ended up wasting time instead.

(To provide a little bit of explanation on why we needed to expedite our filings: we are targeting our store to open at the beginning of the new year. We did not want to begin any related business and tax paperwork during 2016 just in case it created 2016 IRS tax filing requirements. I learned that unless the entity is <14 days of year end, a filing of the tax return is necessary, which means that even if we are only in business for two weeks, we have to pay a full $800 to the California State and have to incur the cost of preparing the entity's tax return. This means the total cost of being in business for two weeks will be a lot higher than the money we would be making during the same two week period. This basically answered my question as to why don't we open as soon as we can? So we decided to wait until 2017 to start our business formation and expedite it as much as possible.)

Upon researching, we found a business called SunDoc Filing that provides a service that included an in person drop off at the Sacramento SOS office. So we filled out their application and paid various fees including: filing fees, service fees, and extra expedite fees. This added up to be a whopping $600. Extra fees were paid, but hopefully, it will pay off in the end by being able to start our business on time in addition to avoiding 2016 tax filings.

My dad and his business partners have been researching and visiting many different shopping center locations for several weeks now. I am happy to report that we have finally found a location.

Our business is going to be located in La Habra, California. 

I did not get to participate in the various meetings but my dad and his partners contacted the center owner, signed the contract papers, and began construction.

While the physical construction is in progress, I began my internship for the back office.

One of the first steps of starting a business is to check public records to verify that the business name is not already being used. However, I did not need to do this because the business name was previous established with our very first location, which opened beginning of last year.  

Starting my internship in Poke bowl food business, I wanted to find out what exactly Poke is. According to Wikipedia, Poke is a raw fish salad served as an appetizer or as an entree in Hawaiian cuisine.

Poke is becoming very popular. I am guessing it is because people are becoming more and more health conscious. And with so many people choosing to become vegetarians and pescatarians, Poke seems to be a popular choice of dish among these people.

In order to build the foundation of a successful business venture, there are many different steps that must be taken. The main part of my internship will deal with the back office of the business. It will include various paperwork filings involved with setting up a business entity. This includes filing with the bank, the county, EDD, CA Secretary of State, CA Franchise Tax Board, and the IRS.