Steps to follow when starting your new business
Starting up a new business can be a daunting and stressful experience, which many entrepreneurs struggle with. It is, indeed, a very complex and demanding process, which requires almost all of your time for the first number of months and it can be very easy to do things wrong.
The last thing you want is to make it more difficult for yourself, so here is a quick rundown of things to do when setting up your new business:
- Determine the business model structure for your company, which is the best fit for your company and for you.
- Decide on who the directors, shareholders and company secretary will be, at the early stages of starting your business.
- When your company is formed, register for taxes using Form TR2, paying particular attention to VAT registration.
- Open a bank account. You will need the company’s Certificate of Incorporation and Memo & Articles of Association. Ensure you have agreed credit terms.
- Ensure you have clear goals, KPIs and deadlines set in place. Make them very specific, ambitious, but realistic. Follow through on them.
- Claim audit exemption if available to your company.
- When designing your company’s VAT invoices, company stationery and website, ensure you are compliant with legislation.
- Decide how you will keep your books and records. Will you employ a bookkeeper or do it yourself? What software will you use? Remember to keep it simple.
- Register for electronic filing on Revenue Online Service www.revenue.ie and Companies Registration Office www.cro.ie.
These are just the initial steps to getting your business up and running. You can also set up an expense system for your employees in case they need to travel, design your social media policy, develop marketing strategy, structure the lead generation process, invest in the CRM software, etc.
Starting your own business is an incredibly demanding task but these steps will help to make your life a little bit easier and hopefully get rid of some of the stress.