Starting a Sole Proprietorship In Atlanta
For quite a long time, I've been doing business as "ithought" but people have always paid me in cash or checks made out to me. I recently received a check made out to "ithought", but when I tried to deposit the check into my personal checking account, my bank turned me away and told me that I needed to register my business and provide them with several pieces of information to be able to deposit the check. This took a while to take care of and what follows are what you'll need to do if your find yourself in a similar situation. Read the whole thing so that you can combine steps (like money order acquiring and form notarizing) and avoid time wasting things (like going to the bank several times, or waiting on hold).
- Pick a name for your business. If this is your name, you can skip the next step, but if you want to make up your own name, continue on
- Register your "Doing Business As" (DBA) name.
- Register your business with the City of Atlanta. This is not required for a checking account, but I didn't find this out until later. It's called a "Business Tax Registration" in some places and a "Business License" in other places, and I'm pretty sure it's a good idea to have.
- Get your federal EIN here and make sure to have it delivered to you online. Write down the number somewhere, and print a copy of the document they provide you with.
- Head to your bank with a printed copy of your EIN document, the stamped copy of your name registration, and a photo ID and they will take care of the rest.
And that's it! You'll be able to use the check made out to your business as your opening deposit. Some additional information about all of this is available at:
Hopefully this will save you some time, but you may be waiting in line for a while at many or all of the places above, and some of them have odd hours. Note that many City of Atlanta facilities are closed on Fridays now due to city budget shortfalls.
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