Experienced in repair, new to owning business

[APlusAutoGlass]

Okay. I've been doing windshield repair for about a year now, but as of recently I am taking things into my own hands and starting my own mobile shop. I know I need to get Liability Insurance of 500,000, but what else do I need to get started? I plan on billing directly since that is what the company I have worked at the past year has always done. I am very familiar with making calls to the Glass Dept's of Ins Companies with the Insured alongside me. Also, very familiar with filling out invoices and recieving referral/dispatch number. The question i have is....Do I need a Tax ID? Also, since I'm billing directly do I still need to sign up with Lynx? Ive got all the hands-on aspects of the business down, just need someone to fill me in on the EXACT steps i need to take to make my business legit so that when the insurance companies ask for my "shop telephone number" I can give them my number and it will show up on their system as my mobile shop.....any help is appreciated!

[t4k]

Try the search feature of this forum located in the upper right hand corner of this page. It works a treat.

[Jason74]

Try the search feature of this forum located in the upper right hand corner of this page. It works a treat.

Since nearly everything under the sun has already been discussed at on time or another on this forum, why not just shut the new post feature down and only leave the archives open to be searched? Then you would never have to be bothered by a new guy full of questions making the mistake asking a question that has possibly already been ask?

As a newbie, I often searched for questions I had. Sometimes the search was successful, but other times, I could only find bits and pieces that needed a little bit more clarity. The only way to get that clarity was to ask the question in my own way.

If you must encourage a newbie to use the search feature (which certainly needs to be done every now and then), how about as least saying "hello" and "welcome!" and then proceed to tell them about the useful search feature. The extra moment it takes to be polite could be the difference between someone truly feeling welcome and encouraged to learn from the forum versus someone feeling afraid to ever ask anything again.

Just a newbie's 2 cents (if its worth even that much).

Jason

[Brent Deines]

Okay. I've been doing windshield repair for about a year now, but as of recently I am taking things into my own hands and starting my own mobile shop. I know I need to get Liability Insurance of 500,000, but what else do I need to get started? I plan on billing directly since that is what the company I have worked at the past year has always done. I am very familiar with making calls to the Glass Dept's of Ins Companies with the Insured alongside me. Also, very familiar with filling out invoices and recieving referral/dispatch number. The question i have is....Do I need a Tax ID? Also, since I'm billing directly do I still need to sign up with Lynx? Ive got all the hands-on aspects of the business down, just need someone to fill me in on the EXACT steps i need to take to make my business legit so that when the insurance companies ask for my "shop telephone number" I can give them my number and it will show up on their system as my mobile shop.....any help is appreciated!

Jason is absolutely right. I used to try to welcome every newcomer to the forum, but must confess that I have gotten remiss about doing so. Welcome to the windshield repair forum APlusAutoGlass!

I would need to know a lot more about you to give you the EXACT steps you need to take to make your business legit, but I will throw a few things out there and invite you to give me a call if you would like to discuss your business startup strategy in detail.

Do you need a Tax ID? That depends on if you plan to be a sole proprietor, LLC, partnership, or corporation. For instance, if you to be a sole proprietor with an assumed business name you can just use your social security number, but if you are going to form a corporation you will need a federal tax ID. There are advantages and disadvantages to each type of business ownership that I will not attempt to address here. I strongly recommend that you contact a CPA for advice about how to structure your business. I started as a sole proprietorship because it was inexpensive and easy, then purchased a sub chapter C corporation which I changed to a sub chapter S corporation as recommended by my accountant, however, there was a price to pay for doing things that way so again, spending a few bucks on a CPA before you go any further is money well spent in my opinion.

Do you need to sign on with Lynx? My personal opinion is that it will make your life easier when you try to bill insurance companies who prefer to do all their billing through Lynx. Is it necessary to do business? No. Will it make it easier to bill certain insurance companies? In my opinion, yes. Now if you are already direct billing "every" insurance company and are not having any problems doing so, then obviously you would not need to sign up with Lynx, but if that were the case I doubt you would be asking the question. Although there are a lot of horror stories about signing up with Lynx, it really is not all that difficult if you just follow their instructions very carefully and you meet their requirements for liability insurance, vehicle signage, telephone and fax, etc. You did not mention SGC, Harmon, or the other networks, but you may want to consider signing up with them as well if you plan to do a lot of insurance work.

Depending one the state you live in and the business model you adopt you may need a business license and you may need to file with the state corporations division. Once you figure out how your company will be organized your CPA can likely steer you in the right direction to take care of these things as well. Of course these days you can also get that information by typing your questions into google, then calling the appropriate state agency.

We don't have sales tax in Oregon so I am certainly no expert on that topic, but I would recommend that you look up your state's laws concerning sales tax, and have it in hand when you call your state tax authority office. Be sure you explain that you do not sell or install a product and you do not remove or install glass, unless of course you do sell a product and/or install glass. Be honest and respectful, be very clear about your business model, and don't be afraid to cite the law if what they tell you is not consistent.

Feel free to give our office a call if we can be of further assistance.

[t4k]

Hello and welcome to the forum.

Try the search feature of this forum located in the upper right hand corner of this page. It works a treat.

[just chippen away]

t4K

Thumbs up here....
Oh boy, more hot water for me....

[bpdenverco]

I will assume you will be doing a DBA, not a llc/corp..You do not need a tax id number. Your social security number, is your tax ID number. you can get a tax id, but you really dont need it.