Papers and Permissions I
The following entry merely reflects my own path through the legal jungle. I’m not a lawyer, and this isn’t legal advice. If you need that, go find someone with a law degree and a billable hour rate.
It’s time for more legal headaches! To formally operate a business, several agencies need to be notified, an as I live in the “Evergreen State” of Washington, I need to first register with the Washington Secretary of State. There are many steps to registering a company, and it isn’t for every type of business. The number 1 reason people register an LLC is for the “limited liability” that it provides. If you are selling a product or service, you don’t want to be personally liable if it ends up hurting someone.
I should also mention here that LLCs are not the only type of company that you can register. Depending on your legal standings, you could also set up a sole proprietorship, partnerships, and corporations.
Caption: Filling out forms for the Washington SoS.
By digging around a bit on your state’s SoS website, you will be sure to find either the portal to register online or a form to print out and mail in. In my case, I printed out the form (called the Certificate of Formation), read the instructions carefully, filled it out, dropped it into an envelope with a check for the $180 fee, and mailed it off.
Caption: Dropping the envelope with the application form into the mailbox.
One of the questions I asked myself during this was “how much of my personal information do I want on here?” All of the information should be legally accurate, but this form will also be made entirely public. Your name, address, phone number, email, etc. will all be out in the world. An alternative to this is paying a commercial “registered agent”. Writing in their contact information instead of yours and having them represent your business sounds great until you consider their pricing…
Either way, this is also the place where you nail down the legal name of your business. Bonae Artis can be your business name unofficially, but in many places you are asked your legal business name. For an LLC, this name has many requirements, such as including the letters “LLC” in the name. Thus, “Bonae Artis LLC” became official.