Sorry, Man. That hurts momentum;
Any way to get a living, breathing human on the phone to evaluate any possible expediting options that may exist??
ETA: This is one of those times when you could get lucky asking your local government official if they can help:
You probably have better options than traveling to Plainfield but, if you find yourself in a lurch for getting something notarized, I’m licensed.
Can you not just do business under your own name until you get a DBA? This is flummoxing me, as I set up my own business 20 years here in Chicago as a sole proprietorship, and I never had to deal with a newspaper announcement or really anything else. I do have a tax account with the state for sales tax, somehow. And a separate business account under my business name. But I do my business under “[my name] Photography,” so perhaps it wasn’t necessary.
I’ve actually spoken with two – one at the bank and one at the county. There’s no way to expedite the county process, but the banker said they might be able to open the account based on my DBA application.
Much appreciated! But that’s the easy part – I can do it tomorrow. The hard, time-consuming part is the stupid newspaper listings.
The very question I asked the banker. She said no, unless I have some sort of documentation that I’m a business, they can only open a personal account. (Maybe I need to inquire at another bank.)
In any case, this ain’t the end of the world. I can still take cash and PayPal.
Scope out where the nearest ATMs are in case someone wants to get cash. Also, setup a Venmo account. I think that’s a more popular way to xfer money than PayPal.
Yikes!
If you mean a DBA (Doing business as) it took me IIRC about ten or fifteen minutes at the county offices. So I wouldn’t have known to warn you of that. If you mean something else, I don’t know what it is and you don’t need it here, so I still wouldn’t have known to warn you of it.
Right – that’s the easy part.
But then I have to publish a notice in a newspaper for three consecutive weeks. Because Illinois.
Ah. I didn’t have to do that here.
I think they checked their records to see whether anybody had already filed for a DBA under that name in the county, or maybe even in the state. Maybe whoever filed first got priority.
Somebody in another state definitely has the same name; but they’re nowhere near me and sell mostly processed stuff, while I’m doing local fresh produce. Only possible confusion would be searching for the name online; and I’ve noticed otherwise when myself looking up somebody that doing this will often bring up multiple businesses in different parts of the country, sometimes doing different things.
I did a US trademark search and no one in the history of the country has ever trademarked “Waukegan Music Exchange.”
Yet I have to do this ridiculous exercise just in case one of the old farts who actually reads the tiny print in these sections of the paper has been doing business under that name.
(It makes me realize that people who complain about the business environment in this state aren’t all brainwashed MAGAts.)
I agree, get Venmo. I don’t think most young people have PayPal. When I go to toy shows almost all of the vendors take it. And it’s not some business account, I’m just sending money to @Jack-R-Smith-432.
You can get a QR code from PayPal and Venmo. Here’s a link for how to get PayPal’s. I’m not sure if you could print one out from Venmo, it just shows up in the app.
I’d recommend getting Zelle as well. Also a platform many in the younger than PayPal set use. I think the difference between Zelle and Venmo is primarily which one your bank decided to partner with.
Hmm, I think Zelle partners with banks, Venmo just takes any debit card. Doesn’t hurt to get Zelle but I don’t think it’s as important as Venmo.
Theoretically, you can stick it to the man and take payments to your personal bank account.
Right now you’re just a guy selling his record collection at a local fair. At some point in the future you’re thinking about opening up an ongoing business concern called Waukegan Music Exchange.
I think that is relatively regional. Around me, Zelle is accepted more than Venmo. I’m in a big college town, perhaps that is why.
And Venmo links with lots of banks, as well as debit cards. From Linked In:
… * Venmo officially partners with many top U.S. banks for account connectivity.
Ah that’s what it is. I have a dinky credit union, so neither Zelle nor Venmo works “with my bank.” I had to go out and get a debit card (I’ve never needed a debit card!) for my credit union account so I could use Venmo. Once I had Venmo, and someone I know used Zelle with their bank, I used the same debit card to get a Zelle account to send them money.
So yes, you are right - some banks connect directly with Zelle, probably more banks than connect with Venmo. But for either of them you are able to connect with just a debit card. More people are probably going to connect to the app that their bank urges them to connect with directly.
Anyway - the more payment apps the better when it comes to taking money! At least for this event (I have them all! I don’t want to bar people from being able to pay me)
I agree!
I have just Zelle because that’s what my local, very reliable main bank uses. I don’t have Venmo, which my mortgage holding US Bank uses, because US Bank is prone to SNAFUs and absolutely impossible to deal with because their customer service doesn’t involve humans, only inscrutable phone trees.
First good laugh of the day!
Which is exactly what I’ll probably do. But will my personal bank freak out when multiple payments start hitting and pause my account mid-event?
I believe Venmo holds all the money, and you have to actively process a transfer to your account, which you would do after the event. IIRC, Square would transfer to your bank account nightly. I don’t recall how PayPal works, and I’ve never used Zelle.
Paypal will hold it as Paypal Credit until you transfer it to a bank account. Or forget it’s there and accidentally spend it on online purchases.
Agreed with the obvious advice to cast a wide net of payment options. Maybe all the kids are using Venmo but the 60 year old trying to rebuild his classic rock collection might not.
Business names are often not trademarked.
It is likely that you’ve got a unique one there; but as I said upthread, they may not be unique, either; and apparently in NY don’t always have to be to get a DBA, at least not if the other business using it is elsewhere.
I ran the farm off my personal bank account for some years before I opened a business account. The lines between the two are still rather blurry, though I keep farm income/payments clear in my books.
I don’t know whether this works better with farms than with other businesses. Some of the tax forms are different.
Talk to them ahead of time.