It’s weird a feeling for me, I’ve spent the last 9 years of my life trying to build a business and I’ve managed to succeed and failed but today as I finally completed registering my business.

Something has changed in my mindset, it feels more real, more serious for me, it feels like I’ve never really been trying to build a real business, it feels like these last 9 years were just about trying to make money to live.

This business feels like it has just become real to me, which lines up with my goals for this year.

With this flip of a switch in my mindset, I am truly ready to build an agency this year.

The Registration journey

I’ve wanted to separate my business from me for a while now, especially my money as I would like to keep business expenses aside from my personal spending money but to open a business account, you need to register a business in South Africa.

But the process for some reason always seemed like it would be tedious to pursue, so I put it off and off but in December I decided that I was going to start 2020 by registering my business.

Registering with CIPC

When I decided to register my business I started by trying to register on the CIPC website but the process seemed a bit tedious as to pay I would need to do an EFT instead of just checking out on their website.

The process really would be better if it worked more like an online store that was linked to a payment gateway, CIPC maybe we can help.

Then I remembered that I could register my business through my bank, So I checked my bank website and could not find the place to register my business, I google FNB CIPC registration and I find the registration form.

The process with FNB was far more simple and the payment process was easy, there were no added fees to the registration price.

It took 3 days for my business registration to be completed, I didn’t manage to get my first name choice as I wanted to have a holding company name such as Fosker INC, I’ve owned that as a domain for some time.

Instead, I got the name Fosker Media, which was my second option as it been my agency name since 2014, so I’m still happy with the name I got.

SARS

So when you register a business in South Africa, you get provisionally registered with SARS AKA the taxman of South Africa which requires you to report to SARS within 30 days.

To appoint someone to be responsible for your companies tax, so if you a single entrepreneur like me, it would be yourself that would need to report to SARS.

So this morning I headed to SARS to go through finalizing my company tax process, I’m not 100% sure on what they actually did, other than setting my company on the system and assigning my personal tax account to business tax account.

I definitely need to learn a bit more about business taxes, so I can run my business more efficiently.

Opening a business account

This process was quite simple since I had already registered my business, the only thing I had to do after applying was submitting my document for FICA, which was approved today aswell.

So now I have a business account I’m able to split my income between my business and my personal accounts, which will also allow my business expenses to be separated.

I will also be able to pay my self a salary, which will look good for my credit rating instead of just random money coming in at different times.

What’s next

Now that I’ve registered my business and opened a new bank account, I need to update my service provider details so that my business expenses will come off of my business account.

I also need to let all my clients know that my banking details have changed so that they can make payments into the business account.

So I’m setting up a mailing list with all my clients so that I can send the email once to all my clients.

Have you registered your business? what was your experience?