Entrepreneurship Question
 

This isn't necessarily a finance question, but an overall business question and my own personal curiosity.

Does anyone know of companies that will help set up small businesses, entrepreneurs, etc. and help them set up their finances, information systems, etc?

I've been playing around with a few ideas and I don't know very much about the business creation world yet.

The term: "venture capital" comes to mind. But I'm not sure exacly how that works.

If you haven't check out the Small Business Administration website - -there is a ton of information out there... including a section on financing...

The section on writing the business plan is especially good..

SBA's sole mission is to help people create their businesses.

Yes, there are even full service companies you can hire who will do the whole process for you from registering to building process and procedure. Most of the time the cost of doing so eats up most of the capital money you have to setup shop making it prohibitive for most businesses to do so.

If that's what you are looking for then maybe you want to just buy an established business like a franchise or even a mom and pop shop that is for sale.

As somebody who started his own business about a year and a half ago (MAN time flies!), I can talk a little about the technical process.

Any CPA should be able to help you find and file the appropriate paperwork. You need to register with your state to formally incorporate, even as a Sole Proprietorship. That's how the state makes sure there aren't three "Smith Tire Companies" in town. Then you need to get an "Employer ID Number" or "EIN" from the feds. That can happen on the IRS website.

QuickBooks is a good option for financial management. The thing about managing your finances is, you've got to stay on top of it. You should work with your CPA to figure out the compensation structure that works best for you--either withdrawing from your company's equity and paying personal taxes as if you were self-employed, or paying yourself a salary and managing tax withholding on the company's side of things.

CPAs are all over the place. You can't throw a rock without hitting a dozen of em. Just open your yellow pages to "Accounting".

Once again, ratbastid speaks the truth :)

Look up the nearest chapter of SCORE (Service Corps of Retired Executives). Their help is generally gratis and they can steer you in the right direction. They can be really helpful in deciding how to structure your business.

Good Luck.

Hm. I ask because I'm an entrepreneurship major probably (debating between that and management) and I've thought that a firm that helped small businesses set up their business would be a good plan for a company. I didn't know what was out here at the moment to know what kinds of companies were out there, and if there was a lot of companies that were in that field.