Business Startup Checklist: Government Contracting Edition.

Government Contracting Edition

Starting a business can already be an incredibly daunting mission, yet when we start to enter the governmental arena there are so many other obstacles that need to be hurdled. In this blog, we hope to give you a solid checklist to get started. Without further ado, here is your Business Startup Checklist Government Contracting Edition.

1. Come up with a company name (search domain to see if available).
2. Purchase domain.
3. Set up your LLC or S Corp with a reserved agent (also known as Limited Liability Corporation which offers you a small amount of protection as you get started). If using or switching to S Corp later, you will need a payroll system.
4. Set up your EIN, which is basically your business’s Social Security Number.
5. Register E-verify USCIS as business and submit I-9 for yourself to self-employ yourself.
6. Set up free Email with.
7. Set up a free Google voice number to link phones and get speech to text voice messages.
8. Set up an ipostal1 mailbox for $10/month (requires notary).
9. Setup Business Bank Account.
10. Duns registration.
11. Sam registration.
12. Set up business website (forward domain and www.domain to site).
13. Design logo and business cards.
14. Add logo and images to the website.
15. Get your business license. You’ll want to check with your county for what to do. It should be available online, but you can also typically swing by your local town hall.
16. Understand your regional/state/federal tax obligations! Extremely important!
17. Contact a CPA or tax advice service like Eco-Tax (Intro $350 then $35/month LLC, Intro $700 then $70/month for S-corp…you can start LLC and switch later).
18. Contact a commercial insurance company to cover whatever the LLC doesn’t. (min Gen Liability $1 million, but might need Auto, Professional, Workers Comp, Cyber, Umbrella, Property) (~$500-2500/year).
19. Setup Payroll (Patriot Software $30/month and $5 per additional employee).
    1. Includes setting up account with State for paying state payroll taxes and unemployment taxes.
20. (The LLC doesn’t cover too terribly much so insurance is necessary.) There is something called Professional Liability Coverage which protects YOU from your clients. For instance, if you created a printed marketing campaign that went out to thousands of people, but wrote the phone number down incorrectly, that business can sue you for not just the amount it cost them for the physical campaign, but also for the potential lost revenue cost by your mistake. Get the Professional Liability Coverage.
21. In the state of Virginia, register the eVA (which is for Government Contracts on a state level and allows for the flow of sales).
22. Setup Factoring to cover delays in NET30 (Porter Capital 2.5% funding fee and 85% funded up front).
23. Setup Health/Dental/Vision Insurance.
24. Setup retirement account.
25. Setup Life and Disability Insurance (NewTek approx $70-165/per month per person)
26. Setup 8a and GSA which both offer new startups the opportunity to use personal history as evidence which helps with contracts.
27. Obtain Facility Clearance (FCL) through prime once you have one or more employees.
28. You will receive your NAICs code through the eVA setup. Pronounced “nakes”, this is just a code that describes what type of business you are starting. You can find your appropriate code through the search engine on www.naics.com. 
29. You could potentially get a SWaM certification! This stands for “Small, Woman, and Minority-owned” business. It is a VA State program enhancing the opportunities for businesses that fall into those categories.

We hope this list helps! Again, this is still just the beginning of the process, but this will put your feet on the path of success. If you’ve got the dream and the will, we’ll help you find the way. Make sure to come back as new, pertinent blogs and information is added bi-monthly. Thank you for visiting CyOak Consulting!