ATTN: KirbysLawn

[Lawn-Scapes]

I had a post on here about changing the business name and it got wiped out. You recently changed the name of your business.. right? I thinking of changing mine and want to know if it was a smooth transition? Did you call the bank and creditors to have them change the name? Did your have to close and open new accounts? Was it a pain in the...? What about book keeping... did you open a new company with your computer software? Please give me any info that I may overlook in the process... Thanks

Anyone else can answer too...

[BRL]

Thanks for letting the rest of us help ;)
Sorry, I can't help as I've never done that, but I wanted to thank you for the opportunity. Good luck!

[Lawn-Scapes]

Kirby... was the only one that I knew of (thanks to guido's reminder) that has changed names... hence the attention getter.

Speaking of which...

Has anyone seen a certain moderator around here???

It didn't seem to work :(

[Guido]

Originally posted by BRL
Thanks for letting the rest of us help ;)
Sorry, I can't help as I've never done that, but I wanted to thank you for the opportunity. Good luck!

Go easy on him, I told him to get with Ray because he just went through the name change thing.

I feel bad now! :p

[walker-talker]

I have only been in business 2 years and am going to change my name after this year. Going to be much easier for me than most. Still don't know what I am going to change it to. I just don't believe that AFFORDABLE LAWN SERVICE has enough spice to it. Catch my drift?

[Rodney Johns]

Affordable.......good start!
Always go with first of the alphabet when you can. This puts you first in the phone book listings, mailings, etc.

I didn't change my name exactly but changed logos and added an LLC to the name. That worked really well for me. As far as scraping the old name and starting over....I had a friend that tried that and the rumors of him being bought out about killed him.

If you go from "BOBs lawn care" to "creative designs" for example I think that shows growth and the jump from maybe small time to big time. Just changing it for grins can be a challenge. I have other friends that have bought million dollar operations and have not changed the name for fear of loosing customers.
Either way good luck.

[Lawn-Scapes]

Wonder what's up? Is there some sort of problem Ray?

[Guido]

E-mailing Ray, but the address I always used doesn't work anymore. Sorry!

[Scraper]

You pissed him off TSG. You should know Ray doesn't like seeing his name in the subject line. ;)

[Lawn-Scapes]

Dave,

Thanks.. I was going to email him before I made this post.. but his email was not available.

Sraper... how should I know that? If it's true.. sorry.. but it comes with the job of being a moderator...

[Scraper]

TSG: Dude...relax...I was kidding.

[KirbysLawn]

Sorry TSG, I have been busy and missed the post. It was very easy, I had the busines established by www.mycorporation.com and they did the rest, it was like $400 or so. I did all the "paperwork" about this time last year and had everything set up by 1/1/2001.

I am established as a "sub-s" corp and once I obtained the federal tax ID number I went to the bank and set up the checking. I did have the added expense of new envelopes, lettering, cards, and such but no big deal. When I started this year everything wa son a "clean slate", new software, new scheduling software, and such.

Hope that helps some.

[Lawn-Scapes]

Ray,

Did you have any business debt... truck, mowers, etc.. to carry over? How is this done?

[KirbysLawn]

Since the truck and mowers were in my name I now lease them to the company. It bought the trailer and small stuff, new purchases are under the company only.

[bruces]

Originally posted by TSG
I had a post on here about changing the business name and it got wiped out. You recently changed the name of your business.. right? I thinking of changing mine and want to know if it was a smooth transition? Did you call the bank and creditors to have them change the name? Did your have to close and open new accounts? Was it a pain in the...? What about book keeping... did you open a new company with your computer software? Please give me any info that I may overlook in the process... Thanks

Anyone else can answer too...

TSG,

If you go from a one person LLC or proprietorship to a corporation (regular or S corp), you can transfer assets and liabilities to the corporation in exchange for the stock in the corporation in a tax free transaction. See your accountant and attorney to make sure you do it right.

If you are just changing the name, no problem. You would need to change your DBA name or register a new one if you are registered with the state, and change you bank accounts, etc. In your software, you could probably just change the name in the software if you aren't changing the type of business entity.