Q&As from Young Entrepreneurs

We recently asked some young entrepreneurs about the common questions swirling around in their heads at that start up phase.

The questions that came through were pretty interesting… what was most interesting was that I got a lot of the same questions from different people. Firstly around the area of business structure – which structure to choose, pros and cons, how hard it is to change structure later, etc.

There are different types of business structures; all with benefits and also disadvantages (the old pros and cons stuff!) - so deciding which one is right for you and your business is an important part of taking your initial business idea & turning it into something feasible! Like your business idea, the structure of your business forms the foundation for how you will conduct your business (yep, the building blocks).

Factors to think about when deciding include taxation, who else is involved in the biz, personal financial liabilities (stuff you owe to others) and start up costs. These things will also affect the complexity of your chosen structure, and so you should note that the more complex the business structure the more expensive it will be to establish, but also usually it also means the more protected you are.

The most common business structures are: Sole Trader; Partnership; and Proprietary Limited Company. However also these days there are many young people setting up social enterprises under Not For Profit structures – pretty kewl!

We've got all the answer and links to even more info on our website! Go to http://www.frankteam.com.au/bizarticles/choose-a-business-structure.aspx to read all about it!

The next lot of questions we got was on tax… getting started, tax basics, accountants, etc. So we started to put together some info on it to cover the basics. Seven pages later, we were still going! So we've covered the basics of everything from ABNs and ACNs, to GST, tax returns, finding an accountant… the list goes on! It was way too long to include here, so feel free to check it out at http://www.frankteam.com.au/bizarticles/getting-started-tax-basics.aspx

Again, we've tried to include lots of great links so you can find out even more info!

Hope you guys find that useful - and send us any of your biz structure & tax tips you have learnt along the way!