subject: Business Checks for a Small or Startup Company [print this page] Business Checks for a Small or Startup Company
Starting your own business has been one piece of advice to the many left out of work by the recession. Starting up your own company, however, is not as simple as creating a product and hawking it until you see a steady stream of income. Instead, creating a new life for yourself, and essentially paying your bills, needs to be a well thought out process. Although you may be on your own for the time being, you are not just simply in front of a computer, with a couple of friends working with you. Rather, representing yourself and sticking out from your competitors is important. What are some affordable ways for getting noticed?
First, think about how you will bring in customers, and in today's market, being seen in the physical and virtual worlds is necessary. The latter includes creating a website and using social media to increase your internet visibility and to draw in customers online. In the physical world, developing an effective advertising plan through promotional items, brochures, and networking can slowly draw in customers.
In both worlds, your image is important, and simply being an individual with a product is not enough. Instead, think about creating a logo and applying this to all items created brochures, business cards, promotional items, and checks.
A company, in general, needs two types of checks: manual and computerized. The former type is best when interacting with third-party vendors. Similar to business cards, manual business checks can display your logo in the background and also assist with keeping your records of costs in order. Typically, manual business checks come in a three-to-a-page form, with stubs across, and are placed in a binder equipped with carbon paper, deposit tickets, and a register for recording all transactions. The copies from carbon paper serve as written proof supporting every recorded transaction.
When you do bookkeeping or accounting, a computer program is likely used for keeping track of company funds, including payroll and transactions to third parties. Quicken, QuickBooks, Peachtree, and Microsoft Money are the programs used primarily by businesses. Rather than doing all payroll, including deductions for each employee manually, computer programs assist with this type of recordkeeping and are helpful in payroll. To save costs, your payroll can be done in house, and computerized business checks can be used with these standard bookkeeping programs.
Ideally, both computerized and manual business checks should be ordered for your company. In all cases, make sure your business bank account numbers are added to each step and, if you want to create a customized design, include a digital image of your company's logo for the printer.
