This post is more for Virginia photographers (or business owners) than people in other states. It also mostly applies to newer folks who are working on getting established than to those who have been around a while. When I started my business last year (while trying to plan my WEDDING haha) I was quickly overwhelmed trying to figure out what I needed to do and what forms I needed to complete to make everything official.  Well, somehow I stumbled upon the VA Business One Stop, an application created by the the state to help small businesses. VA Business One Stop is actually pretty easy to use…you pay twenty dollars to use the service to create a business (and there may be more fees involved depending on how you decide to classify yourself) and it walks you through all of the required steps and then populates the forms you need to file. If the city or county you live in allows online filing, it will file them for you. Unfortunately, good ole Newport News doesn’t allow online filing so I had to make a visit to the clerk’s office. To me, 20 dollars to make life simpler is pretty much a no brainer!

VA Business One Stop also has some pretty great resources for current small business owners, such as one on one business counseling and tax information, but I haven’t really used any of those features so I can’t really say much about them, but if they are anything like the service for new business holders, I’m sure they are great!