If the business is going to be your sole source of income I really recommend finding a good accountant. It is a huge stress reliever for me to have a real face to deal with and also good peace of mind knowing I have a representative in case of an audit.

Midwest Haunters Convention

The Midwest Haunters Convention (MHC) is the largest Halloween show of its kind in the US serving a primary audience of Haunted Attraction Producers, Actors, Artists and Home Haunters. It features a 60,000 square foot vendor trade show with over 75 vendor booths – and provides regional businesses and residents the opportunity to shop for professional quality Halloween related products.

fyi, I spotted an article about Expensify in the business section of the paper on Sunday. I can't track down the exact article, but it sounds like something useful for people who have lots of expenses and not enough time to fill in reports.

I've considered attending the MHC a few times, but currently I don't know how I could take on much more work during the Halloween season. As it is I have 15-20 people working for me just to pull of the Universal Studios event. Still it would be fun to see what other folks are doing in smaller venues.

I have friends who go to MHC, and have a blast.

A long-shot, but that's part of what this thread is for, right? Does anyone have any suggestions for manufacturing companies (that are not sweatshops or child-labor) that will do small runs of clothing?

I'm (sloooowly) working on getting a small GCS apparel line together, and I want to start researching clothing manufacturers.

I`ve got a t shirt place! Uhh...except it is child labor! Ok, not really. It`s called Little Bluebird, named after an Apache artist who died a few years back here, and they do job skills training for White Mountain Apache kids. I`ll link it later. And yeah, I realize just screenprinting isn`t what you`re after but still.

eta: Little Bluebird

For my accounting, I use Quickbooks, which is not cheap, but it is easy. I also pay them for an assisted payroll dealio which helps me keep up with whatever latest regulations are.

Non-profits (including libraries) should check out TechSoup for donated (administrative fee, so significant discount) software from major vendors like Microsoft and Intuit.

ND, can I ask what you pay your accountant? Also, I assume you must still use software to track your expenses? I'm using Quickbooks and their payroll thing but I'm still anxious about taxes.

(I guess I should add that Quickbooks is great for all the UI and employee withholding stuff but I'm anxious about my own personal tax bill qt the end of the year. )

Not to compete with Liese, but I have another t-shirt company I like to champion - TS Designs [link] They have 3 lines of t-shirts; organic, recycled, and grown in NC. They have chickens, PV solar power, an organic garden, bees, and make biodiesel at their plant. They're working with farmers to grow organic cotton in NC. And their claim is true - run a hand across one of their shirts with your eyes closed, you cannot feel the difference between the shirt and the printed design because of the inks they use. More info about how they're different - [link]

I'll keep thinking about small scale clothing manufacturers.

My accountant bill was $400 for taxes when it was just me and I believe went up to $700 now that Pix and I file jointly.

We actually track the checking accounts in Quicken and then I have a custom built filemaker database for running the business which includes inventory for my rentals, dealing with timesheets, and invoicing and estimates. I use a payroll service for my employees so I don't have to directly deal with that and they handle withholdings and workers comp and other issues win some of the studio lots I work on. They cost me 25% above the rate the employee makes for people in the field and something like 17% for folks in the office.