Erin, the simplest thing for you to be is a Sole Proprietorship. Even with this, I'd say file a DBA as per the rules for your state and municipality. My company is actually "My firstname lastname DBA as company name." Once you have this done then you should be able to show the paperwork and open a bank account under the name of the DBA and you can also take checks made out to the DBA. It's also easier to defend the business if someone else comes along with a similarly named company.

As for payments, I've used a professional PayPal for quite a few years and it's pretty functional. They have a tool where you can generate an invoice through their website and then send that to a client. It will have all the information on how your client can pay you using a credit card, or whatever other PayPal method they prefer.

I also now have a Square account, which allows me to swipe credit cards on my iPhone as well as punch in credit card numbers for charges on my iPhone. The software is free, and they send you the credit card reader for free. They take a small percentage of each charge as a service fee. It's pretty slick and links to a bank account.

Having the business bank account can be important because it makes it much easier to manage business expenses vs. personal expenses. You are now going to hopefully have a bunch of 1099 or other untaxed income. This means you are going to want to track the crap out of your expenses so that you can either count them as a write off, or count them as a business loss to lower your net income and control your tax burden. This is the area where having a professional accountant can really pay off. Also start doing things like keeping a mileage log on your car. You can claim at about $.50 a mile (I think that's where it is now) and that can add up quickly. To do this you need to make sure that you are keeping a log. I buy a new one every year and track all of the miles. If more than 50% of your vehicle miles in a year are solely for business then you can get an additional tax benefit by claiming part of your vehicle as a business expense. Also, if your vehicle is an SUV with a GVWR of over 6000lbs then there is yet another tax break (This is one of the reasons I'm now driving a Jeep Grand Cherokee.)

Sorry, lots of information here. Once again, this is where I really cannot recommend highly enough having a tax accountant. The software can be great, but it can get so complicated so quickly. It's also much better to get these types of things in place while the business is small, rather than trying to get them into place once your grow. Trust me on this one.

Kansas doesn't do DBA's or Sole Proprietor licensing -- you just have to fill out the CR-17 for taxes.

Which I have to do this week, also. Sign up for bank account and merchant PayPal. I forgot people can use credit cards on it. No smartphone apps for me; no smartphone. Although I despise the keyboard on my phone for texting, and I am going to trade in for something more functional as soon as it's feasible.

I'm tracking mileage, phone calls, and hours spent on clients and on business development and promotion. I have a non-disclosure agreement and a contract dummy.

I'll have to look around in KC; I think I'd want a smaller accounting office that works largely with small business owners.

However, for the next 3 or 4 days, I'll be pretty focused on finishing a job, but I have gotten so much accomplished that I am ok with letting it lie, mostly for a few days.

Just wanted to echo what ND said. I don't use paypal for my clients, but I do use Square because it is so simple. I'm a little unhappy with how often my money shows up in my account, but i just got it all set up so I'm hoping it will make more sense soon.

Random writerly: Anyone know off the top of the head, if you buy a book and review it, if that can be counted as a business deduction?

I'm swamped this week, but want to read and, I think, review Mira Grant's Deadline book, next week, and I thought, "Wait, can I CLAIM that?"

I'll look it up later, if no one knows, but it's just a sudden thought.

(I AM going to get an accountant, I just can't afford it yet. So I'm trying to do my best on my own for a bit.)

Anyone know off the top of the head, if you buy a book and review it, if that can be counted as a business deduction?

Yes.

So, I found when I'm looking for a job, people ask me for examples of work product. As a project manager, most of my work product is property of my prior employers. And I'd think it's a really bad idea to show a potential employer/customer someone else's stuff, because it could be them you're robbing next.

Do you guys have a stack of sample docs, if you're in a field like mine? Project docs? Sample project plans are easy enough to come by--they just have to be a list of milestones of varying levels of granularity, but communication plans and requirements analyses, etc, what do you do for that shit?

I can never even find good templates (my current job doesn't have a standard) for most project deliverables.

As a tech writer, I had trouble for my first two jobs because the stuff I'd worked on was confidential. Couldn't take any samples with me.

Can you use something from a previous job, but redact identifying bits?

They're so specific, though. The work product is so in every line. Its not easy to describe a piece of software and miss the point and get across good writing,

Can you use us, or is that too far in the mists of time?

I would have to sit down and actually write this site up, but that could be a good exercise.