Starting your own business from home is a lot of work. You would think that eliminating a storefront or other type of business building and extra employees would make things easier, but it is not that simple. You see, all of the basics of starting a business remain the same. This includes everything from getting the proper licenses, to the proper insurance policies to marketing to financial details. It can be overwhelming, but since I had read some horror stories, I wanted to make sure that I had everything in place for my home accounting business.
I have previous experience as a bookkeeper but getting things like self-employed public liability insurance and an ABN were all new to me. But I did all of those things before my grand opening, which was really just an announcement in the local newspaper and online.
Things took off fairly quickly for the business, and I was seeing clients in my home regularly. They would bring in their receipts and financial documents and I would help them out with their accounting records. It wasn’t much different from my previous jobs except that I got to do it from home.
I saw the real difference when a client used the bathroom in my home and ended up slipping on water in the floor. He fell and hit his head on the bathtub, which required a visit to the emergency room.
Since he had a concussion, he was required to stay overnight in the hospital. Between that, the stitches for the cut on his head and the pain medication, the medical bills his lawyer sent me were pretty steep. Luckily, I did not have to fret about the massive bills because they were completely covered by my public liability insurance policy. Without that policy, I would have been forced to sell my home just to cover the cost of the bills. Suddenly, all that stressful prep involved in starting my business seemed like time well spent.