? for shop owners

I was in a bad ATV accident in July and havent been able to work since. All this time off is driving me fucking nuts! Its got me thinking about working in the future. 3 other friends and myself have a shop and have done one cust car, and they are working on an astro van right now. I was just wondering what all is needed to have a legit/legal shop as far as liscenses and insurance wise type stuff goes? Also what is needed to become a dealer for parts? If Im not able to return to my line of work Id love to give this a serious shot. Thanks any advice would be appreciated.

Edited: 11/8/2007 7:06:58 AM by KEEF

For the most part u need federal tax id(some use their social security number), state tax id(and pay state tax at end of every month), insurance to cover ur shop and the customer vehicles in it, equiptment to do the work. As far as parts dealerships most big companies want u to do a buy in as far as i know these days.....Good luck

i dont know how it does work any other state but here in miami fl.in order to get a license lets say for a body shop you have to be certified on that field.and you most also have to be ASE certified

In California it seems that they don't want you to be self employed. Getting the buisness license is simple enough and as long as you are the only employee it's stays easy, but the moment you get an employee or are forced to carry insurance on your shop (assuming that you will be bagging vehicles) it gets obcenely out of hand. I have had only one insurance company carry me for a short period of time and I had to lie about what I did and put on a "dog and pony show" to prove that I didn't do anything questionable. The problem there is that if something were to happen, they wouldn't cover me anyways. The one quote that I did get from a company that knew what I did told me $20k a year! Every other company told me that they wouldn't insure me for any amount of money.

I don't want to deter anyone from starting their own buisness, it is the best thing that I ever did, but just know that it can get extremely overwhelming trying to stay legitimate.

The biggist thing that I have learned you need with owning a custom shop is get incorperated! Don't half azz it. Next is to get insurance. The corp stuff is time consuming and the insurance is expensive. God forbid something go wrong and a wheel falls off. If you don't protect yourself you'll be working for someone elses paycheck forever!

I agree with Max a lot. Also being in California, the business license, tax id and everything like that if fine and easy. Finding an insurance company that covers what you do is the hard part. If something were to happen you really need to make sure that you have a policy that will cover it. There are insurance companies out there that cover this kind of work, but they're hard to find. I've had the same one for over two years now. I would say thats really the key to starting up this kind of business. You don't want to be held responsible if someone is severly hurt over work that you performed so I would say the insurance policy would be as key a part of starting the business as is the business license and tax id. As far as companies with parts and things, if you don't splurge for the high buy-ins there are plenty of wholesale distributers that will give discounts without the buy-ins. Good luck if this is the route you take!

I found someone to cover me max. If your interesting in knowing which company PM me.

in tx you need to have a DBA (doing business as), EIN (Federal id nuber)and sales tax permit (TX comptroller)

i got a local company here in ohio to insure me and the premiums are way cheeper compaired to others i looked at

Thanks guys the insurance was the thing Ive been thinking about the most. Id love to try this, but if I did it would have to be more of a mail order type deal with custom work on the side. Theres not much of a market here for it. Most (so called) shops here deal with Hydros for ther LowLow scene. Even at that I know If me and my boys did that type of work our quality would put all the shops around here to shame but most people around here arent into bagged stuff,its mostly lowriders.Anyway thanks for the Input guys its really appreciated.