I've Gone Legit: Registering a Business in Canada

I finally registered my business!

Last week I visited the offices of Small Business BC, an organization which helps out, well, small businesses. Their website has been an invaluable resource in the months of research and consideration leading up to this decision. Even after you've decided that your business idea is feasible and could be worth all the effort, there are a lot of decisions to be made about the details of your business. One of the big ones is deciding whether to incorporate.

• A sole proprietorship is simpler to run, and requires the least amount of paperwork and accounting. This is the route I decided to take. Cons? You have unlimited liability if somebody decides to send their lawyers after you.
• Incorporating protects you from this particular danger but you'll be closely regulated and it's more expensive to setup (e.g., legal and accounting fees).

Anyway, the purpose of my last visit to Small Business BC was getting my company name approved. Two business days later, I received an email letting me know that "Asterisq Innovation" was a go and would be reserved for 56 days. I didn't wait a minute and before heading to the "One-Stop Business Registry" website.

All things considered, it was a pretty painless process to get registered. Their website asked me some questions to help me decide which organizations I needed to register with, and then guided me through each. It even transfered some of the information to other registration forms—a pretty impressive feat for web applications belonging to disparate government bodies. I guess British Columbia likes its small businesses.

So now I've got the name, a business number, and a GST/HST account (I hear GST is a bit of a hassle) and I can start updating my stationery. (-;

Actually, the main reason for going legit was because I'm about to launch my first product so more news on that coming!