2nd store tax & accounting structure

[Crusher]

When you opened your 2nd store, how did you set it up for taxes and accountant. I am currently an LLC and have an accountant who does my taxes and payroll. I use Quickbooks to record everything and at the end of the year give a thumb drive of my QB file to the account. I can’t decide how to set the new store up, should I keep it under the same LLC or start another one. I’d like to keep things separated as much as possible to protect my current store if the 2nd fails and to better tell how each one is performing. I’m not very organized though and would probably have a hard time keeping up with the books if everything was completely separate too.

 

[d9phoenix]

When i open my second business it will be a separate entity. I am currently a S-corp, and my next one will be also. Mostly i will be doing this to keep the liability from each store separate, i.e. if anything happens in one store it will not affect the other store since they are not the same business.

But you should be aware, regardless of how you decide to proceed, single LLC or multiple, with the new ACA laws, all your employees will be counted as one company under the law. Thus if you exceed the min “full time” threshold you will be required to provide health insurance to everyone. My accountant and i had a long talk about this a couple months back.

 

[brad_randall]

From an accounting standpoint, Quickbooks has a feature called “class” that allows you to assign income/expenses to different locations without having to mirror another set of accounts for each location. You can then view the “Profit & Loss by Class” report to see a side-by-side breakdown of each location.

I have 3 locations and they are all part of the same S-corp which offers a few cost-saving advantages over having 3 separate entities. We mitigate the risk by having an umbrella insurance policy that adds additional protection to the liability and non-owned driver’s policies.

 

[pizza2007]

My second location is under the same corporation, just a different accounting entry in the books (re Brad Randall’s comment on classes). Same EIN and state payroll taxes. Each location has a separate Sales Tax #. Same insurance policy, additional locations are added.

 

[bodegahwy]

For the 10 years I had two stores they were under the same s-corp. Quite a few savings when you do that way. Much simplified if your employees work both locations. (ALL my 2nd store employees also worked at the first store but not vie-versa) I also had one general manager responsible for both… combined buying, combined scheduling. Set up so that major prep tasks (dough, cheese, veggies) were done at the location with the best suited facilities.