Field Nation/World Market etc

[BO Terry]

When signing up with places like Field Nation, is there a preference to being a Service Company (I think that's the term) vs Sole Prop? Advantages I can see to being a service company are:
My company can provide the insurance, thus saving that fee.
My company can pay you and deal with the payroll taxes.

This is what I'm seeing at this point but wonder what I may be failing to consider.

If I sign up as a service company, I'm guessing I will just create an invoice for my own internal process since all billable to Field Nation appears to be managed through their app/website.

 

[Mercenary Roadie]

Are you signing up as a buyer or a tech?

 

[BO Terry]

Are you signing up as a buyer or a tech?

Tech but trying to figure out if I should sign up as sole prop or using my company. I do not have any plans to buy services, only provide them.

 

[Markverhyden]

I'm a sole prop. Any online service I sign up for that involves revenue I'll use my SSN for the account. Not only for those platforms but also for reseller, etc stuff like iDrive and Appriver. I do have buyer accounts on WM and FN and I only use them if I need to get some extra boots for a job. The handful of times I've provided a second person I just paid them as a sub to me. Get full payment from the platform then pay them directly with 1099 if needed, etc. I have my insurance policies written out for my DBA as well as my own name. This includes WC. @BO Terry if you look for WC here in NC make sure it's a real policy instead of a ghost policy. I updated my insurance when I got down here and the agent initially wrote up a ghost policy which is worthless.

 

[britechguy]

I'm a sole prop. Any online service I sign up for that involves revenue I'll use my SSN for the account.

Just curious, but have you never gotten yourself a EIN? I'm a sole prop but still got one from the IRS back in 2008 when I started my business. I feel a lot more comfortable using that for "business income identification" purposes than my SSN, even though as far as the government is concerned I am my business.

I also got a Dun & Bradstreet number, which I don't think has ever once been used in practice.

 

[Markverhyden]

Just curious, but have you never gotten yourself a EIN? I'm a sole prop but still got one from the IRS back in 2008 when I started my business. I feel a lot more comfortable using that for "business income identification" purposes than my SSN, even though as far as the government is concerned I am my business.

I also got a Dun & Bradstreet number, which I don't think has ever once been used in practice.

Yes I did get an EIN several years ago. Some reseller said they would not take SSN's. But I've not received any income from them. Even before striking out on my own I had a number of other financial related items that required a tax number so were setup on my SSN. I decided to just keep everything under my SSN for simplicity. If I do end up changing, like some kind of inc'ing, then I'll utilize the EIN. I never bother with getting a D&B or anything else like that. No financing and no major purchases to worry about.

 

[britechguy]

I honestly can't remember why I got a D&B, but something at the time must have wanted it, and my guess is that would have been eVA, the electronic procurement system for the Commonwealth of Virginia, which I signed up to be a part of and have never worked with because it's not at all what I expected from the "small business" end of things.

The EIN was likely for the same reason, but I like having it when I have to submit W9s for certain work.

 

[Mercenary Roadie]

There really is no need to set up a Field Nation account as a Service Company unless you have other people that you assign work to. You can if you really want to, but you'll just complicate things and that's the last thing you want to do on any platform.

Unless you have incorporated, set up an LLC, or have partners. You are a Sole Proprietor for tax reasons and unless you have others working for you, your company is just a DBA name.

 

[BO Terry]

There really is no need to set up a Field Nation account as a Service Company unless you have other people that you assign work to. You can if you really want to, but you'll just complicate things and that's the last thing you want to do on any platform.

Unless you have incorporated, set up an LLC, or have partners. You are a Sole Proprietor for tax reasons and unless you have others working for you, your company is just a DBA name.

I already have a company setup, S Corp. in my mind, the advantage to running it through my company instead of setting myself up with WM as a sole prop is for my company to manage some of the paperwork that it is already managing. Such as:
Dealing with income taxes
Providing insurance

What I’m trying to figure out, is are there disadvantages of working with them through my company vs as an individual.

 

[nlinecomputers]

I already have a company setup, S Corp. in my mind, the advantage to running it through my company instead of setting myself up with WM as a sole prop is for my company to manage some of the paperwork that it is already managing. Such as:
Dealing with income taxes
Providing insurance

What I’m trying to figure out, is are there disadvantages of working with them through my company vs as an individual.

Just overhead. If you setup as a company then you also have to set yourself up as a tech under your company. It’s added work because you have to accept tickets and then route them to yourself as a tech. It’s a lot of extra work if you are the only tech. But if you have or hire other techs then you can easily add them to the system without having to go through the whole application process.

 

[Markverhyden]

I already have a company setup, S Corp. in my mind, the advantage to running it through my company instead of setting myself up with WM as a sole prop is for my company to manage some of the paperwork that it is already managing. Such as:
Dealing with income taxes
Providing insurance

What I’m trying to figure out, is are there disadvantages of working with them through my company vs as an individual.

Are you the only principle in the S corp? If so then I'd just do the SSN since S Corps just passes everything down to the principles, which in turn file under their SSN. The only reason you might want to file under the S Corp EIN is for insurance purposes. Both those platforms can and will ding you for not providing proof of coverage for GL and WC. And those policies would need to be named for the S Corp. Regardless I'm pretty certain you can setup a provider account using an EIN. Obviously check with them first.

 

[Markverhyden]

I honestly can't remember why I got a D&B, but something at the time must have wanted it, and my guess is that would have been eVA, the electronic procurement system for the Commonwealth of Virginia, which I signed up to be a part of and have never worked with because it's not at all what I expected from the "small business" end of things.

The EIN was likely for the same reason, but I like having it when I have to submit W9s for certain work.

Over the years I've had several potential "customers" want things as well. I think D&B was one, I know EIN was another. I've had to do several SF85's and SF85P's for several possible Federal contracts, only one of which actually resulted in revenue. Those are a pain as you have to fill out several pages of forms as well as get finger print cards done. You have to keep the forms on record because if you fill one out different, say a different time interval for an address it'll get kicked back. And not much revenue at that but at least it was regular. They'll do a 10 yr credit check. Even the tiniest thing will show up. On one I had a $12 bill from VZ that got over looked somehow. Had to pay that one off. LOL!!!