Ask HN: How to separate business and personal accounts?

6 points by crystalarchives 15 years ago | 2 comments

I have a US LLC for my online businesses with a business account separate from my personal accounts. However, I'm not exactly sure how to separate them - I obviously use my business account for my business expenses, but when it comes to compensating myself through my business account I'm not sure exactly how to do it correctly.

I don't have a steady income currently so I just take out what I need from the business account into a personal account and "expense" it as salary.

Is that the correct methodology? If not, what is? Are there better ways to do this from a tax perspective? I would consult a tax attorney / accountant except I'm currently in Shanghai to take advantage of the lower cost of living and don't have access to any contacts of that variety back Stateside at the moment.

If you have any links to read up on I would also very much appreciate it!

codeslush 15 years ago |

This is most definitely NOT the way to do it! If you had an S-Corp, you could do it this way, but I know for certain it isn't appropriate for a C-Corp and I suspect the same holds true for an LLC.

A payroll service like ADP is probably also not appropriate given the inconsistent income. Have you considered hiring a part-time bookkeeper/accountant to process payrolls for you on an infrequent basis?

You are not your company - you are an employee. Expensing salary is gonna get you in trouble. I think it will be classified as a loan to officer and something that needs to be paid back (unless you've contributed capital to the company already, in which case they are paying you back).

Google for accountants from your home state and reach out to them.

Transferring money from biz account to personal account, and vice-versa is a bad idea for reasons other than taxation. It destroys the validity of your company and can expose you to individual liability which is exactly what you are trying to avoid by having a company formed in the first place.

damoncali 15 years ago |

Get an accountant. You don't want to mess this up.