[College Game]

Greetings all,

Although I have been quiet on the forums here lately I have been busy with other things. I have started a small in the black (ie, unofficial) business. I am marketing myself in a single market through word of mouth, street marketing, and craigslist It is paying quite well, but my business is limited to person to person contact, ie. I have to personally meet with clients to exchange product for money, in hard currency.

My question is have any of you set up online payment systems, either through paypal, visa, etc? What is the catch to this? Do I need to report this as income? Do I need to register the business? If I can get online payment I can expand the business to other markets and even go mobile, taking my business with me on my next trip.

[Roosh]

For ebooks I primarily use http://www.e-junkie.com and Google Checkout. If a reader buys the book then e-junkie forwards them to the Google Checkout credit card form and then back to download the ebook. It's quite nice as it's all automated and I only need to step in for the occasional download mishap.

I really like Google Checkout because the fees are fair and you get your money within only a couple business days. You don't need to register a business name.

Other options are Paypal (not really a fan because of the occasional lockout but I use them as a backup) and Clickbank (they take huge fees but are an easier setup for affiliates to promote your stuff).

What's great about E-junkie is that you can use all the CC processors that I mentioned. It just takes some time to set up for the first time.

[thegmanifesto]

Paypal is super easy, I think they get a cut. I have paid people this way.

Why not take checks?

"My question is have any of you set up online payment systems, either through paypal, visa, etc?"

Credit cards charge a fee.

"Do I need to report this as income?"

Consult your tax guy.

"Do I need to register the business?"

Unless you want under the table money.

If you don't mind telling, what industry/niche are you in?

[kingkong]

Quote:

Do I need to report this as income?

If you're doing anything but cash you will be caught eventually. As soon as the money touches a financial account under your name the IRS will have a clue. People get busted all the time for understating income from tips.

It doesn't sound like you have the volume of business to get a merchant account. paypal or googlecheckout will have to do.

[College Game]

(03-24-2010 01:06 PM)thegmanifesto Wrote:  

Paypal is super easy, I think they get a cut. I have paid people this way.

Why not take checks?

"My question is have any of you set up online payment systems, either through paypal, visa, etc?"

Credit cards charge a fee.

"Do I need to report this as income?"

Consult your tax guy.

"Do I need to register the business?"

Unless you want under the table money.

If you don't mind telling, what industry/niche are you in?

I am a ghost writer, so I write for people and they put their name on it. My market right now is university students and I write academic essays. The cheques won't work as well as online payments because these are usually short deadlines, and payment and transfer of goods usually is in about a 3-5 day time frame, but I guess it would be an option, and the cheques could be turned into cash and that would keep it from showing up as revenue. But people would be generally uneasy about mailing out cheques.

If I can set up an online payment system I could take the business mobile because really you can write anywhere.