The process of starting a business doesn’t have to be complex, but it can be daunting to spend hours looking for information and advice on how to do things right and in order.
It is to make your task easier and to make your business creation as serene as possible that we have gathered for you all the advice and the different steps to create your business online.
So why create an online business and what are the different steps to take to do it properly? Discover all our tips!
Business creation in France
Becoming an entrepreneur has never been so popular. As a consequence of the pandemic or an increasingly strong desire to live from one’s passion and to break away from the workforce, business creation in France reached a growth peak during the year 2021. Indeed, according to the INSEE , 1 million companies were created in France, which corresponds to an increase of 17.4% compared to 2020.
Why start an online business?
Starting an online business helps bring your project to life as quickly and easily as possible. If you wish, you can of course choose to gather all the documents for your business creation file yourself and then create your business online on the infogreffe.fr website . You can also choose to delegate this task to an online service provider. If the first option is more economical, it is also more time-consuming. The second option guarantees that your business will be created in record time, but for this you will need to have a small budget.
In any case, and whatever method you choose among these two, to create an online business, you will need some advice.
You have decided to start your business online, but you don’t know exactly how to go about it? Here are the 7 steps to take to create your online business now:
1. Build a solid business plan
This is the very first step that any entrepreneur must undergo before embarking on the creation of a business for good. Building a solid business plan is the guarantee of putting the odds on your side for the creation of your online business. Indeed, it allows you to ensure that your project is financially stable and sustainable. In addition, having a business plan that holds up perfectly is essential if you plan to call on banks or business angels for your financing.
Download our free business plan template to customize according to the project you want to launch.
2. Check if your activity is regulated
Not all activities are regulated, so you should check if this is the case for your future business and if you meet all the conditions to exercise it. There are many regulated activities, here is a non-exhaustive list of regulated activities:
3. Domicile your business
To create your company, you will have to domicile it, that is to say define its registered office. Even if you are self-employed and you work from home , you must have your business domiciled, the address will simply be the same as your home address. If you have premises that you rent or have purchased, its address will be that of your business.
Domiciling your business is mandatory, defining your business address is an essential step before officially creating your business. This address will appear on all your documents (contracts, invoices, declarations, etc.). You will then have to pay the annual payment of the CFE (business property tax), a local tax that even concerns self-employed entrepreneurs who have declared their home address as their business address.
4. Choose the legal status of your business
Depending on the type of business you want to create, the turnover you hope to achieve and whether you are alone or several to embark on this new adventure, certain legal forms will be better suited than others.
So let’s take a look at the different options available to you.
The self-enterprise or micro-enterprise: the self-enterprise or micro-enterprise is what is called an individual enterprise, which concretely means that the personal assets of the entrepreneur are not separated from their professional assets. This legal status offers a large number of advantages such as exemption from VAT up to a certain level, a simplified micro-social regime, a lump-sum levy in discharge of income tax and simplified accounting management. However, the disadvantages of self-employment are that you cannot deduct your expenses and VAT and that the VAT exemption ceilings are quickly reached if your business starts to operate well.
The SASU and the EURL: if you are alone, but want to create a real limited risk company, that is to say with a separation of your personal and professional assets, then the SASU and the EURL are for you very good options. Indeed, the latter offer the possibility of tax deducting your expenses, but also of recruiting employees.
SARL and SAS: if you want to create a company with several people, SARL and SAS are ideal for you. Similar in all respects to the SASU and the EURL, they nevertheless make it possible to create a company with several partners or shareholders. The difference between the SAS and the SARL lies mainly in the social regime of the manager. In the case of the SAS, the manager is, as for the SASU, considered as an employee assimilated, in the case of the SARL on the other hand, the regime of the manager depends on whether he has more than 50% of the shares or not. .