A checklist of everything you need to set up the financial and administrative side of your freelance business — from your EIN and business bank account to your contract, pricing guide, and onboarding plan.
2-4 hours
Before you start pitching clients, you need to make sure the basic infrastructure of your business is set up. The good news: this doesn't have to take long.
⏰ Set aside 2–4 hours to work through this checklist.
And you'll have everything you need to operate as a legitimate freelance business. You can do these in any order, and you don't have to do them all in one sitting.
Finances
If you’re based in the U.S. the first thing you need is an EIN to protect your SSN! It takes just a few minutes on the IRS website, it's free, and it works just like your SSN when it comes to your taxes.
Here’s the link to that form.
Psssttt… don’t fall for scams! There are websites out there pretending to be the IRS. They have you fill out a form and then steal your identity. This is the official form from the IRS.
You're going to want to open a separate bank account for your business. All of your freelance income should go into this account.
I use Novo for this!
Most business banking apps have invoicing built in. But you can also use an app like Wave or Quickbooks to send your invoices!
I use Novo for this, too!
Keep track of your business expenses for your taxes later! I'd recommend using Quickbooks for this but there are tons of bookkeeping tools you can find and use (I’ve tried ‘em all 😅 and despite me hating in Intuit and Quickbooks being a bit bloated, it’s still the best option for me personally).
You'll be responsible for paying your taxes as a freelancer. Set aside 30%+ of everything you get paid. You can either pay quarterly taxes or deposit that money into a high interest savings account (HYSA) or a folder inside your business bank account.
I recommend Wealthfront for an HYSA! Here’s my referral link if you want to earn an extra boosted +0.5% interest rate referral.
Learn more about taxes in this lesson!
Still feel like you need help getting your financial sh*t together? Check out this blog.
Everything Else
Get a contract template online, from a lawyer, or through the Freelance Resource Library. Input your information so it's ready when you get your first client!
My contract is in this chapter!
Create your general pricing guide with the rates you've set. One page for each service. You can use this as your proposal template later, if you need to make a custom one for a project.
Here’s my Pricing Guide Template if you want to use it!
Make a plan for what you'll do after your pitches or LOIs lead to someone who's interested. Will you do a discovery call or a form? How will you convert them to a client and get started working with them?
You might like this article.
If you want to, you can create a website for your business! I only recommend doing this if you know your niche, services, and ideal client for sure.
Check out the Portfolio Chapter for more info.