Congratulations! You have your winning business idea, took care of licensing if needed and now you are ready to start operating from your home office. Here are some important things to take care of to ensure the success of your business:

1- Create an elaborate business plan. If you want an easy and attractive way to create a business plan that you can present to partners and investors alike; sign up at DEErasa.com and the easy guide will take you step-by-step through it. In fact if you sign up before 31st of December you will get free access for a whole month and be able to create as many business plans as you wish.
Having a business plan is crucial to stay on track while you go about your daily tasks. It is also extremely useful when you’re looking for funds.

2- Open a business bank account to avoid mixing your personal money with your business income.

3- Set up a comfortable yet professional working space at your house. This could be as simple as turning a guest room into your own working space where you have a simple table and chair that are suitable for work. Give up that idea of occupying your living room couch or even worse from your comfortable bed. You need to separate personal space from professional one.

4- Keep a schedule. Be careful not to fall in the “comfortable bed” trap. Your bed will try to trick you into staying in a bit late since there’s no one watching you and it’s OK to end your work a bit later. While this is not a big deal sometimes, but I worry that it will become a habit. Not keeping a consistent schedule can harm your work ethic and your professionalism. Plan out a weekly schedule, be your own boss in a good way and hold yourself accountable.

5- Create an accounting system. Buy a filing cabinet (preferably used to save money) and make sure you store all your receipts, invoices and statements are properly stored with filing labels and all. You need to use a simple software like Excel to keep a record of your input Vs. expenses. We recommend that you trust your tech savvy self (or become one) and start using a cloud accounting software (online accounting applications) as they enable you to update and backup your financial details from anywhere and offer you the best security features available. There are a variety of cloud accounting softwares to choose from and you can read about them here.

So how do YOU work from home? Let us know your story.