New to trucking- feeling a bit out of my element

Basically, I am going in business with a family member. He's the driver and I'll be the investor/bookkeeper. He's been driving a leased box truck for the last 2 yrs. We are in the process of acquiring a used freightliner and I'm in charge of all the paperwork and such. He plans to keep his lease until everything is finalized while he also studies for class B for the 33K lbs freightliner.

First hiccup was I accidentally applied for a FF# instead of an MC# with the USDOT. So now I'll be calling it in Tuesday to get it changed to MC#.
Then I need to look into the BOC3, UCR and IFTA... wonder if I'm missing something else? We will be operating under an LLC but now am wondering if it's the best option. I'm a single parent and he is married...but might not be for the long haul hence looking more on my end to protect my share of the business assets from being considered in his alimony and child support if it ever gets to that. On the flip side, I saw the LLC post that the business and the owners get sued in case of accidents... I have way more to loose than said family member.

Insurance is proving to be a mother... I got an outrageous quote for $26K/yr with $8K down due to our USDOT not being verified yet. Another told me they couldn't quote us anything as the company is pretty new (got our tax ID today new). We are being told he don't need commercial coverage to move the truck... dealer is asking for proof of insurance to release it, but says he can store the truck for 2 weeks. Debating if we should get it now and have a bed installed or wait till our authority is approved.

Then there is banking, he says he likes Wells Fargo best. Debating on a fuel card or getting the business card Mastercard instead. Might just get the fuel card though to avoid mixing miscellaneous personal expenses with business with a credit card.

All in all, what is the usual time frame to get everything established and the efficient way to go about it? Any recommendations to any of my ramblings above would be appreciated! I'm excited and scared at the same time...

 

He is going to keep the same process he has with the leased truck where he uses a dispatcher. Projected income is $3K/wk, expenses are $1K for the note, $2K for insurance with an expected $2-4K deposit. Still firming up the rest hence me panicking. Also factoring in the start up cost which so far is almost $1K for all the filings.

Yeah... we've been talking about it since he got in the business, been meaning to crunch the numbers and now I'm kicking myself about all the time we wasted as everything should have been set up by now. He plans to still drive his lease till we are up and running. I'm keeping my day job and if push comes to shove I can accrue my pay. If everything can magically align in a month that would be ideal...but am not surprised with the 8 wks time frame given everything I've seen so far. He plans to still use the same dispatcher for the box truck we are getting... don't know if the distinction matters that it is not a semi. He is a mechanic by trade and he examined the truck and said everything was in working order. This has all been a reality check which has me wondering if he wasn't oversimplifying everything...

 

He did say on a good week he can bring in $5K so $3K is on the conservative end. We also do need to consider 10-12% would go towards the dispatcher and were thinking 25% for the driver off the top... which now after reading on this board the pay for both of us should be off the profits, not as an expense. Also haven't figured out if I get the same cut as driver...we are going in 50/50 ownership...

Right now we have about $8K and were shooting to front load another $2K. The goal is to at the very least have $5K at hand always and build a maintenance fund of $10K... the truck is as is.

 

IKR? I'll check the site indepth.

 

I saw that about Wells Fargo. Was hoping to get a good recommendation... I didnt think local credit union would do... what of the other big players like Bank of America or SunTrust?