Cdn Fleet owners?

what do you need to know,

 

Power of Attorney

 

You could make her a director of the corporation,

 

Get some legal advice... it will be much cheaper in the long run.

Having said that it depends on what you want her to do and how much authority you want her to have. You will want to be absolutely positive regarding your relationship and trust. If you are not certain, then no, or minimal, authority to start would be best. I speak from experience on this... sadly, more than once.

Anyhow, I have incorporated about a dozen companies, so here is what I would do...

1. Depending on where you live (I am in Alberta), you will want to decide how to set up your business. The three main types are; sole proprietor, partnership and incorporation. Each has its pros and cons. You can either do some research yourself, or seek professional guidance.

So, that is the first thing to do... find yourself a competent lawyer and accountant. Do that first, before anything else. I have never used a lawyer to set up or incorporate any business, but I am quite comfortable with understanding what is involved. My main reason for avoiding lawyers (for business set-up) was cost. However, I see that many lawyers are now offering cut-rate prices for business start-up ($229 in Calgary, including a 1/2 hour of legal and 1 hour of accounting).

In Alberta the Provincial Government has privatized most services, so now, instead of registering a business through a government office, we use one of the hundreds of private registry agents. Some are very good, others... not so much. I can recommend a very good one (that I have used many times) that operates across Canada if you wish.

2. Decide to what degree you want your girlfriend to have control of your business. She can be an employee. She can be an officer. She can be a director. She can be an owner and that can take different forms; a partner, a non-voting shareholder or a voting shareholder.

Whenever I incorporate, I establish five classes of shares allowing an unlimited number of each (not an unlimited number issued... that's different): two classes of voting, two classes of non-voting and one special class. This allows you to bring other people into the business later on, if you wish (like high-value, long-term employees) without giving away the farm or hindering your ability to run your business. You can authorize different levels of value and/or dividends to the different classes and so on. You can also establish varying levels of authority for any officers, directors or owners; which can be spelled out in the Corporate Bylaws and can be amended from time to time as necessary.

3. After you set up the business, you will need to set up your banking. This is where the CLEAR understanding of your relationship is (if you haven't already made her an owner in your business... in which case, you're already hooped ). Your banker can fill you in better, but you can have a number of different levels of authority here as well. Anybody, even simple employees, can make deposits on your behalf... no authority required. In order to pay bills or make withdrawals, you can grant full or limited access. You could set dollar and transaction limits restricted by use of account access (her own bank card and online account, etc.). You can require one, two or either signature for cheques and/or account transactions, etc. Same thing as the lawyer and accountant; go talk to a corporate banking officer and ask them how to accomplish what you want to do. At least they won't charge you up front for their time... they'll just nickle-and-dime you to death over time.




You don't have to make your girlfriend a manager, officer, director or owner to accomplish any of this, but you certainly can... if you dare.


I hope this helps and if you have any other questions (or want to know where to send my fee ) just ask.

Oh yeah, regarding the Power of Attorney mentioned earlier. Normally it would not be necessary because, as I mentioned, you can accomplish pretty much everything you want without it. However, you may want to ask a lawyer about having one or more for her on file with him if you don't grant her equal (or sufficient) authority when setting up your business (and if appropriate). Unlike a spouse, she will have no legal standing to act on your behalf if you are incapacitated in any way. If you get injured away from home it would be nice to have someone to either keep things running, or have you transported home, etc. Even a spouse will not have any authority to conduct business transactions if it is an incorporated business and they didn't already have such authority established.

So, at the risk of repeating myself... get competent professional advice.

 

One word of advice,


when it comes to cheques, make dam sure that you have 2 signatures on it and yours is always one of them.

As a matter of factm you only sign after the other party does and satisfy yourself that the cheque is legit.

Anyone can have signing authority without being an officer or director or even an employee.