Half The People Show Up With Nothing And Banks Notice

Most founders think opening a business bank account is a quick errand—until the banker asks for documents they’ve never heard of. We break down the exact paperwork you need, why each item matters, and how it protects your personal assets by preserving the corporate veil. From the certificate of organization and EIN letter to state tax registration, operating agreement, resolutions, and an interest ledger, we share a clear, no-fluff roadmap you can follow today.

We also dig into the legal and practical reasons to separate business and personal funds. Commingling doesn’t just create bookkeeping headaches—it can invite a court to pierce the corporate veil and put your home and savings at risk. You’ll hear how an airtight operating agreement clarifies ownership, profit splits, voting, exits, and contingencies, and why having an attorney review it is worth every penny. For multi-member LLCs, we highlight the clauses that prevent conflict and keep decisions moving.

To make the bank visit painless, we reveal our simple binder system: a small three-ring binder with tabbed sections for formation docs, tax IDs, governance records, and banking details. Walk into the branch with this binder and you’ll have everything the banker needs in one place. After the account is open, we cover must-do follow-ups like saving a direct deposit form, enabling secure online banking, and setting user permissions and dual controls for ACH and wires. Ready to get bank-ready and stay protected? Subscribe, share this episode with a founder friend, and leave a review with the one document you still need to track down.

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Transcript

Why A Business Bank Account Matters

SPEAKER_00 0:00

So we have a friend that works at a credit union here locally and she runs the business banking side of it. And we were talking to her the other day about the struggle she has signing new people up for bank accounts. And she said a lot of the time people just show up with no documentation, never even registered to business, and just think they can just open up a bank account.

SPEAKER_01 0:25

She said like about 50% of the people that show up have no idea.

SPEAKER_00 0:29

Yeah, have nothing. They just show up and be like, hey, I just want to open up a bank account. And I think that's pretty common. When I set up my first one, I definitely didn't bring all the documentation I needed. And I had to go back several times to figure out exactly what I needed. And there's so we kind of want to go over what the specific stuff you need. So when you go set up your bank account, which should be one of the first things you do when you start a business, so you can collect money and do invoices and different things. Like you need this documentation. So we kind of wanted to go over it.

Protecting Assets And The Corporate Veil

SPEAKER_01 1:02

Let's let's also highlight the importance of it real quick. If you start a business, say you start an LLC and you're commingling funds, personal bank account versus business bank account. Right? Say you're using your personal bank account for stuff, right? Yeah. And you don't have a business bank account. Let's say you get sued. Anyone that the the attorneys or whoever that are suing you are going to like the advantage of having an LLC is so you can't have your home taken from you, right? Like your personal assets should be protected. But there's a big asterisk there, and that's you have to run the business as a business. So if you are commingling your personal funds with business funds, they can do what's called they can pierce the corporate veil, which means they can say, you're not really running this business the right way. It's it's just an alias for you. Yeah, it's more of like a DBA than a side. Yeah, and then they can come after your personal assets. So it is crucial to have a business bank account to be able to protect your own personal assets. So that that's why this is one of the first things that you should do when you start a business.

Certificate Of Organization Explained

SPEAKER_00 2:12

Yeah, so let's go over the documentation you actually need for this. And the the first one would be certificate of organization. This is something that you go through with the state that you're located in. Also, by the way, we're not lawyers. This is just tips of we've opened several businesses. This is just stuff that we've done. So there's an ad. Just take that.

SPEAKER_01 2:31

This is this is not legal advice. This is for entertainment only.

SPEAKER_00 2:34

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 2:34

Please go seek out a professional business attorney for to verify that these are the steps you should actually do. Right. But these are steps that we do personally, and we just wanted to kind of let you know what we do.

SPEAKER_00 2:47

So the first would be a certificate of organization. This is something you do with each state.

SPEAKER_01 2:51

When you register your business with your state, they should be providing these documents to you. These the certificate of organization. So this is something you should print out, take with you into the bank to make sure that print out, save it on a drive on a computer, also back it up on something like a Google Drive or Dropbox or something like that.

SPEAKER_00 3:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 3:12

Have multiple ways to be able to access this because if you lose it, it's it's a pain to get it.

SPEAKER_00 3:18

Yeah, and depending on what state you're in, it could be really easy to get. It could be just logging in and they have us basically a website that you can grab all this information from. Sure. I'm sure there's certain states that is a lot more complicated. Just save yourself the headache and just save it yourself.

SPEAKER_01 3:31

Back it up a few times like and print it out and put it in this in like a book or folder.

SPEAKER_00 3:37

Uh the next would be state and federal tax documents. So this would be when you get your EIN for your federal taxes, your state tax, you should have your documentation that you've registered to pay state tax in your state as well.

Operating Agreement And Partners

SPEAKER_01 3:50

That that's if you are required to. Not all businesses will require you to pay state or to collect sales tax for your state. Um, a lot of instances you do need to, but that'll be something that you'd want to definitely check up on because once you have a state tax ID, even if you don't do any business at all, you still have to file a report either yearly or quarterly, just depending on how you've elected or how much volume you've done in that state. The next one is operating agreement. This basically defines how your business is going to run. This is one of the most important documents that you can have in your business. This lays out everything how who owns it, how it's run, how you're going to be taxed, everything like that. This this kind of establishes your separation between your you yourself personally and your business entity.

SPEAKER_00 4:45

This is actually extremely important too, is if you have partners, right? Like if it's a single owner, it's a little bit easier because you're the only owner. So everything kind of comes back to you no matter what. If you have partners, this is going to be the agreement that shows okay, how much percentage does each partner own? How does revenue get split?

Resolutions And Interest Ledger

SPEAKER_01 5:05

What's the exit strategy? If someone wants to leave, or if they can't even perform the job that they were supposed to, you know, say say you were hit by a bus and became almost incapacitated. Like there needs to be provisions that are specified in this operating agreement that allow for those circumstances to be taken into consideration. So operating agreement, super important. Um, this one is I I would I would look at chat GPT, but be very weary of of what it recommends because I've used chat GT GPT to create operating agreements, and it will forget things, it'll hallucinate, you'll ask it, oh what what about this? Oh yeah, you're right, and then it will fix it, but then it'll introduce other errors, and you just have to be so so careful. And this one is probably the most important piece to get right, and so this one you will definitely want to consult an attorney.

Banking Details To Save

SPEAKER_00 6:06

Yeah, I was gonna say make sure it's looked over by a professional, a lawyer that can actually look through that for it with you. Um, the next would be initial member meeting and resolutions.

SPEAKER_01 6:17

So that this one is talking more about almost think of them as almost memos of hey, we're meeting all the all the owners are meeting and saying, here's what we're going to do. So, like an example of one is to just open the business, right? Right. Or to open a bank account. You want to have those resolutions in there, and that way when you go to like open up a bank account, it just like it's not 100% necessary, but it'll make your process to open up a business bank account that much easier. Next one is an interest ledger, and we've kind of briefly mentioned this. It basically just defines who owns what. So even if it's just you as the as the owner of the business, you want to put your name ownership 100%. And so that's where it just defines who owns what and in a very simply simple, simple way.

SPEAKER_00 7:09

And then the last thing would be your bank information. So this is this is something that you will get after you open up your bank account. Make sure you save all your information. They should be able to. We like we suggest that you get a direct deposit slip so it has like a basically a voided check on there, so you have all the information you need for direct deposit stuff. Make sure you get that and you save that as well. This would be after you open up your bank account.

SPEAKER_01 7:33

They'll print it out on an eight and a half by 11 sheet of paper. They'll have your bank account number, your routing number, your like you said, like a voided check, an image of a voided check. Just has all your banking info because you will need it. And in a lot of the things that you have to do next to set up your business.

The Binder System And Resources

SPEAKER_00 7:49

And so this seems like a lot, especially when you're starting out. You're like, whoa, that's most people are gonna be like, well, that's way more than I thought, just to get a bank account, right? Um, and so what we've done is we've created a PDF book version of this so that way you can print this out. It has basically the table of contents, it has uh it's it's a template that you can print out and then save all your documents in and put it in a folder so that way when you go to the bank, you have everything set up for them and it makes everything way easier, so you don't have to go back, try to figure it out, print things off, go back to the state, all that stuff.

SPEAKER_01 8:22

We'll link to just the the folder and the tabs that we recommend, but essentially it's a three ring three three ring binder. Yeah, it's a pretty small one because you don't need it's not a ton of pages in here, and with just tabs that separate them. And so in this PDF that we have, we have you know a table of contents that shows you which tab has what information. And there's also some instructions on some of the pages as well that say, here's where you're gonna put this, and then it just makes it really easy. And now you can go to the bank when you're ready to open up the bank account. You just hand them this folder and say, I'd like to open up a business bank account, and they'll just look through it and be like, Okay, all the information's here.

Final Tips And Where To Get Help

SPEAKER_00 9:04

And this isn't just good for just opening bank accounts, it's good just because then you have all your information in one spot. So once it's all together, you can put it in your safe. Now it's locked up, it you don't have to put in a firebox. And whenever you need it, you can go back and get it. It's extremely simple and something every single business should have. If you like this episode, make sure you like and subscribe below, leave a comment and share this episode with a friend that's also trying to grow their business.

SPEAKER_01 9:29

We want to help as many entrepreneurs learn how to launch and grow their business. So we've created a launching pros app at app.launchingpros.com where we have detailed checklists on not only how to start your business, but on how to grow it. There's free tiers, a lot of great information. Go on app.launchingprose.com to check it out.