Business name change

[jprechel]

I would like to change the name of my business from James Prechel Photography to a name that doesn't include my own name. I have a pretty good idea of what I am going with, but I am just wondering about the process.

My business is a DBA under my own name. If I understand correctly, I would just have to write the IRS to inform them of the name change and I would keep the same EIN. I also talked to the comptrollers office and they said to contact them when I am ready to change the name and they will just update my info on my sales tax cert. I would also obviously need to get a new DBA.

Should I get a new bank account, credit card processing account, etc? Also since I use several labs and suppliers I guess I need to update my new name with them.

For those of you that have gone through the name changing process, is do you have any suggestions or thoughts?

Thanks.

[WarrenG]

Your pretty much spot on, though I did not write the IRS as I do not use an EIN. As far as changing all the lab accounts and CC merchant services... I would recommend it (especially merchant services) unless you want to explain the different name to people everytime they charge.

The biggest hit I took was in trying to update all the clients. I still to this day get customers contacting me under the old name, and it still shows up on google. Yours is probably nopt too big of an issue as you were already using your name.

Good luck.