How to set up a company

Setting up a company is easy.

Setting up a company that you can actually run cleanly is the real job.

The mini-story: the company that exists, but doesn't operate

Someone registers a company, gets an ACN, opens a bank account, and starts trading.

They don't set up a clean process for:
- invoices
- reconciliation
- payroll
- record-keeping

Six months later they say, "Companies are complicated."

No — messy records are complicated.

The "first-week" checklist that matters

You need:
- a company bank account (clean separation)
- a decision on who owns what (shares)
- a baseline record set (who the directors are, consents, registers)
- a simple bookkeeping routine from day one

The company's paperwork is not the scary part.
The operating discipline is.

Don't confuse "registered" with "ready"

A company being registered doesn't mean you're ready to run it.

Ready means:
- you know how money flows
- you can produce reports without rebuilding the story
- you can explain transactions without guessing

How Self Managed helps

Self Managed is built to make company admin workable:
- transactions drive the ledger
- reconciliation keeps it honest
- reports are outputs, not projects

Useful background:
- Wealth roadmap
- Tax minimisation