Business basics to decide before taking payment

Know the business you are actually running

A small software product still needs a clear seller, a way to deliver what was promised, reliable records, and enough cash to cover obligations. Before accepting payment, write down where the business operates, where customers are, what is sold, and whether you are acting as an individual or an entity. Those facts affect legal, tax, consumer, privacy, and payment requirements; they vary by jurisdiction and product.

This page is an operating checklist, not legal or tax advice. Use current government sources or a qualified local professional for decisions that affect registration, tax, employment, consumer rights, or regulated data.

Build a simple cash model

For each offer, estimate:

Net collected revenue
− payment processing and refunds
− variable delivery / infrastructure costs
− customer acquisition cost
= contribution before fixed costs and owner compensation

Add fixed subscriptions, accounting, insurance, filings, contractor costs, taxes, chargebacks, and a reserve for unexpected bills. Separate business and personal money when the applicable rules and structure require it. Reconcile payments against processor reports and invoices regularly; revenue in a dashboard is not the same as cash available to spend.

Use the contribution-margin worksheet to make variable service costs and founder labor visible before setting growth targets. Build a month-by-month cash runway forecast to model settlement timing, renewals, and downside cases; margin is not spendable cash.

List each renewal date, currency, cancellation deadline, and account owner. Remove unused subscriptions and assign someone to review spend. Model an ordinary month and a stressful one—for example, lower sales plus a provider bill or refund spike.

Make the customer agreement understandable

Before payment, show what is included, who provides it, when access starts, what the customer must do, the total price and billing interval, renewal and cancellation steps, refund terms, support expectations, and material limitations. Do not bury a recurring charge or make cancellation needlessly hard. Keep copies of the offer and terms that applied at purchase.

Use a reputable payment processor so your product does not directly store card data. Still understand what customer information the processor receives, how disputes work, and what records you need. Follow a documented refund and dispute workflow. Never promise tax handling or regulatory compliance merely because a vendor offers a feature.

Prepare for routine operations

Decide who owns customer support, security updates, backups, account access, and incident decisions if you become unavailable. Keep a private record of legal/entity documents and tax deadlines. Store only the customer and financial records you actually need, with access limited to the people who need them.

A one-person business needs a sustainable cadence: weekly payment/refund review, monthly cash and subscription review, and periodic review of obligations when customer locations, team size, pricing, or product capabilities change. For product economics, see design a clear offer; for service continuity, see operational basics.