My clients have to have what??
Posted 08-23-2009 at 10:16 PM by scifimom
Monday is the big day. My contractor starts mapping things out on my side of the building and they start sawing away at the concrete to make trenches for the plumbing. I am giggling which is way odd for me. I'm just not the giggling type but I'm so excited. Finally! I will start seeing the final product... my little box within the 2300 sq. ft side of my building.
In the mean time, I did some searching on the web for the sanitation requirements in other kitchens and states. Some states require the person using the kitchen have a health permit on top of a business license. I checked with Sacramento County and sure enough, they want that. I can't just give a sanitation class. It has to be a nationally recognized certificate like Servsafe or Prometric. Ugh. So much for a new client calling me on Thursday night and booking for Friday.
So, my clients need to take the test and fill out the forms for the county. I have my certification and it wasn't all that hard. I read the book and took the test, passing with an 87% so the task is not insurmountable. My clients can do an 8 hour class and take the test or just read the book and do the test. The hard part is that the test has to be proctored which means they have to schedule it. Hopefully before the time they want to use the kitchen. My thought was that the client can also hire someone who has the permits and licenses to be there while they are cooking. It's an easy way around it but will cost more. At worst case they have now hired a prep chef. Rather put that person to work than have them read magazines while they cook...
There is a good side to all this licensing stuff. If the health department does an inspection and the chef isn't practicing safe food handling, then that chef is shut down and not Steel Magnolia. If on the other hand a cockroach runs across the floor then... I'm up the creek. Needless to say, being the clean freak that I am, this will never happen. Never.
I've been doing the research thing on a virtual office. I don't want to use landlines for anything so I found companies that will handle your faxes for you. You get your own fax line which actually faxes to their computer. The fax is turned into a PDF and sent to me via email. Very cool. The second really awesome thing I found is a service called Voice Cloud that handles my voice mail. I don't keep the Steel Magnolia phone on when I'm working at my client site. It is poor form to run your business when you are supposed to be working for the client. So, my phone is off. Someone calls. The service picks up the voice mail, transcribes it, sends it to me in an email and also attaches a wav file. I can just log into my email and see if I need to take a break and return the call. Isn't technology amazing?
I've also researched the whole world of accepting credit cards. It is way more complex and expensive than I thought. There are fees to set up, use a gateway, use a merchant bank and get the money. No wonder people snarl sometimes when I use my credit card. I've decided I'm going to give a 5% discount for using cash.
On top of this, there are fees for having a business bank account. Do you know they actually CHARGE you if you deposit too much cash? No kidding! I'm using a bank that lets me put in $10,000 before dinging me.
There you have it.. the update for today. I’m bringing my web site back alive in the next week or so. That is the step that makes it real. I can start booking clients if they are willing to live with a somewhat flexible opening date. (giggle)
In the mean time, I did some searching on the web for the sanitation requirements in other kitchens and states. Some states require the person using the kitchen have a health permit on top of a business license. I checked with Sacramento County and sure enough, they want that. I can't just give a sanitation class. It has to be a nationally recognized certificate like Servsafe or Prometric. Ugh. So much for a new client calling me on Thursday night and booking for Friday.
So, my clients need to take the test and fill out the forms for the county. I have my certification and it wasn't all that hard. I read the book and took the test, passing with an 87% so the task is not insurmountable. My clients can do an 8 hour class and take the test or just read the book and do the test. The hard part is that the test has to be proctored which means they have to schedule it. Hopefully before the time they want to use the kitchen. My thought was that the client can also hire someone who has the permits and licenses to be there while they are cooking. It's an easy way around it but will cost more. At worst case they have now hired a prep chef. Rather put that person to work than have them read magazines while they cook...
There is a good side to all this licensing stuff. If the health department does an inspection and the chef isn't practicing safe food handling, then that chef is shut down and not Steel Magnolia. If on the other hand a cockroach runs across the floor then... I'm up the creek. Needless to say, being the clean freak that I am, this will never happen. Never.
I've been doing the research thing on a virtual office. I don't want to use landlines for anything so I found companies that will handle your faxes for you. You get your own fax line which actually faxes to their computer. The fax is turned into a PDF and sent to me via email. Very cool. The second really awesome thing I found is a service called Voice Cloud that handles my voice mail. I don't keep the Steel Magnolia phone on when I'm working at my client site. It is poor form to run your business when you are supposed to be working for the client. So, my phone is off. Someone calls. The service picks up the voice mail, transcribes it, sends it to me in an email and also attaches a wav file. I can just log into my email and see if I need to take a break and return the call. Isn't technology amazing?
I've also researched the whole world of accepting credit cards. It is way more complex and expensive than I thought. There are fees to set up, use a gateway, use a merchant bank and get the money. No wonder people snarl sometimes when I use my credit card. I've decided I'm going to give a 5% discount for using cash.
On top of this, there are fees for having a business bank account. Do you know they actually CHARGE you if you deposit too much cash? No kidding! I'm using a bank that lets me put in $10,000 before dinging me.
There you have it.. the update for today. I’m bringing my web site back alive in the next week or so. That is the step that makes it real. I can start booking clients if they are willing to live with a somewhat flexible opening date. (giggle)
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