Our Experience in getting Business Permit

Once we decided to put up a business, our first question was “what should be the name of our business?”. It’s a good thing that Julie (the best when it comes to this) thought of these names: Wanderful Hearts Travel and Tours and Wandering Hears Travel and Tours. At first, we decided to use Wanderful Hearts Travel and Tours. The plan is to have her office address as our business address. We already went to the barangay hall in San Antoinio, Pasig City to asked the requirements for barangay clearance.

We already acquired the necessary documents, however, Julie informed me that their office is undergoing a renovation and this means that there will be an additional document to get and it will delay the opening of our business. So, we decided to use my home address as our business address. As we cannot use Wanderful Hearts Travel and Tours because of the address, we decided to have a new name registered and cancel the previous one.

And this the reason why we used Wandering Hearts Travel and Tours as our business name. Julie registered our new business name online. To pay for the DTI fee, we went to SM Business Center in SM North. There are selected SM business centers who accept payment for DTI registration so it is very convenient for us now to process our DTI business registration.If their system is not down, expect the process to be over in a few minutes. However in our case, we have to wait 2 more hours since their system is down at that time.

TIP: To prevent the long queue, register your name thru online. You can check the business name if it’s available. Here’s the link (http://www.business.gov.ph/web/guest/bn-registration).

The next document that we need is barangay clearance. I lived in a Subdivision in Quezon City. I have to get a certificate from the homeowner association. Once I have it, I went to our barangay hall. It took me for about 15mins to finished.

The requirements are now complete to get the Business Permit. We have our DTI, Barangay Clearance, Photocopy of my IDs, Birth certificate and Title of the land. We went to the Business One Stop Shop (BOSS) at the ground floor of the Civic Center Building A Quezon City Hall compound. The BOSS personnel gave us the application form. We filled it out and went back to her. She asked us to go to 2nd floor for additional assessment.

We went to the basement for fire safety and inspection certificate and pay for it. We went back to the ground floor for encoding. The personnel told us to go to the 10th floor of the main building for location clearance. The guy from the 10th floor told us to get a certificate from the homeowner association stating that they are allowing us to put up a business in our Subdivision. We were not allowed to used the certificate previously issued by our homeowners' association.

I called the secretary of our homeowner association. She said that we must submit a letter of intent to our President. We waited for 2 weeks to get it.

Again, we went back to 10th floor and passed the certificate from homeowner’s association. Once we’re cleared, we went back to the BOSS. Paid for the fees and told us to come back to get our permit. After several days, we are able to get our Business Permit.

We need the fire safety certificate. I called the QC fire department and gave me the contact details of the person who will inspect our office. When I texted him, he told me that he will let me know when.

On the day of the inspection, he just checked the house and told me to get a fire extinguisher. I told him that we can buy it to our friend’s supplier. He said that once we have it, present to him the receipt and we’ll be able to get our clearance.

We got our fire extinguisher in E & J Fire Fighting Equipment Co. We bought it for Php1,300 with 3 years warranty. The next day, I went to Quezon City Fire Department to get our fire safety clearance.

Because we are first timers, I just recently knew that we need Location Clearance. It's different from the first one. We thought it's the same. Right now, we are on the process of getting the location clearance. The requirements are photocopy of business permit, certificate of No OBJECTION from Homeowner's Association/ Neighbor's consent (Ten neighbors, notarize), barangay clearance, right over land (lease contract, photocopy of tct, memorandum of agreement, consent from lot owner), location plan, 3R picture of business establishment (inside and front), long folder.

I hope I'll be able to finish this on Monday. Of course, we don't want our permit to be revoke.