Using a Business Address From Home

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Virtual businesses aren’t just for smaller startups anymore. Over the past five years, the number of virtual offices have been growing steadily as technology options have made it possible to run many types of businesses from anywhere.

Between 2015 and 2019, the number of remote jobs added per year has increased by 197%, and once 2020’s statistics are counted, those numbers are sure to skyrocket because of the pandemic.

When you run a business from home and have a remote business, one of the big decisions you have to make is what to use for your business address. There are typically three main options when deciding what to put on your letterhead, website, and business documents:

• Your home address
• A P.O. Box
• A business address service

This is an important decision because it can impact you in a number of ways. We’ll go through the pros and cons of each option next.

Using your home address can be the easiest option for some people, but it can come with some downsides.

Pros:

Benefits of using your home address for your virtual business include the fact that it doesn’t cost you anything extra. You don’t have to pay for a business address service or P.O. Box.

It’s also the most convenient option in that you don’t have to go anywhere to get your business mail, it’s delivered right to your home where you’re working.

Cons:

You can run into problems when you use your home address as your business address. One of the most obvious is that if potential customers look up your business address online, they’ll see it’s a house, not an office building. This can make them view your company as “small time” even though many large, successful companies are run fully remotely.

There’s also a lack of separation between your family’s mail and your business mail. This could end up with business mail being accidentally lost or misplaced.

Using your home address for your company can also cause some security problems. What happens if you have a disgruntled customer that looks up your business address and shows up at your front door and your family member answers?

You can avoid the problems with using a home address by using a P.O. Box that you secure from the Post Office or an authorized USPS local mailing place. This also has its benefits and drawbacks.

Pros:

You have a level of separation between your business and home when you use a P.O. box for your business address.

This means no mix up between your company’s mail and your family’s mail. You also won’t run the risk of someone showing up at your house and expecting to arrive at an office building.

P.O. boxes are typically easy to find, so you can most likely find one that’s not too far away to pick up your mail.

Cons:

One big limitation of a P.O. Box is that they can only receive mail and packages from the U.S. Postal Service. So, if you have someone sending a FedEx or UPS package or envelope, you’ll have to give them an alternate address. This can cause problems if you don’t want give out your home address to business contacts.

Another inconvenience of using a P.O. box over a business address service is that they don’t have any virtual mailbox mail handling services. You have to physically go pick up your mail and check the P.O. box to see if you have mail, so you may be making wasted trips when there’s nothing to pick up.

Using a P.O. box can also make a potential client question why you don’t have a physical office location listed for your business.

The third option for an address for your remotely run company is using a business address service. This is where you secure a virtual business address from an office suite. The address is a physical street address, not a P.O. box.

Pros:

You have complete separation between your home address and your business address, eliminating the issues with mail being mixed up or unexpected business visitors at your door. You can also receive all types of mail, including UPS and FedEx.

Another big advantage is the fact that you have a real street address, so if someone looks up your business address online, they’ll see an office complex. In the case of Tysons Office Suites business addresses, they’ll see an attractive and professional area that’s right next to Tysons Galleria.

You also get a convenient mail handling service, which means notification when mail comes in, so you don’t have to make any wasted trips to check your mail. You actually don’t have to make any trips at all if you choose to have your mail sent to you.

Cons:

A drawback would be that using a business address service isn’t quite as convenient as getting your mail at home. There may be a day or two delay if you decide to have your mail sent to you instead of picking it up.

Tysons Office Suites has everything you need to run a virtual company successfully. Get started with a great business address and mail handling services.