What is a DBA and do I need one?

“DBA” means “Doing Business As” and is used when you operate a business under a different name than the one you registered with the State of California.  For instance, the registered name of a company may be “ABC Investments, LLC” but they operate as a restaurant named “Joe’s Burgers”.  In order to conduct business as a DBA, you need to file a Fictitious Business Name (FBN) Statement in the county in which your principal place of business is located, and then publish a notification of the FBN in an approved newspaper.  You may want to file FBN’s in multiple counties to prevent another person from filing a FBN of the same name in those counties.  You can also operate multiple DBA’s by filing additional FBN’s.  For instance, say ABC Investments, LLC wants to open another restaurant named “Mom’s Pies & Pastries”.  Instead of creating an entirely new company, ABC Investments, LLC could just file a new FBN.