@ daheard

I agree that you need to work with a cpa, but specifically a tax cpa.

If you live in a community property state, you can be a "Joint Venture Sole Proprietor" wherein the marriage owns the business and not one person, or you may be a partnership.

The things you purchased in preparation for starting the business are personal property, until the day you put them in the business as starting equity.

when you open a business bank account does not matter, create and use a cash account in the chart of accounts for transactions made before the business bank account was created.

So, first your tax cpa needs to determine if you are a sole proprietor or partnership both for your state and the feds - that controls how you make accounting entries.  LLC has nothing to do with it, that is a state only form of liability protection.

For a company taxed as a sole proprietor or partnership, I recommend you have the following for owner/partner equity accounts  (one set for each partner if a partnership)
[name] Equity (do not post to this account it is a summing account)
>> Equity
>> Equity Drawing - you record value you take from the business here
>> Equity Investment - record value you put into the business here

So when you deposit cash into the business bank account, you use the equity investment account as the source account for the deposit

You should have a dedicated CC for the business, whether it is personal or business at the CC company makes no difference to your accounting, what is important is that it starts with a zero balance and only business transactions are paid with it.

equipment is somewhat more complicated, create the asset account for the equipment, fixed or current asset depending on what it is and what it qualifies for under the tax rules - hence a need for a tax accountant.  You can use the register for the asset account to make the starting entry, use the date the equipment was turned over to the business, the cost, and use the equity investment account in the account block.

For other operating expenses I prefer to use an owners bank account to make the entries clear about what happened in the event someone asks in the future

1. Create a dummy bank account called owners, use write checks (do not print them, they are just a form for entering transactions) on that account to enter and pay the bills/expenses.
2. When you are finished, the balance will be negative, make a deposit for the total amount and in the account block select owner equity, or better owner equity investment

You need to start off with a tax cpa, and of course you need a basic understanding of accounting, if for nothing else so what the tax cpa tells you makes some sense.