[Closed] Small business banking - any contractor recommendations?

Im just dabbling with Starling Bank + FreeAgent after years of RBS + Crunch. All good so far 👍

I can’t recommend Metro highly enough.

You get all your cards and cheque books while you are opening your account. Long opening hours and you can actually phone someone up in your branch.

With Lloyd’s we were paying around £50 a month with Metro it’s less than £5 A YEAR. We do keep £5000 in there at all times though.

They are really helpful. Go Metro.

I used Cater Allen, I paid nothing.

I'm with co op and doing all I can to get away from them. Their online banking site for business users is just... so old.

Barclays were always very good for me.

Metro are OK but can be really slow for opening accounts. Cater Allen quite uaer-friendly. Neither have a massive branch network... No experience of Handlesbanken

Freeagent much more intuitive to use than Xero, and cheaper I think.

Nixon Williams/SJD are the same company. They have their own software FA/Xero-style so you won't need that if you go with them.

I have several accounts but the main one is co-op. Free with FSB membership, in fact we get £25 cash back every year!

True that the online system is pretty basic. It does work but it is quite klunky. I was told a new system is coming. They were also terrible when opening an account which was frustrating at the time.

Heard good things about Metro but for us the fees would be high. Just depends how you use it, how many transactions etc.

I also use Yorkshire Bank who are worth checking out. They are doing 2 years totally free and their online system is good.

Absolutely not HBOS who consistantly lost every bit of paper work they were ever sent.

I used Cater Allen, I paid nothing.

I also. They've been just fine, if everso slightly behind the times.

SJD, I thought were a little overpriced, but OK. They seem to have a fairly high staff turnover

Keep away from SJD. Absolutely useless. Had a very expensive year of them being my accountant. Not going to publicly go through the details, but my advice is to use a local face to face accountant.

metro for my business banking. But to be honest the bank doesn’t do much apart from receive money then distribute it under instruction.

Most banks will give you 12-18 months free banking as a startup. I use Santander. They’re ok. Online banking is good, there’s even a reasonable phone app, though it’s a lot clunkier than the regular personal banking app.

Aren’t Carter Allen just Santander in a floppy hat and shades? Think their main advantage are free recipt of international payments iirc.

Xero is fantastic. I can even invoice and upload expenses quickly from the phone app. This is vital for someone as disorganised as me.

Any regular accountant will do.

Great - thanks everyone. I’m going to have a look at Starling and Metro for the bank account and will look at getting a quote from a local accountancy firm for book keeping.

SJD, I thought were a little overpriced, but OK. They seem to have a fairly high staff turnover

Yeah, I use SJP, but I'm currently winding up my company cos I've gone permie and I probably wouldn't use them if I go back freelance

From personal experience, Handelsbanken won’t touch you.

Their service is supposedly supreme and their business offering appears to be great. What they don’t shout about is that they only want you as a customer if you want to take on debt with them.

When I say ‘debt’ - I mean to the tune of £1m as a loan. If you don’t need credit then look elsewhere.

As I said, personal experience so YMMV but there’s a reason that they do so well.

Having said all of that...maybe you do want to borrow £1m. In which case I apologise for my lack of judgement 😜

Xero - great.

But before you commit, check out Crunch for accounting.

Barclays and FreeAgent for me - with a local accountant

barclays can link to FreeAgent so all transactions are recorded. Accountant logs on to F/A also...nice n neat

paying about the same to local acct as I would to SJD type people (but with a better service)