Personal account used for business?

voodoozoe

We were warned at Barclays that if it was noticed that business cheques and monies were passing through the personal account then it could be closed down so it was advisable to open a business account. :eek:

Years ago I had an Abbey biz account and it was easy peasy to open and use.

bridiej

Have a look in the sticky about SB bank accounts for suggestions if needed....

codetown

Silver wrote:

It annoys me as there's an extra middleman taking a cut before payment reaches the business. Ah well. Still I'd rather pay it just so I can accept more customers who wish to use a credit card direct incase they not have a paypal account or are averse to it.

Silver

Paypal allows now direct credit card payments for your customers without any need to have an account with them nor to register. It is something recently introduced (1-2 months ago), very useful to avoid having to go trough so many gateways

buglawton

Our UK-based Ebay shop has been taking credit card payments from non-Paypal members for over 6 months now. Paypal do not make it brilliantly clear to vendors that this will work.

lo_jo

Silver wrote:

Does anyone have an experience of using a personal account for business?

I have used personal bank accounts for business use since the early 90s and never had a problem. Choose a branch where it is easy to pay in, as when your busy you dont want to be taking up time running to the bank or leaving cheques on your shelf at home to long. If your local branch is not the best account to leave the money in then you can always move it online once its in. It would make no difference to my job, suppliers or customers if I used a business account so I never have. Having said that if there are any benefits being offered by banks that are better than the personal accounts I would consider it, but at present I have not researched this.

diamondcatz

I had an interview with small business start up adviser this week and for what its worth was told that I didnt need a business account just a personal account unless I either set up a ltd company or intended to be a big outfit[ i wish]. I double checked by phoning a couple of banks and they confirmed I could do this if it was in my name not a business name so I guess it is possible just means that if it grows I will have to open a business account later

skintchick

I set up a personal account for my work just this week with lloydls TSB - they were fine about it as I won;t have much money going through, and am not selling a prodct or owt so there won;t be lots of transactions.

they tried to sell me a business acount which charges but I was insistent, especially when I read my file upside down and saw that I am a highly valued customer entitlked to privileges!!

I certainly don;t think it's illegal