I'm looking for a business savings account

The_Sven

I'm looking for a business savings account with a decent rate of interest. They don't appear to feature on comparison sites. Any recommendations?

atypical

Did you look here?

martinman3

Or in this thread.
http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=2055271&highlight=

and the thread I linked to in it.

lulu999

I still bank with Cater Allen for my business. As you say, free banking and, the phone's answered by someone within 3 rings (every time!) and is the only person I ever need to speak to. There's no press this for that, you're in a queue, ear blasting crappy music on hold, etc, etc.
All in all a very good service.

cottager

A 'decent rate' available to you will vary a lot depending on whether you're a limited company or a sole trader.

If the latter, for tax purposes you the person are the same entity as you the business, so you can take out the same savings accounts as you would as a private individual, but it would need to be in your own name rather than a trading name.

This is what OH does, though we're always careful to keep the business funds in separate accounts from his own savings, i.e. money taken completely out of the business as drawings. It's all the same for the tax man, but in that way it's easy for the accountant to keep track of what needs to be included as a business asset and it's reflected in the annual accounts.

If any of the savings funds need to go back to the current account when it's stretched, or (hopefully) back again to savings later, there's a clear paper trail in the books which isn't confused with whatever we do personally. For the same reason we also make sure no business takings are deposited into the savings account directly, but go through the current account first -- then transactions between current and savings are done via online TF.

There can be some problems with the reality compared with what buildings societies etc will actually allow. They have rules that you cannot use ordinary savings accounts for business money, and do not (or perhaps are not allowed to) recognise that for sole traders the business is the same as the private individual. Business money is business money -- period.

However you can achieve it by having accounts in your own name, but treating them and what's in them as part of the business for accounting purposes and transparency. Though it's all the same entity for HMRC, there's a clear distinction for us between 'our' money and business money.

Quite different if you're a limited company I understand, and we have no experience of this.

Martin does have a little on business savings, as atypical says above -- take the link to the article from there.