Business Bank Account

x12yhp

Morning Guys,

I wonder if anyone can help out.

We are banking with BOI but starting to strongly consider a move. We have only been with them for 9 months but we are unhappy about several things:

1) Online banking is poor and this is how we do 95% of our business. We only need to send and receive payments in a nice and easy manner. We occasionally send and receive in foreign currency (euro). The business banking facility relies on Java/internet explorer and frequently causes issues.

2) Payments - they are not on faster payments. So whilst every other personal account I have will transfer money almost instantly, this account takes days unless I want to pay a hefty additional charge per transaction. This might sound unimportant and we should wait but pro-forma invoices, as example, need paid and funds confirmed as received before goods are released. 2 days additional is a bit thing that can then increase lead times to our customers.

3) Interface with accounting systems. As a strongly expanding business, we are putting an SAP system into the company. One of the things which we want(need) is to use the automated reconcilliation facilities and payments. For the former, this needs a simple csv file output from the bank, which we can then read with SAP. BOI do not offer this on the base banking package and need a £40 per month sub to get it. Given that my (free) personal halifax account does it natively, I just do not like this stance!

All in all, it feels like I am paying money for BOI (admittedly, I am on a fee free - well mostly fee free - period) and getting much less of a service than with free personal accounts. I do not object to paying for services, but I expect to get more than I would get in personal accounts for free.

As above, I do almost everything online so the online service is critical. We have occasional incoming cheques/cash but these are rare (they can be paid at a bank or post office, it doesn't matter to us). We do not do payments out by cheque, only online. We need facility to make occasional euro payments as well as receive them. We need appropriate set up that we can communicate with the financial package. I am happy to pay for a superb service, but I am just not interested in something below par.

Any recommendations?

All the best

Adam

Sugarmummy

Have you tried co op?? Tho I think for free banking you have to be a member of FSB.....

KiwiCoop

I started out with BoI when I set up my business but soon realised they weren't going to cut it. The saga involved with me trying to change my address on the account beggars belief.

Because it was within 6 months of starting out I got a start-up account with Danske, two years fee-free (if you have a personal account with them) and you don't pay for online banking etc. A much more professional outfit altogether.

Milko

Started with BOI & am still with them ... however it's nearly time to move after 6yrs. Also have a euro account in the south with BOI & they're light years ahead.
Business online is a joke ... but Danske are worse according to a friend, something to do with a keyfob for activation
Personally heard good things about Santander but then my personal accounts are there & don't fancy all my eggs in one basket.
I'll be watching this with interest (excuse the pun)

chunter

Yeh with Santander.
It's the usually banking hookery with cheques - might take a week for them to clear.
The online banking website itself is generations ahead of the joke the that is the Ulster Bank. Dunno about the others.
Bank transfers I find are fairly quick. Transfer between Santander accounts is instantaneous.
No idea about SAP
Download transactions in Excel (XLS), Microsoft Money and Inuit Quicken (both QIF) and as a Adobe PDF.

erincc

Danske bank currently offering £500 cash back for business switchers

motorguy

I'm with BOI and have similar problems to the O/P

Transferring money takes 5 working days so when i need to move cash out i drive to the Portadown BOI and withdraw it, and walk across the road to the Nationwide and lodge it!

Very frustrating!

x12yhp

Thanks for the comments.

I talked to BOI a while back and apparently they simply didn't have the money to do the faster payments scheme. Whether this is true, I do not know but I had assumed this was standard these days. Had I not the urgent need to get an account running, I'd have gone elsewhere as soon as I discovered this.

Incidentally, one can convert the pdf statements to csv format with pdf software. For them to look 40 a month to have the system do this is money grabbing, pure and simple.

bonjovi99

Santander are streets ahead with business banking
My fees whilst in credit reduced from £1800 to Zero/year
Lodging cash & cheques had to be don through the post office which slowed things up a bit