Business bank accounts that give SMS/email updates

Huggy_Beard

Hi all, noob member here - would appreciate any advice!

Are there business bank accounts out there which send you a message when a payment has been received? It would save me hours every week. Can anyone recommend a business banking account?

My business takes payments (between £100 and £1000 over the phone, by BACS transfer and cheques occasionally. We use a COOP business account, but in order to check that a payment has been received, we have to log in or check the statements.

The co-op account I use is free (I signed up through the FSB) but I'm prepared to pay for business banking if it means I can get this feature.

Ballard

I'm not really answering your question as I don't know the answer but would it be possible and helpful for you to download the account movement to a csv file and then load it into a spreadsheet each day? It should make it easier to find specific amounts or references that way.

I concede that this isn't al all helpful if you need to know as soon as funds arrive but you haven't stated the reasoning of why you'd like to know immdiately.

Hopefully someone will have a better answer to your question.

Huggy_Beard

That could be done - however it requires manual login every time, which can't be automated.

Where a manual login is required, we also need a specific person to have all the login credentials, which then gives them full access to the bank statements.

A text message can be automatically forwarded (e.g. using IFTTT or Zapier), and can (crucially) be forwarded easily to a variety of people, without requiring that they have secure access to the account.

Ballard

That makes sense and I didn't really think that my suggestion would be that useful but thought it worth mentioning just in case.

I'm afraid that I can't offer any other suggestions but I hope that you're able to sort something out.

pmjenkins

The Santander 123 account I have can be configured to send an SMS whenever a credit of over £100 is received.

A quick look at their web site suggests that business accounts can also generate alerts.

http://www.santander.co.uk/uk/business/help-support/account-alerts

Huggy_Beard

That's OK, I appreciate you replying!

Huggy_Beard

Ooh, I didn't know that about Santander business accounts... I have one of those already - I should check that. I always thought it was just the current accounts, but I'll look into it - thanks!