Bank accounts

lemons11

I organise a golf society. We have about 70 members and in a normal year organise 7 golf events. We bring in about 10k and pay out about 10k. We're not for profit. We have about 1k at the end of the season. This is a mixture of cash and money in the bank. We have a Santander bank account, it was previously alliance and Leicester. There are no charges. I can pay money in (cheques only) through the post office and have a cheque book to make payments. I'd like to move to a new bank that has a debit card and if need be still allows cash and maybe cheques to be paid in. It would definitely need to have online banking and the ability to accept credits e.g. membership fees, outing fees etc. My concern is obviously transaction charges. If we have 70 members and 50 play each outing, we are talking about 450 credit transactions a year. We would probably have 40 debits a year. So maybe 500 transactions in total. Any thoughts on a good account to use. It would need to have a couple of signatories to prevent fraud. Thanks Stephen.

Savvy_Sue

I'd say you have an immediate contradiction there: you want a debit card, but you also want dual signatories to prevent fraud. I don't see how you can have both, and personally I'd always go for dual authorisation - wouldn't operate such an account without it. 

Have you asked Santander if that account allows online banking? I can't see that there's anything to stop people making credits direct from their own bank account, but I'm guessing you want the ability to be able to see instantly who has done that. 

lemons11

I think the dual signatures is for audit purposes. It only needs 1 signature on cheques currently but there are multiple named signatories on the account.

Mistral001

Go for the safest option and not the cheapest one.   Check everything with your constitution before doing it.  For example your constitution might require you to call an EGM to make the changes you are proposing.

martindow

With my Santander business account I can pay in cheques and bank notes but not coins via the branch cash machines.  The PO will only take cheques.  You have a lot to lose by moving away from free business banking.

Savvy_Sue

lemons11 said:

I think the dual signatures is for audit purposes. It only needs 1 signature on cheques currently but there are multiple named signatories on the account.

Well, as I said, I wouldn't operate such an account (where it's not MY money) without dual authorisation - and having two signatures just for audit purposes would be so easy to get round. 

How much use would you expect to make of a debit card? Would it really be so hard to reclaim expenses? 

If it's any help, the local walking group I'm in banks with NatWest and Unity Trust. The NatWest account lets us pay cash in, there's no dual authority for internet banking so all we do with that is pay cash in and write cheques to Unity Trust. The cheques require two signatures and we have four signatories at any one time. 

You might not be eligible to bank with Unity Trust - we can because we are affiliated to the Ramblers Association, which is a registered charity. That has no local branches: we could make an arrangement to pay in or withdraw cash at another bank, but it's no real hassle to run two accounts. UT does have dual authorisation on internet banking. 

If people need to claim expenses - printing, postage etc - they send a receipt to the Treasurer, they pay it online, and another authorised person authorises it. 

I am not sure what charges are made at either bank: they both used to be free but I haven't been treasurer for a while.