Opinions of Starling Bank for a Business Account?

gazfocus

Since starting my ltd company, we’ve been using Santander for our business account. No major issues but I started looking round for a new bank around a year ago because the old Santander mobile banking app was so outdated and you couldn’t see full details of payments coming in/out. At the time, I opened a Starling account but never really used it. 

A year on and the Santander app still doesn’t have notifications when you receive/send payments so I’m starting to consider switching to Starling as our main account. 

Does anyone here use Starling as their main bank? Any opinions? Anyone that doesn’t like Starling and if so, why?

martindow

I can't help re Starling but I use Santander for business banking.  Maybe it's different on the mobile app, but on a PC Santander show payments arriving and leaving the account.  Each item is listed by date with a column for credits and another for debits. 

Do you want to receive a text every time there's a transaction?  It doesn't do that and it's not a worry for me as I can just log in to the account to see what is happening.

gazfocus

martindow said:

I can't help re Starling but I use Santander for business banking.  Maybe it's different on the mobile app, but on a PC Santander show payments arriving and leaving the account.  Each item is listed by date with a column for credits and another for debits. 

Do you want to receive a text every time there's a transaction?  It doesn't do that and it's not a worry for me as I can just log in to the account to see what is happening.

So with my personal account, I get a notification pop up on my phone each time I receive a payment into my bank. This is the main thing I would find really useful on our business account, mainly so I don’t have to keep logging into online banking to check if a customer has paid their invoice for example. 

As I said, when I started to look at alternatives over a year ago, the Santander mobile app didn’t even show you full details of the payments. You also couldn’t set up a new payee on the app (could only make payments to existing payees etc) so was really limiting. That at least has been fixed since they came out with their new business banking mobile app. 

SensibleSarah

I use Starling for my business account (I'm a sole trader) and had no issues whatsoever in the nearly 3 years to date. I get push notifications every time money comes in or out and never had any problems doing what I need in the app.

J_B

SensibleSarah said:

I use Starling for my business account (I'm a sole trader) and had no issues whatsoever in the nearly 3 years to date. I get push notifications every time money comes in or out and never had any problems doing what I need in the app.

Ditto here with our Ltd Co

pjs493

I don’t know about Starling, but I use Mettle by NatWest for my limited company and get notifications every time I receive funds into the account, make a payment from the account, or use the account debit card. 

I find it useful to be alerted when customers pay invoices so I can send them a prompt receipt. 

LadyWithAPlan

I use starling for my ltd company and it’s great - notifications. You can use their pots and free business banking 
v highly recommended 

hamishandarchie

My daughter uses Starling for her business. They have a cash "paying in" limit, As she is receiving cash payments this is a problem. She has spoken to them about this but they cannot increase the limit they have set her. So she has to put cash in another account and then transfer this to Starling. Apart from this issue she is very happy with the service from them.

ChasingtheWelshdream

I use starling and find it great. The app is really simple to use. And it’s free. 🙂

I allocate funds for all my bills/expenses into saving spaces which gives me immediate oversight of my finances. I like the ability to have direct debits taken directly from designated spaces.

The fees for depositing cash are high, but as another poster does, I simply pay any cash into another account and transfer it over. I mostly take card payments so that isn’t really an issue for me.