While many people turn to their usual bank when opening a business account, it’s advisable to shop around. There can be some advantages to using the same bank for personal and business accounts – your manager may be more supportive if you are known to the bank and have a sound financial track record. However, each bank offers different services and has different bank charges.

Many banks are currently offering free business banking for a set period – six months or a year – as an incentive. There are also a variety of support packages, such as free business software and dedicated advisers to help with your business plan.

Choose a bank that will give the best all round deal for your particular business – you may also want to consider corporate ethos and ethical banking when deciding which bank to take your business to.

Choosing Your Accounts

Depending on your business type and size, you may need different accounts. If you are likely to be making frequent transactions, for example, you may be better off with an account that charges a fixed monthly fee, rather than a fee per transaction. If you need to process debit and credit card payments, you will need a merchant account.

For overseas trading, you may want a foreign currency account. As with personal accounts, it may be worthwhile to hold more than one type of account – for example, a current account for day-to-day banking and a deposit account for investing profits. There’s nothing to stop you having different accounts with different banks – although you might get a better deal if you hold all your accounts with one.

Opening Your Account

You will need to set up a meeting with a business advisor to open an account. In order to prevent money laundering, you will need to provide certain information at this point – including proof of identity such as driving license or passport, plus proof of your address and signature. The advisor will want to see a business plan and details of your financial planning. There are many schemes that offer help with putting together a business plan. Make sure you have as detailed a plan as possible when presenting it to your advisor – this will help him or her to offer the best services for your needs.
You will also need an account opening mandate – the bank will provide this.

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Bank of America online banking is available to any customer who currently does business with the bank. Participation in the Bank of America online banking program is free and easy to set up.

One feature that sets the Bank of America online banking program apart from its competitors is the way it handles bill payments. You’d think a lot of data entry would be required, but that’s not the case. The program already knows the billing addresses of the most commonly used payees.

To set up a payee such as your electric company, start by accessing the built-in list of payees that the Bank of America online banking program maintains. The program already knows the names of the major players in the community and maintains the names and billing addresses that most customers are likely to use such as electric, cable, and utility companies, area department stores and local major financial institutions. Pick the payee from the list, enter your loan or account number and in seconds, that payee is set up.

If the payee does not exist in the list, you enter payee details one time, and you never have to deal with a payee again until there’s a change in address or other account details. When you have all your payees entered, they appear listed in alphabetical order. Next time you open the Bank of America online banking program to pay bills, you select the payee, enter the amount due and the day you want the payment to show up at the payee address.

Now here’s the cool part about the Bank of America online banking bill paying option. The money for the payment is not debited from your account until the payment arrives at the payee billing address. Most other bill paying options debit the money the day the payment is mailed not delivered, meaning the bank has 4 – 7 days to earn interest on your money! So in effect, you actually earn money by using the Bank of America online banking option.

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