Hello everyone,

Hope i have come to the right place and hope that someone can offer me some advice?

By law i had to open a business account with barclays bank. I got 1 year free banking and now I have to pay. It seems that all banks charge now if you are a business..

Can anyone offer any tips to help keep the banking charges down please? Example, I am charged £0.85p on every £100 in cash that I bank and £0.85p on every £100 in cash that I take out of my bank! I suppose this applies to cheques? All cheques cost £0.30p each and then of course there is the flat rate account fee of £5.50 per month which i guess is unavoidable...

Any advice on how to keep costs down would be very much appreciated including any advice with regards to other banks and business accounts.

Many thanks for the help.

resident of rip off Britain:x

I have run my own, small, part-time, business for nearly eight years, and as far as I am aware there is no legal requirement to open a separate business account.

The tax people prefer it, but as they said to me, right at the start, "We cannot force you to open one"

When I started off, I realised that it would be easier to have my business money kept separately, but I'm quite sure that as long as you can keep track of it, it can be put in with your own money.

In my case, I did have another, "spare" account with a "High Street" bank, that had a small amount of money in it.

So, I approached the bank, and asked if I could use it for a business account, and they agreed.

I took my own money out, and put my capital in.

They don't charge me for putting money in, taking it out, for writing cheques, or for having a debit card - they are quite aware that the moment they try it - the money walks!

Hi,

If you are a Sole Trader and you have a personal cheque or deposit account, it is acceptable to have customers write their cheques to you personally and then for you to bank them in your personal account, although there is no clear line or way to account for money attributable to your business, if you only use the account for your business there should not be a problem.

Open a standard cheque book account (current account). At this stage your only interest should be to create a facility where you can pay in cheques and withdraw money.

There's stacks of people with small businesses that do not meet the criteria to open a Business Account, so there are'nt many options.