Hutch

In the process of setting up a new business at the moment. Friend of mine (operating as a sole trader) operates his business out of an ordinary cheque account because he objects to the charging structure. Anyone else do things that way? Would the bank object if they found out I was operating a business through a personal account?

northerner

Nic's set up as a sole trader (chatterbugspeechpathology - just incase anyone needs any speech therapy in Sydney LOL ) - and has set up a separate account, but it's not a 'business' account - just a normal personnal account with ANZ to keep the finances separate. Don't think there's any issues with doing it that way.

Cheers,

Graham

Hutch

Ah cool. Didn't think the bank thing would be an issue - thanks for the confirmation.

cresta57

I just use a "GST Account" Hutch, it's linked to our other ANZ accounts so it shows up in the online banking and has x amount of free transactions per month. We pay all our business cheques + cash into that account then pay ourselves a wage into another account.
I also object to the price/charging structure for business accounts, when you query the charges the answer is "don't worry it's all tax deductable":curse: I loathe the banking fraternities attitude to charging it sucks
You can see why the big banks here can afford to buy up multi national companies in a worldwide market, they charge their customers like wounded bulls.

Bobcat

What line of business are you venturing into?

I'm a sole-trader and with me being in real estate, in addition to whatever accounts I chose to hold, I must by law operate a separate Trust Account.

I opted to have a business account as well as a personal account; because it helps bookkeeping wise to keep the business side of things separate. Had I not wanted to operate this way........ I don't think the bank would have been too perturbed?

I pay all business bills with a credit card via BPay as this gives us heaps of frequent flyer points, as long as I then transfer funds from operating account into credit card account by cut-off date......... there's no rip-off sky high interest involved!

DrWho

We have everything completely separate although with the same bank, Westpac... Personally I've found the bank charges to be considerably less than the UK...

Centurion

But if you have an ABN number and want to accept payments in your "trading name" then you may have no alternative but to open a business account. Frankly a small business account isnt any more expensive than a personal account (with the NAB anyhow) and at least that way I have seperate EFTPOS and a credit card for it thats linked.

In QLD you have to show your registration of a business name and thats about it to open it.

Hutch

Will have to add that one to the list of accounts to check out. Never really considered ANZ before.

It's a little tech support business - basically a service company.

Yea I did wonder about that. I'll be using a MoneyTech mobile EFTPOS machine though and I suspect that vast majority of people will choose to pay that way, in which case the business name doesn't really matter.

harrip

I'd recommend any person running a business has their business transactions separate from their personal ones. It make accounting a lot lot easier. On this basis, with business fees not much different from personal ones you may as well do the right thing and get an appropriate business account.