Recommended Bank Accounts?

http://www.abbey.com/ Business Banking Account has served me well so far, although there Visa card seems to be a little bit sensitive, with larger internet transactions usually triggering the fraud prevention and requiring authorization.

Hi Andy, I've been using FAC (it ROCKS!) for a few years... here's my experience....

My business account is with HSBC, I use Firefox, (on a mac). It's ok, it could be better though, usability is a bit poor, but it does work. Except, that my credit card statements don't upload to automatically to FAC, (they used to but stopped working some months ago). So I input them manually.

My main business account statements, do upload without any problems, though.

I'm not completely unhappy with the HSBC, but if I found a First Direct equivalent for business, then I'd move it.

Hope that helps.

Good luck with your new business... Clare

I use the HSBC Direct account, Free for 18 months and then free within limits (that I won't exceed) so essentially permanently free.

Just to counter a bit with Clare above (no arguments please - hehe) my Commercial Card statements didn't used to work but seem to work again with FAC so it's pretty seamless now.

I would recommend it, but I've never used a different account so wouldn't be able to compare for you. You can find out more here: http://bit.ly/2DWI2k

Hope that helps - Lea.

Should have mentioned - works fine on my Mac, Safari & Firefox - even on my iPhone...

While Lloyds TSB's online banking does technically work with FAC, I'd be loathed to recommend them. The UI for the online banking is terrible and it doesn't let you do basic things -- like paying a bill -- without a 2 day turnaround.

And Lloyds TSB's commercial credit card offering has *no* online facility at all, never mind the ability to download statements and upload them to FAC.

That's as far as my FAC knowledge goes. Banking in general, I continually heard horror stories about Bank of Scotland, so deliberately avoided them. One of the other companies I'm involved in uses Abbey without any bother.

I'm being encouraged to try the Co-operative Bank with their FSB deal: http://www.fsb.org.uk/default.aspx?id... -- has anybody tried Co-operative Bank with FAC?

Co-Ops FSB deal is very good - I took a look at that too, but a friend of mine is having terrible trouble with the Co-Op loosing there cheques - and it's not the first person I've heard that from...

I'm in the process of moving my personal account away from Smile (owned by the Co-Operative Bank) because, despite being an internet bank, you simply can't download any transactions for use elsewhere. Something so basic, yet it's just not there.

I've no idea if the Co-Operative Business banking is also lacking, but if it was, then that would be a huge reason for me to avoid them: uploading and analysing bank statements to FAC is one of the main reason I use, and love using, the software so much.

Another vote for Abbey's online business bank account. They are free banking for life, they do have restrictions but I have not bumped into them yet. I access the web site using Google Chrome without a problem. The statement download have a few supported formats, which includes OFX (FAC's recommended format)

Setup was slow compared to some banks (just over 2 weeks), money transferes to a non-Abbey account take 4 days.

Had no reason to test their customer service properly, but getting through to them has always been prompt. I'm quite happy and have found no reason to move yet.

I use Cater Allen, an Abbey subsidary or Santander if you want to get picky. It's basic account is free, the CSV file of banking transactions imports into FAC without a hitch.

Some of the web pages are broken, but readable on Firefox or Chrome. I'm sure they'll work better with IE. All that's required is a CSS fix.

I know Lloyds are currently working on a new website but knowing how long these things take I wouldn't hold your breath.

I use Alliance & Leicester Commercial Bank. When I signed up a few years ago they had a good deal going with new business accounts -- they may still do. I just have the one current account, and they give me a Visa debit card and cheque book.

Their online banking works well with Firefox and Safari (on a Mac) and the statements I download upload perfectly to FreeAgent.

I set up a second company a couple of years later and was perfectly happy to go with A&L again for my new business account.

I while back I sold a desktop software app over the web. I had to find a third-party for the merchant account, and a third-party payment service provider, but everything hooked up just fine with my A&L account.

A&L doesn't leave me feeling wildly enthusiastic about their banking...but it works, and that's the main thing.

Looks like something from Santander is the way forward, then (he says, cheekily compressing the recommendations for Abbey, Cater & A&L into one!). (One of my business advisors made the same recommendation, but for totally different reasons, in that apparentl they were the most stable bank through the past year or two.)

Out of curiosity, is there a merchant bank account that works with FAC? I know that Lloyds TSB CardNet doesn't (because I've got a dormant account with them for a project that never went anywhere). Barring any other recommendations, I'm probably going to get a good deal from Streamline commercially, but working with FAC is always a bonus...

I can't believe anyone recommends Abbey's online banking, are we looking at the same site? Apart from all the schoolboy usability errors and quirks, we have found it to be functionally 'dangerous' when setting up payments. The registration process is so obscure, they had to send us new debit cards as this was the only way they could register us with the system!

Ok, the business banking is free, and I don't know if any of the others are better.
But if you are a web designer, you'll end up laughing or crying every time you log in...

For personal use, I have. But for some reason, when it comes to business-facing sites, they all think they can get away with appalling 'enterprise' software abominations. For instance, the contrast between consumer and business Barclaycard websites is like chalk and cheese.