It will be difficult for you to open a business account with any of the main banks if you are insolvent I am afraid. Do you actually need a separate business account, or could you use your personal account to process banking transactions for the business? This might involve some careful accounting, but it would be quite easy to separate business from personal items if you tried.
Thank you all, I have been surviving by doing exactly as you suggest - using my personal account. But now however, one of my main clients - a Local Authority has unilatterly decided that they will not pay cheques on a company invoice to an individual named person. They did this without consultation and have returned my 4 most recent invoices. If I don't get it sorted immediately, I will undoubtledly be in defult of my mortgage, my IVA payment and all the other monthly direct debits that I have in place. So much for helpin the smaller businesses eh!
bob
hi Melanie. I want to trade as a limitied co - kudos,confidence and all that but unable to do so as I can't open a Business Bank A/c. Trading therefore as a Sole Trader under a Business Name that reflects my particular business but I have to ask that payments are made to my personal account (joint a/c with my wife)
By and large it has worked well up to now. Some clients prefer to put me on their books as an employee and deduct PAYE at source. Others pay gross on my invoice. This particular client has been happily paying me gross for the last 3 years but sudenly, and as I say without notice changed to say it must be paid to the company and not an individual.
Bob
With some guesswork with regard to your real names - if you have a personal account titled "Bob Davies" could cheques then not be written to "Bob Davies Services" rather than "Good Value Services"? So there is some linkage to your real and business names?
I'm afraid that my bank might see the link between my personal and business matters and decide that I am in fact using a personal account inappropriately. Then they may offer to open a business account which they will refuse on accout of the IVA and adverse creit history which may then in tun cause them to tell me to sling me hook with the personal account. I have made tentative enquiries about opening a buisness a/c as an existing personal a/c holder and gave them the background. They were quite emphatic that they would not open the new a/c.
Catch 22 again
Bob.
