Business Bank Accounts | Freelance Business Chat | Forum

The financial side of freelancing is anything but my strong suit. (I'm great at making money; not so great at anything else revolving around it.)

I just changed my business name. And I decided it's a good idea to finally set up some new accounts (currently 99% of my biz finances go through Paypal, including outgoing through their debit card). Here's what I'm doing:

Personal:  I was with M&T Bank (hate them with a passion — only w/ them b/c they bought out the bank that bought out my original bank). I just opened a personal PNC account. As soon as they deliver my first set of checks, I'll be closing out the M&T one. 

Business Checking: I just applied for a new business checking account, also with PNC. They'll call in a day or two to verify things and I'll go to a branch this weekend to finalize it and transfer funds in. 

Business Savings: Once the new biz checking account is set up, I plan to set up a savings account with ING. That's where I'll transfer money for things like tax payments. 

What business accounts do you use? Which bank are you with, and would you recommend them to others? 

I'd particularly like to know who uses ING and what you think of them. 

Share your business banking tips or strategies with us to help newbies and experienced slackers (like myself on this issue) alike. 

Jenn

Because most of my income in recent years has come from regulars or e-book sales, I just haven't needed more than Paypal. Their monthly sales reports have made life pretty easy, so I didn't have to worry about much recordkeeping. Only a few things went to the bank (like Adsense payments). But it's made me lazy. 

I changed the biz name this year. I was originally planning to incorporate, but after further evaluation it didn't make sense to do so yet. I plan to at some point — maybe next year if I need to hire more people on a regular basis (like the assistant I've been wanting for a while now, but don't want to deal with the hassle of hiring). So I'm trying to get my recordkeeping in order now, so I'll be set when I'm ready for a change. 

My darlin' is awesome with finances. So he's a huge help (and not at all pushy about trying to make me do things his way). He got me Quicken for Christmas at my request. I'll be using that to work on personal budgets and savings goals. And I got PeachTree Accounting to start keeping better business records. I got the highest level of that simply so it can accommodate growth. The biz is also operating under two divisions (one as the book imprint), and three or four further down the road. This can handle all of that joyous fun. I'm waiting until the accounts are set up before I really jump in and learn how to use all the features. I used to have QuickBooks, but it didn't appeal to me as much as I'd hoped. 

Out of curiosity, why are you changing your Outright account? Are you upgrading to something else? Not happy with them for some reason? I've considered them, but don't like the idea of entering that info online. I've wondered what other freelancers thought of them. (Didn't Jen E. work for them? Does she still?)

If you go with Quicken, I'd recommend the 2011 version (rather than 2012). The newest apparently was released with a crap ton of bugs in the budgeting tools. My guy uses it and upgrades every year. He said they just put out a fix for some of them, so the biggies might be fixed now (haven't looked closely myself). But it seems from his feedback and reviews I've read that this newest version was a bit of a dud. 

I have the home & business version, but it didn't seem like it would cut it for the business accounting. I can't remember what specifically made me opt to get other accounting software though. 

I'm getting a bit annoyed with PNC's process for setting up a business checking account. Setting up the new personal one so I could switch main banks was easy peasy. This one, not so much. 

First, the woman wasn't there at all. So someone copied my docs to give them to her. And I have to go back this weekend when she's actually going to be in this branch. Fine. 

I get her on the phone, and she initially had no idea what was going on — as in applying online and having me go into the branch to finish the setup process. That seems to be their norm. I brought in everything the corp folks told me to when they called (including a W-9). She tells me I don't need that but instead need some other document in its place b/c it's a biz and I used an EIN (even though the W-9 has a place for the EIN). 

So she tells me I need to bring the original letter stating my EIN. Um, no such thing. At that time at least, if you got your EIN over the phone you didn't get that through the mail unless you requested it. That was 8 years ago for this business. And even if I have them send one now, it won't matter because the name of the biz then is not the name of it now (just changed — and they were given a copy of the fictitious name registration, so that's not an issue). The problem is that the IRS has to update their own records first. Then send the form. That could take weeks. So I have to set it up under my ssn now instead and change it later.

Way too much hassle for an account I barely plan to use. It'll exist almost exclusively as an account for things like Adsense payments to go into — the rare payments that don't come through Paypal first. 

I really hate hassles. 

I already went in this weekend to finish setting it up using my SSN instead. It was ridiculous. The woman was nice enough, but the whole EIN / W-9 thing ticked me off. Their corp folks said that was the right thing to bring. It asks for your EIN. There's no excuse for them to make me set the account up using the SSN instead and have me change it later. I just didn't feel like having to back a third time to get this set up. Personal account? No prob. My ING accounts? No prob. Just this one account. Ugh. At least it's finished.