[Sunshine/Cleaning]

Any comments?

[Frankybadboy]

NO

[Steven Ternent]

FSB sorry whats that?

[darren clarke]

Federatin of small business

[Sunshine/Cleaning]

I've been looking into it and it seems that it covers some of the things I suggested to Bryan Dolby.

[Sunshine/Cleaning]

I have a meeting on monday to look at joining.

Any experiences would be useful.

[mileslake]

I have been a member for about 5 years.  I did like it because you get free business banking with the Coop Bank.

But recently the Coop have changed the way the accounts are accessed online etc etc and now I find it a nightmare trying to trace who has paid me  etc.

I am very seriously thinking of cancelling the FSB and closing down the Coop.

[Paul Coleman]

I have been a member for about 5 years.  I did like it because you get free business banking with the Coop Bank.

But recently the Coop have changed the way the accounts are accessed online etc etc and now I find it a nightmare trying to trace who has paid me  etc.

I am very seriously thinking of cancelling the FSB and closing down the Coop.

I'm surprised to read this.
I have an account with Co-op (via FSB) and have all my incoming BACS payments routed to it.  This is because I CAN see who has paid.
Do you give your customers a reference to quote?  I give them <housenumber or first 4 letters of housename><postcode> as this acts as a unique identifier.  This always displays in my statement.  I used to use Santander for this but they stopped displaying the references.  Therefore, Santander get the cash and cheques because I live near an ATM and can make the deposits 24/7.  Co-op get the BACS ayments because they show the references allowing me to track who has paid.  The Co-op website is a bit antiquated though.  I can't even set up a bill payment electronically so I do that bit with Santander.
The way it's working at the moment is OK for me because the incoming BACS money to the Co-op account I regard as savings for my tax bill.  I try to forget about it and live on the other money.

[Steve_c]

Same as Paul I have joined as i want 100% free banking, all the legal stuff you might need one day is also free. The biggest thing is,if you are ever investigated by the Tax office your covered. Your accountant,( if you use one) they will charge you the earth if this happens. I think even if you do your own tax returns this is way above any self assessment.

[mileslake]

True what you say about the tax investigation cover

I can't get on with the new online Coop account,  since they changed it,  about three months ago. What used to be a three minute job  to check who had paid each day, now  takes ages. It is easier to wait for the statement to come in the post each month,  to see who has paid which is useless to me.

[Sunshine/Cleaning]

I'm with A&L, soon to be Santander, for banking and get a refference with payments in. The customer puts his address as ref which is printed on the sheet and online

[clearlyclean]

Don't understand what you mean about coop online I bank with them and all my payments come up as normal name/address of who paid and find convinient to pay at post office or branch in town.I might consider FSB membership but not for free banking but for business contacts sounds a bit like joining freemasons 

[Paul Coleman]

I'm with A&L, soon to be Santander, for banking and get a refference with payments in. The customer puts his address as ref which is printed on the sheet and online

I genuinely hope that you don't lose that facility when there systems are fully merged.  Santander have a very bad habit of changing things around with no warning and with serious disregard for their customers' needs.  Perhaps they should start up a window cleaning business 
Even their top gun left the other day to join LTSB.

[Sunshine/Cleaning]

I have a private account with Santander and transfers to that account also can be seen. Could anyone give a pic example to show the lack of info?

[Paul Coleman]

I have a private account with Santander and transfers to that account also can be seen. Could anyone give a pic example to show the lack of info?

I won't give a pic as that would reveal a customer name.
However it goes like this from left to right.

<DATE>  FASTER PAYMENTS RECEIPT REF <CUSTOMERS INITIAL/SURNAME>  <AMOUNT>     <BALANCE>

The payment reference used to appear just after the customer's surname.
Admittedly most of the time it would be possible to track which customer has paid by the name and amount.  But what happens if say you have three Smiths who all pay £20?  That's where the payment reference (supplied by you to the customer) is needed as it is a unique identifier if you do it right.  Even with a relatively small number of BACS payers I ended up with several identical surnames and amounts.  I realised that this situation would only grow as the time arrives for cheques to be phased out in favour of BACS.  I envisage a situation eventually (not for a few years) where about 70-80% of my customers pay by BACS (or telephone banking if they won't trust the internet).  Clearly in such a situation, a unique identifier is even more important - hence my <housenumber/housename><postcode> scenario.
I suppose it would be possible to reduce the price by a penny to make it clearer which customer has paid but I don't see why I should mess around like that just because of a bank's gross incompetence.

[Steven Ternent]

Same as Paul I have joined as i want 100% free banking, all the legal stuff you might need one day is also free. The biggest thing is,if you are ever investigated by the Tax office your covered. Your accountant,( if you use one) they will charge you the earth if this happens. I think even if you do your own tax returns this is way above any self assessment.

Could you tell me what your covered for and by who?
I was told by an accountant that i clean windows for;
"If investigated by the tax man... he will find something... whether or not you have an accountant!"

I don't!

He went on to say " They don't like people like you or taxi drivers or anyone who works in cash payments"

So what are you covered for?
being part of the Federation of small business FSB or like me joining the Master Guild of window Cleaners MGWC, makes no difference to the tax man!