Banking for small businesses, especially sole traders, often means using your personal current account or a second personal account for your business. Today a new entrant to the banking market aims to shake up small business banking and will throw in features such as profit and loss report and auto-categorisation of transactions and later down the line plug and play accounting built in for tax returns.
With 4.5 million in the UK, sole traders are often a forgotten category when it comes to banking so today Countingup is launching their mobile based business current account to those sole traders at the top of its wait-list.
The launch of the Countingup banking app allows a sole trader to open a current account on their smartphone in just 5 minutes. The account comes complete with a UK sort code & account number and a contactless Mastercard.
In addition to the banking hurdles faced by small businesses, the vast majority don’t use accounting software. This means that often their only engagement with their business finances is at the end of the tax year. They and their accountants miss opportunities to improve the profitability of their business. With this in mind Countingup comes with accounting functionality that will be rolled out throughout 2018. They are already providing a profit and loss report and automatically categorising transactions from the beginning.
With the Government’s ‘Making Tax Digital’ plans to increase the number of tax filings to 5 per year from April 2020, the size of the burden on business owners coming soon is pretty clear. Countingup aim to address this problem before it becomes reality with their automated bookkeeping and tax return functionality.
Countingup was started in September 2017 by Tim Fouracre. Countingup is venture capital backed. Tim Fouracre qualified as a Chartered Accountant at KPMG in 2007. He founded cloud accounting software company Clear Books plc in 2008 and was its CEO for nine years.
“Countingup is the fastest Challenger bank to launch in the UK. Inception to launch of our business current account has taken just over four months and that’s down to a fantastic team who are determined to make running your business as simple and as automated as possible”.
– Tim Fouracre, Founder and CEO of Countingup
How to open a Countingup banking app account
You can join the wait-list by downloading the Countingup app from Google Play or iTunes. The business current account is free to get started with and accounts will be made available to sole traders under a controlled roll out.
5 Responses
I went self employed in 1982, and it was then that I first applied for a business bank account. I decided against it because of the exhorbitant fees they charge. It seems as if the fact you run a small business gives the bank licence to charge you for the the slightest thing. You pay money into their bank so they can trade with it and make more money for themselves and they charge you for each transaction? I dont think so! From that time I have never had a business bank account. I do my own accounts on a speadsheet and have never had any problems with tax or anything else. I have trade accounts with other companies and pay for stock as I buy it. It is true for some businesses you cant get away without having one, but for most sole traders you can exist quite happily without having one and save a shed load of money. Unless banks can offer something I simply cant live without, or it becomes law to have one, I will carry on as I am. I see no need to change.
anything or any alternative to the big banks is good news
we hope they flourish
I subscribed to have a look, there are 800+ people in front of me.
You get it FREE for a year, but no idea what the charges will be after that.
You can currently open bank accounts with on-line companies like CashPlus, I assume it will be much the same as that.
I do not use banking on my phone, I would not like the idea of losing my phone and somebody being able to log in.
Business is £9.95 per month with free payments in/out though cash in via paypoint is 2.5%, not clear if vat added to this
Worst is the £1 carge for atm withdrawal
Mobile only not for me