Countingup, a mobile app allowing small companies and sole traders to do their business banking, bookkeeping and stay on top of their taxes, has raised £2.3m in seed round funding. They banking app also revealed that they now have more than four thousand customers.
Small businesses can open a Countingup business current account on their smartphone in just 5 minutes. The account comes with a UK sort code & account number and a contactless Mastercard. Business owners can also do their bookkeeping, view a profit and loss report and attach receipts to expenses – all in one simple app.
The banking and accounting features have been built in the ten month period since Countingup closed its first funding round last year in October 2017. Countingup plans to use its investment to ramp up development of its accounting features including tax calculations and filing ready for Making Tax Digital.
“We’re now looking ahead to our Series A as we’re growing at an incredible rate. 1,500 small businesses are joining us every month and this recent funding puts us on a path to be at 10k customers rapidly. More importantly there are a number of ways for us to accelerate this. There are 5.7m milion businesses in the UK that need a solution like Countingup, particularly as HMRC plans to require the digitalisation of small business record keeping with its Making Tax Digital initiative.”
– Tim Fouracre, the founder and CEO, Countingup
While opening an account in simplicity in itself, there are some drawbacks to a Countingup account. Cash point withdrawals or paying in cash will cost you £1 a time so this isn’t an business account suitable for companies who handle a lot of cash payments. However on the plus side, payments in and out of a Countingup account are free although there is a monthly £2.95 charge. Monthly costs for self employed sole traders and limited companies haven’t been revealed, although we believe the self employed monthly account cost is likely to be £9.95.
Ease of opening an account and likelihood of acceptance are the big selling points of Countingup but the other side of your decision should be what facilities does your bank offer that Countingup can’t. Are access to business banking professionals and potentially loans important to your business or would you be happy with a self serve mobile app based account?