Getting a business checking account simplified
A separate checking account for your business is very essential for a number of reasons. This is necessary if your business is entirely online or a regular real life building or office. It is very much necessary in order to keep your business and personal funds separate. It can save you a lot of time in keeping a track of all your business transactions.
The first step to take while looking for a business checking account is to ask with your local bank. Your current bank should be able to offer you some sort of special incentives if you open one with them. Ask for offers with regard to debit or credit cards, check books, online banking and free bill payments. You need to make sure that the bank is not going to charge you anything extra for all these added features.
After enquiring with the bank, you need to sort out all your paperwork. As with any other account, you will need certain required documents in order to open the account. The documents that you need will depend on the type of account you are trying to open and also the state that you are opening it in. you will need a social security number, the EIN for the business that you own and also the bank statement from the previous year or tax forms for the business. The tax forms are not usually required, given that your business might be a start up with no track record, but if you do have the tax forms it is always better to furnish them along with the application.
After opening your checking account, make it a point to keep a tab on all your expenditures. If you have a number of business credit accounts attached to your checking account, it becomes all the more important to do so. It will also help keep a tab on your employees’ expenditures. You need to know exactly what they are spending on using the business credit account. And try to make your credit accounts automatically payable through the checking account. This way you will not miss payments that are to be made to the credit account every month. A missed payment can mean excessive fees in the form of late payment fees. And also you will have to end up paying higher interest rates and your credit limit might also be affected. And the worst result is that you will end up having a black mark on your credit record. A tarnished credit record will stay with you for a long time and you will have to do quite a bit to set it right.
A business checking account is very much necessary in order to keep a track on your business expenditures. At the end of the fiscal year when you sit down to chalk out your profit loss account, you will find it a lot easier if you had a dedicated account for your business. Else, it can get very messy to sort things out. And lastly, a business checking account helps give your business a sense of seriousness or professionalism which it might lack if you write checks from your personal account.
