As the title says
All the money that i earn goes into a current account which pays for all the household bills etc.
what are the fees for business banking and is it worth it....
Business accounts can cost a fair bit in charges once you get past any free trial period. This can be quite expensive for domestic window cleaners because the cheque transactions are often a smallish amount and payingf a "per transaction" fee can be a pain.
Santander give free business banking for life so long as you deposit less than 100 cheques per month and less than 3 grand cash (I think) per month. Most sole traders will stay within those limits or, as I have done several times, hold a few cheques back for the following month. The big drawback for me is that Santander will not supply the BACS reference numbers with which you supply your customer. Anyone paying this way is given a unique ID by me consisting of house number (or abbreviation of house name) plus their postcode. By not displaying this reference, Santander effectively expect me to guess who has paid. This is often possible because surname and amount are displayed. However, as more and more customers pay like this, surnames and amounts can easily be duplicated - especially with the more commonly occurring names. The upside of Santander for me is that it is easy for me to deposit cash and cheques (it has to be at their branch ATMs). I live a few minutes walk away from a branch.
If you are a member of the FSB (recommended) you also qualify for free business banking with Co-op bank. Deposits may be made at certain pre-selected post offices (up to four) so you would be rerstricted to doing this in office hours. It is possible to nominate the post offices on various parts of your round. However, the customer service pepple at Co-op bank tell me that if you don't use a post office regularly, it can be awkward making deposits. I couldn't follow their logic on this. Co-op bank do show the BACS references and they even show the account number from which the customer paid (not that I need that second bit of info).
The end result of this is that I pay cash and cheques into Santander via their ATM. I receive BACS payments to my Co-op account. Gradually the emphasis will switch more and more to the Co-op account as less people use cheques until their phasing out in 2018. This may sound complicated but it's the way that works best for me. Two free business accounts to enable me to use the best features of each.
I even asked Santander if I should pay my credit card by BACS and just give "P Coleman" as the reference instead of my 16 digit card number. Of course I was being sarcastic and my brand of wit wasn't appreciated.
FSB membership costs me £100 a year (a bit more for the first year I think) and is tax deductible. I believe it is worth having - particularly as they cover the accountancy fees in an investigation. An insurance policy alone for that would cost more than the membership fee and you can get other things from the FSB too.