[Tony dunmall]

I've got two business accounts

Both accounts with Santander
First was original style business account which they've honoured and costs me £0 which is awesome

But the new account costs £7.50 and charges on cash which I don't mind as I don't accept cash anymore. online and go cardless only

Never had a problem with  paying in quantities of cheques they go in fine

I find Santander fairly helpful

[colin bird]

We come off the two year free offer in March. It's going to be 35p for a bank transfer in and 70p for a cheque. 

At a conservative estimate £3k a year!

Santander, here we come. £7.50 a month. I was told over the phone that was unlimited cheques and electronic transfers, but I'm sure I've read otherwise so I'll investigate first.

Hi mate I was with nat west,was paying £25 a month fixed fee ,they then wanted to put me on a new tariff that would cost approx £112  charging per cheque,per bacs payments etc I'm now with Santander  for several months £ 7 50 a month fixed fee you can also  pay  a grand cash in a month that doesn't apply to me as I don't take cash,in my opinion you won't go wrong with santander

[tlwcs]

To those paying £1.50  a cheque at Barclays, pay them in at the post office with your paying in book using one of the P/O envelopes. There is no no charge for the cheque but it attracts the 6% we pay on money in.
I pay cash into my personal account at Barclays via the P/O and pY no charges on it. It's just accounted for as a personal drawing.

[CleanClear]

Other banks will give you free banking for 18months then they are similar rates to NatWest,I don't want to change account numbers sort codes etc complete nightmare changing it all over. I've heard others say you don't need a business account blaa blaa if you've got a lot of transactions going through each month you won't get away with it.

Thats not correct mate. Santander has remained consistently low, as have others. This has all been brought about by NatWest having to sell off their business accounts due to..i can't even remember just google it. Ironically it was all being sold to Santander, that fell through then the latest or last was all our (Nat west business) accounts where being sold off to Williams and Glynn. Thats still hasn't happened. I said earlier you can get free banking with the Co OP if you're a member of the FSB, thats still probably cheaper than many pay in charges.
 Regarding the "nightmare of changing over" same as you we where frightened about it but in practice we found it quite simple. Here's the process and how we done it (this should work the same with any bank you transfer to)......open account with Santander, give them your Nat West details. They seamlessly transfer over all your existing Standing Orders / Direct debits etc..... Cheques you recieve ? Just pay in to Santander, Cash you wanna deposit ? Just pay into Santander. Online payments/BACS etc.......  what we did here, was every customer we knew that paid by these methods we typed out a short note to say bank account details have changed... that went fine. Even if they paid  our old Nat West account, then the Nat west will still transfer them across to the correct account for a period of up to two years i think, but just check that date yourself. Other than that the only headache has been having slips with the old account number on when we wanted the new one on....but as i've outlined above it ain tthe end of the world and in practice its no real headache to save near a £100 a month.

[martin hulstone]

Santander 7.50 a month and no other charges as long as you don't pay in more than 1000 pounds cash each month.
I too was with natwest and could not believe their price increases, I can only think they no longer wanted to bank with small businesses as my charges went from around 24 pounds a month to 85, seemed a polite way of saying look elsewhere.

That's I disagreeumption. That they no longer want businesses like ours.

Can not see any other reason why they would do that, they did not even try to keep my business when i said i was leaving. If you say you are leaving Virgin to join Sky they Will try tooth and nail to keep you and match or better your current deal.

[p1w1]

Santander 7.50 a month and no other charges as long as you don't pay in more than 1000 pounds cash each month.
I too was with natwest and could not believe their price increases, I can only think they no longer wanted to bank with small businesses as my charges went from around 24 pounds a month to 85, seemed a polite way of saying look elsewhere.

That's I disagreeumption. That they no longer want businesses like ours.

Can not see any other reason why they would do that, they did not even try to keep my business when i said i was leaving. If you say you are leaving Virgin to join Sky they Will try tooth and nail to keep you and match or better your current deal.

in window cleaning terms NatWest only want the big country houses while santander are prepared to take on any old crap/council work 

[martin hulstone]

I presume that was said tongue in cheek? A lot of my window cleaning is commercial work and some big properties on sandbanks! One of my customers has miniature steam trains running in his garden, so it's not really crappy/council house work.

[p1w1]

I presume that was said tongue in cheek? A lot of my window cleaning is commercial work and some big properties on sandbanks! One of my customers has miniature steam trains running in his garden, so it's not really crappy/council house work.

What i'm saying is it looks like natwest would rather have  fewer customers but with higher prices, as santander are charging  lower prices but with possibly higher volume of customers for a cheap as chips business account. nothing to do with having customers who play choo choo in there garden  .

[CleanClear]

I presume that was said tongue in cheek? A lot of my window cleaning is commercial work and some big properties on sandbanks! One of my customers has miniature steam trains running in his garden, so it's not really crappy/council house work.

You need to make sure that Nat West know that.