Help us understand what features you'd like to see in a Monzo business account!

Sole Trader, as a freelance graphic designer

Currently, my main issue is invoicing, and chasing of clients, an automated set up to nudge clients who haven’t paid, and options to add late payment fees would be perfect.

Then expenses and digital tax tie ins would be fantastic too.

ANNA Money Beta, and spreadsheets

Extremely limited features, no options for regular payments (direct debits etc) is a huge issue for me.

A great invoicing system that saves me some time would be top priority. HMRC digital tax tie in and full expensing would be great as well.

Can’t wait for Monzo business, would also be okay for a phone call if that would help at all!

1. What do you do? Are you a sole proprietor, contractor, limited company?

Co-Founder of a IT Consultancy Startup; limited company ( x2 Shareholders )

2. What are the big pain points in managing your business finances? (think about things like invoices, expenses, payroll, taxes, etc.)

Splitting the Bank finances to support pre-pooling our VAT & TAX bills, separating off payroll and integration with Xero for finances , expensify for Expenses , etc

3. What tools do you currently use to manage your business finances?

Xero for main finances, Expensify for Expenses & currently testing out Pleo instead of Credit Cards to separate out expense banking & avoid risks of using main company account for this

4. What do you like / dislike about your current business bank account?

fee’s aren’t the best - pain to have multiple equal account holders, no way of limiting spends and Payroll via the website causes fraud flags every month and problems with the faster pay limits we can pay per day mean we have to stagger pay day!

5. If you could request one key feature for your business current account, what would it be? Are there any other features you look for in a BCA?

I’m gonna ask for more than one sorry!

  • Pots capability for TAX, VAT, Payroll to be separated out with relevant payments and charges levied directly against each pot!
  • PrePaid or ‘limited’ cards we can issue to each employee linked to an employee POT for expenses usage etc
  • Good Integration with Xero / Expensify
  • Batch Payments for Payroll
  • A special Monzo card JUST for Business banking - maybe blue on one side and the coral on the other?
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You absolutely hit the nail on the head with the web platform Chris. The current model with a mobile only platform is great, until you lose your phone, or it breaks the you are lose access to your account. The one thing I can say about high street banks, they do give access to your account in many ways, no single point of failure (to borrow a term from internet networking).

Would love to see this up and running. My Monzo personal account has been great from the start.

Hi,
I currently use Barclays and while I can’t complain about them I would love to move my business to Monzo. I have just found that Monzo is so much easier to use on a day to day basis that my old current account, especially for international travel. I’d really like to be able to move my two companies over to Monzo.
I find their App is actually not too bad but it’s still more complex than Monzo.
Also, my existing bank is very expensive, we seem to pay them an awful lot every month for doing absolutely nothing.

Hi, I’m afraid I haven’t read all posts on this thread, so apologies if I’m duplicating.

I really want to use monzo as a business account for a company with multiple directors each with account access. Specifically the business is a not for profit C.I.C.

  • What do you do? Are you a sole proprietor, contractor, limited company?
    One of two directors. IT & Finance Contracting.
  • What are the big pain points in managing your business finances? (think about things like invoices, expenses, payroll, taxes, etc.)
    Currently, the governments decision to “Make Tax Difficult”.
  • What tools do you currently use to manage your business finances?
    Excel. My accounts are simple. It works.
  • What do you like / dislike about your current business bank account?
    Not available on a mobile device.
  • If you could request one key feature for your business current account, what would it be? Are there any other features you look for in a BCA?
    No Charges. I always have a positive balance. I don’t see why I should pay someone to keep my money.
    I need (and with my current bank, have) no features that are different to a personal current account. I receive money by EFT, I send money by EFT & I have a full cheque book in a drawer that thinks the sun has gone out.
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I have an iPad at home as an emergency spare.

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  1. What do you do? Are you a sole proprietor, contractor, limited company?
    Limited Company

  2. What are the big pain points in managing your business finances? (think about things like invoices, expenses, payroll, taxes, etc.)
    Unnecessary admin!!

  3. What tools do you currently use to manage your business finances?
    FreeAgent accounting & Tide Bank

  4. What do you like / dislike about your current business bank account?
    Not much to dislike other than ability to process cheques, which whilst something that will eventually become irrelevant, is of major concern now. I have to maintain a high street bank at the moment just for cheque processing.

  5. If you could request one key feature for your business current account, what would it be? Are there any other features you look for in a BCA?
    Good app design, fast payments & cheque processing!!

Keep up the good work!

Pete

It would be fantastic, if I could export all my statements fitting the requirements of “Getting Tax Digital” (three excel sheets: income, outgoings and bank statements) – as I only run a small business and move all money electronically or via debit card, this export would represent my entire bookkeeping and save me loads of work.

About time we had a business account that’s on the side of the customer not a making you have a high credit score to open an account or getting money out you every month for doing very little without rewarding you people are not pounds to a bank they are real people who can make or break a bank

Would be nice to have an invoice provided in the app alongside statements for the monthly £5 charge. When I was with Lloyds for my business banking I would always receive an invoice with my statement each month for the banking fee(s). Needed for accounting purposes, having an odd £5 go out with no supporting paperwork is annoying. If you’re charging a customer/user for providing a service then an invoice or receipt of some kind is necessary.

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One thing for me is monzo could launch a device to take card payments like those pay as you go devices and we buy the small devices if it’s to carry around but offer bigger devices on rental would work too but difeeence I see is they can deduct charges like 1p or 2p per transaction and pay in to monzo business account that day so no middle men providing this and it would boost numbers wanting business account cause you can only pay in to the monzo account with this and it could be a real game changer forget Barclaycard worldpay first data and Elavon

So, take on Stripe, etc? Fairly established disruptive marketplace already I’d imagine.

It would add value to the account and make it easier to take payment from customers

Stripe are investors in Monzo: https://venturebeat.com/2017/11/06/stripe-joins-93-million-investment-into-u-k-banking-startup-monzo/
So perhaps it’s not the best idea to try and take business from your investors
Maybe they can offer discounted rates or something instead?

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Perhaps Monzo could offer cheaper rates to merchants who have a Monzo business account and get customers to pay using the business version of Nearby Friends.

Then they could encourage businesses to offer discounts to people who purchase using Nearby Friends. Could be good for buisnesses and good advertising for Monzo.

NB: not sure if this is feasible though.

Monzo can create a workable vision with stripe if it’s with that and go forward with a vision that is easy cheap and time friendly on the business account holder I don’t like the thought of waiting three to four or even five days for payments to come in or receive hefty charges for a few card payments

I’m sole director of a Ltd company.

I use QuickBooks for accounting and, dare I say it, Starling for banking.

I’d quite like to get over to Monzo as I’ve got my current and joint accounts already with you guys.

I see quickbooks integration to be essential as that’s the preferred choice of my accountant.

One pain point is VAT - it would be great to set up features to automatically take VAT from incoming payments and place it in a pot!

I look forward to seeing what you come up with!

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Writing on my phone so rather than refer to questions I’ll summarise my situation.

Currently a sole trader. I use Numbers for iOS to keep a spreadsheet record of money, assets and expenses. Here’s what would be great:

  • Invoice generation and storage, and my own database of all customers or vendors I have paid or been paid by including payment info. Also if you could pull up Companies House info automatically that would be helpful.

  • Expenses tracking. On my spreadsheet I record all transactions and it calculates my year end figures. If the app could do that then brilliant.

  • Cheque generator. It’s amazing how businesses still use paper cheques. I hate having a chequebook. Surely this can be solved digitally? Also record of receipts and scanning for paper receipts.

  • Data export for HMRC audits.

  • Tax return generator - can’t be too difficult.

  • Can you do Square style payments? That would work too.

My current business bank is Lloyds and I loathe them. They charge for absolutely anything they can get their hands on. I have to use a physical branch and stand around for twenty minutes to do ANYTHING and the staff are snotty and arrogant. I call it the Department for the Prevention of Success. They seem to be there to serve as gatekeepers who want their cut. The amount of money they take just just for moving money sticks in my craw. They’re parasites.