Apologies if this is in the wrong thread as I’m new to the forum and this is my first post!
I’ve banked with Monzo since 2019 and absolutely love it, it’s definitely changed my financial life.
I’ve registered my business in April this year (2021) and signed up for Monzo’s Business Banking which again I’m really happy with but I’m stuck with the cash deposit limit of £1,000.
I have a client who predominately pays me cash for every job that I do as well as he has given me lump sums before now as an investment or to buy new tech.
I have a job coming up from him in the next few weeks which will more than likely be a £200-£300 job, so the deposit limit won’t trouble me too much.
However, I am concerned that more work will come from him or other clients in the coming months and I will not be able to deposit more than £1,000 within that time limit.
Previous jobs from him were before I had my business account and this used to go into my personal account. I bank with with First Direct too so I’ve been able to deposit the large sums into there and transfer it over to my Monzo to beat the cash deposit limit. But now any future jobs I need to deposit into my business account to declare it on my tax return.
I understand why Monzo do this and limit this, but it makes it difficult for me for any clients that pay their invoices with cash. Which is more than likely a tax avoidance for themselves but as long as I’m paying my own I’m not too concerned.
So in terms of Monzo’s limits and balancing it on my books, what kind of a workaround can I use to make sure the money is deposited into my business account and goes onto my accounts?
@DaveJ - I do have a HSBC Kinetic account that I first opened when I registered officially, it might have to be that one then
Just to note, the majority of my income at the moment comes in electronically from ad revenue from a YouTube channel, which I am currently working on expanding.
It’s just if I get this client paying a few hundred pounds one day, another one the next etc, it’ll soon eat up Monzo’s deposit limit
@Revels - He potentially could transfer into my account from his but he just typically pays cash, it’s obviously a tax thing for himself that’s none of my business.
My main focus is that I manage my own company’s tax returns as honestly as possible, and therefore over time any cash purchases are honestly invoiced and accounted for
1 Like
phildawson
(Sorry, I will have to escalate this.)
6
Why not setup Starling? You can pay in up to £20k cash every day of the day without fees. Scan cheques in too.
My mum pays everything in cash, any job/bills/shopping etc. She always has. Even buying a computer for my younger brother at somewhere like PC world she would rock in with cash. I would say she is hardly be classed as someone who big alarm bells should be ringing. Just like the fact cheques have still not died off because some people like them, still really would rather would use cash.
You might raise eyebrows at HMRC if they see that your business account is funded a lot by transfers from your personal First Direct account. FD might even have a big problem with you putting business money through your personal account, so I’d say you shouldn’t really be doing that. It’s best to not mix business and personal banking in the way you are, so just use another bank which will let you deposit cash.
As for your seeming indifference to enabling tax avoidance, not very ethical is it?
I state that I take neither cash nor cheques. Majority of my clients are large businesses so they pay by BACS anyway, but even when I’ve done business with private individuals they’ve never had a problem with that.
My reasoning: No cash because I don’t want any questions from my accountant or HMRC (even when I didn’t bank with Monzo and have the low cash limit); No cheques because of the time and effort involved in getting them to the bank.
2 Likes
phildawson
(Sorry, I will have to escalate this.)
13
I don’t see why HMRC would be concerned about transfers from personal accounts.
I mean you don’t even need a business account as a sole trader. The business account just helps to say the business has this much cash rather than getting the calculator out and keeping tabs in a spreadsheet of how much is personal vs business.
The key thing is having the invoices, records etc to show where the money came from IF needed.
I don’t explicitly state no cash or cheques - I just have my account details on the bottom of my invoice under payment details.
I used to use quickbooks and just send them a link to view and pay the invoice online. So no cash or cheques for me either and I never had anyone complain about it.
There’s a lot of anti-cash sentiments here… its still perfectly legal even if its going out of fashion!
I’m sure most of us who have (mostly) left cash behind would admit this was just a natural progression - and it worked well for all parties. There are still cash-preferred businesses and you don’t ditch clients because they want to pay you cash (just charge them extra for the hassle!), and few people are in a position to turn down work if that’s how a client wants to pay.
OP is obviously making sure this is all above board on his end. Although I’d steer clear of publicly speculating the reason a client choses to pay in cash is to evade their tax obligations…
1 Like
Anarchist
(Press ‘Help’ search ‘Contact us’ or email help@monzo.com or call 0800 802 1281)
16
That’s standing the “10% off for cash” paradigm on its head
Admittedly it does push the limit problem in the wrong direction…
However as others have suggested, if OP is going to hit Monzo limits his best option is to open another account, even if just to transfer money to Monzo. I’m just suggesting he include the cost of depositing the cash (bank’s charge, and perhaps your time+mileage to find a still open branch/post office). Starling business would be perfect for this.
It depends - I assume you’re referring to The Consumer Rights (Payment Surcharges) regulations? While you can’t give someone the options “pay by cash = £1, pay by card = 50p, bank transfer = 1p”, you can factor these costs into the headline price. The guidance notes specifically okay the act of “pass[ing] on the costs through an increase in headline price of the relevant goods or services”
Many (if not most) people working freelance are pricing jobs individually based on a number of factors. They are not selling identical units off a shelf (what the regulations are really aimed at - creating parity on like-for-like purchases regardless of payment method), and thus cost of processing the agreed method of payment can be bundled right in - as with any other cost.
