Small Business Banking Recommendations (California)

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JamesSFO
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Joined: Thu Apr 26, 2012 10:16 pm

Small Business Banking Recommendations (California)

Post by JamesSFO »

We currently do our small business banking with Bank of America, we have a single checking account (average daily balance is probably $50-100K). We do NOT do payroll at this time and have no such needs for next 12-36 months.

Key needs:

- Reasonable ATM network (for deposits) in the San Francisco Bay Area
- Mobile check deposit
- Good online bill pay
- Potential to open a business line of credit with the same bank

BTW, there is nothing "wrong" with BofA per se right now, just trying to get a sense of who else folks are using or have used for business accounts.
expat
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Re: Small Business Banking Recommendations (California)

Post by expat »

Chase Bank is working well for me. No fee for accounts with average daily balances over 10K.
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ResearchMed
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Re: Small Business Banking Recommendations (California)

Post by ResearchMed »

We use BoA for our small business account, and use the onling "Bill Pay" very frequently. (Our needs are not of the "payroll" type, as we pay vendors either by check or charge. We have no outside "employees"; they are all hired through other companies who deal with payroll issues, insurance, etc.)

We select the Bill Pay that does not debit our account until AFTER the check has been presented for payment, not "x days after it is processed", regardless of how long it takes to be cashed (or even if it never arrives).

The iPhone photo "snap and deposit" for checks is very handy at BoA, and has worked well, although we only use that for our personal accounts.

We use Chase Paymentech for charge card processing, and the money lands in the BoA account the next day.
(BoA charge processing has been horrendous the two times we *tried* to set it up. Chase has been terrific from the start, putting BoA's customer "service" to shame repeatedly, not a difficult thing to do, of course.)

Is there a reason that you don't transfer some of that money to the associated savings account? A transfer back and forth can be "same day" (almost immediately) if you needed the money on short notice.

RM
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JamesSFO
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Re: Small Business Banking Recommendations (California)

Post by JamesSFO »

ResearchMed wrote: Is there a reason that you don't transfer some of that money to the associated savings account? A transfer back and forth can be "same day" (almost immediately) if you needed the money on short notice.
We found our balances gyrate, so we can be at say $1K on day 1 and $101K on day 2, then back down to $1K on day 4. The xfer back and forth not worth the hassle with interest rates low.
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ogd
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Re: Small Business Banking Recommendations (California)

Post by ogd »

Give US Bank a look too. Works great for me, but with much smaller daily balances (which was a reason for the choice). And they're everywhere.

Edit: smaller than 50K - 100K, that is.
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