New business - collecting payment

BYTEr

BYTEr

BYTEr

Associate
Joined
2 Oct 2004
Posts
1,048
Hi all,

Wife is setting up a new small business running baby and toddler activity sessions and needs a way to collect payment from parents. It will be for differing amounts based on a few variables so ideally she’ll be able to send an email to a parent for the exact amount, she said she has experienced something similar from a class she’s been to before but not sure what platform it was.

Has anyone got any suggestions for companies/services for me to look into?

Much appreciated and thanks in advance.
 
Paypal business . She can invoice direct

Or she could get an app done and take card payments that way.

but if she's a very small business then I'd probably just go with PayPal Business
 
Make sure she's got a business account set up with someone like sterling Bank. Keep the business finances separate from her own otherwise headaches ensure when it's tax return time.

As for platform, no idea, she could give out her bank details on an invoice, that's what I do.
 
SumUp offer an customisable online portal for online payments although they take nearly 2% of the transaction as a fee.
 
GoCardless:
Online sign up where customer enters bank details.
Allows you to set up recurring/ one off direct debits for differing amounts
 
Just email account number and sort code. Surely everyone has a banking app these days.

Other than that use Stripe to send invoices and collect card payments.
 
bloodiedathame said:
Make sure she's got a business account set up with someone like sterling Bank. Keep the business finances separate from her own otherwise headaches ensure when it's tax return time.
Click to expand...

A separate personal account will do, she is after all a sole trader by the sounds of it.
 
I work in this industry, the key question is how much is she expecting to take in a month & what will the average transaction value be?

Absolutely do not just jump in and use Paypal, Stripe, Sumup, iZettle etc without properly costing this up as the fees on those per transaction are ridiculous.

Best bet would likely be a Virtual Terminal/pay by link facility linked to a proper merchant account, the fees for which will vary somewhat depending on the answers to the question on the first line of my post. This would allow her to send e-mails/invoices which contain links to parents, parent clicks on the link & it takes them to a page to pay, parent pays & your wife gets a notification.

If you can answer the question in line 1 of my post i'll point you in the right direction.
 
tlrBeta said:
A separate personal account will do, she is after all a sole trader by the sounds of it.
Click to expand...

As am I, I have a business account with Starling, it's free so you might as well. A bushes account helps you get business rates on things eg phone contracts. I think it's also against most banks t&C's to use personal accounts for business use (at least that's what HSBC told me).
 
Anyone but the likes of Worldpay or Verifone.

if you get a business account you can get various benefits and some of the new fin tech banks help with working out taxes
 
bloodiedathame said:
I think it's also against most banks t&C's to use personal accounts for business use (at least that's what HSBC told me).
Click to expand...

It is, but everyone does it and the banks know but don't care that much. They even had a section for the Covid Bounce Back Loans which was "I am a sole trader using a personal bank account" to still be able to apply for one :p
 
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