Even as a Sole Proprietor, get an EIN number. There may be local banks or CU's that may be options as well. Call and talk to them.
@Citylights18 wrote:Thinking about starting a sole proprietorship/real estate business and I'm looking for a good business bank (hopefully some buisness credit) to get me started. I've read the reviews on here and they seem to be mixed and would appreciate some opinions.
Existing places I have a relationship:
NFCU (14 years)- I read they don't service business accounts well.
Citi (9 years)- I don't know about service but their business cc's report to the business bureaus.
Suntrust (8 years)- They should really wrap up the merger with Truist.
Nasa FCU (8 years)- Offer a business credit card with 50,000 in value, smaller credit union though.
Chase (6 years)- How are the fees? High SUB requirements for cards and they seem to be picky.
AMEX (1 year)- Their business card offerings with Lowe's and AWS fit my business profile, they don't report to D&B.
Speaking of which should I be concerned about reporting to D&B if I am a sole propritorship? Do I need a business banking account first before I can get any of the cards? Would I be smarter to get the AMEX cards keep things in my personal checking for now? Citi seems inquiry sensitive as I couldn't get a CLI with them with only 1 inquiry in 6 months.
1. It probably won't be easy to get a business line of credit or loan that early in the game.
2. Of the institutions you mentioned, I can say that Chase is a great business bank, and NFCU is a terrible one.
3. You should definitely have a business checking account before you do anything else.
4. You should keep your personal finances and your business finances totally separate.
5. As to business credit cards, I can say that Amex and Chase have good cards, and that it's much easier to get a card from Amex than from Chase.
@pizzadude wrote:
Agree with the above sentiments, keep your business and personal accounts seperate. Once you have accounts open and demonstrated cash flow you can start looking for credit cards, most companies will want to see evidence of gross receipts, etc...
I've had a business checking & savings account open with NFCU for the last 1.5 years and for my purposes they've been sufficient. Let me state though that I have no employees and don't have a large volume of transactions inflow / outflow each month through my accounts. It's not easy to get them on the phone and it's sometime hard to get questions answered, so from a customer service perspective they could improve, but their services have been more or less free of charge to me so I'm okay for now.
We finally gave up on NFCU as our main business bank after they got rid of the check scanning feature. I couldn't be leaving my phone at the office so someone could use it to deposit checks. We still have the account but it is a back-up to PNC. PNC has been good, we have a check scanner with the full amount of those checks being available overnight. When we get a check it is usually between $2 and $10k so that matters. Otherwise, PNC is fine and worlds ahead of Chase who we tried for a bit in between.
If you don't need any loans, check deposit efficiency etc. NFCU is fine with their free Biz checking.