Your business, no matter how small, can benefit by managing your finances using sub-accounts that allow you to separate payment flows, which in turn give you a clearer picture of how money moves in and out of your business. While sub-accounts aren’t offered by traditional institutions, they are a great feature of alternative business accounts and well worth diving into.
So what is a sub-account?
It’s really just what it sounds like: a sub-account is a fully-functional account that sits under your main business account. You should be able to set up as many free sub-accounts as your business needs. Ideally, each of these sub-accounts will have their own IBAN (International Bank Account Number), and sometimes you will have the option to request payment cards for each sub-account, too. As the main account holder, you will be able to view the transactions for each sub-account individually, as well as make or oversee payments from them simultaneously.
Sub-accounts allow you to optimise your account to best serve your business. For micro businesses, this might mean simply separating your personal and business transactions into sub-accounts; for small and larger businesses, this might mean setting up sub-accounts for employees, teams or departments. Your options for how you make sub-accounts work best for your business are virtually limitless!
Laine Redpath
Here are 10 powerful ways to use sub-accounts:
1. Keep income flows separate
2. Separate the private you from the professional you
3. Streamline team finance
4. Monitor your income
5. Save for the future
6. Taking care of tax
7. Specific expense accounts
8. Control access to accounts
9. Move money where it needs to be
10. Keep a bird’s-eye view of your finances
1. Keep income flows separate
As a businessperson, you may very well have different sources of income: this may be from two or more small businesses or from some form of passive income, such as property rental. Access to sub-accounts keeps this neat by allowing you to easily channel all your sources of income into different accounts.
2. Separate the private you from the professional you
Owners of businesses, big and small, should keep their business finances separate from their private ones. Opening a sub-account for your private transactions, linked to your main business account can effortlessly make this happen. This gives you a clear distinction between your professional and private transactions, which can also, of course, save you time and hassle when it comes time to sorting your tax.
3. Streamline team finance
Setting up sub-accounts for each team or department at your company allows them to manage their own budgets. This massively frees up heads-of-department, who will appreciate both the time saved and your vote of confidence in them, while at the same time freeing you from having to sign off on each and every purchase your company makes.
4. Monitor your income
Just like traditional accounts, each sub-account can be set up to accept payment; in fact, because each sub-account has its own IBAN, it can even receive funds from abroad in different currencies. Sub-accounts could be set up for individual salespeople, for departments or branches of your business to effortlessly keep track of the money they bring into your business.
5. Save for the future
Sub-accounts can be used to allow you to set money aside. This could be for investments you may decide to make in the future as your business grows. A sub-account might be used as a liquidity reserve for unforeseen expenditures or events (like a pandemic), offering you, as a business owner peace of mind, knowing that you will be able to react quickly to changing market conditions and make financial decisions to keep your company afloat. Also, unlike traditional savings accounts, sub-accounts are entirely under you control, allowing you instant access to your money.
6. Taking care of tax
Over the course of the year, businesses have to pay a variety of taxes; your company may have to make advance quarterly or monthly tax payments, depending on the type of tax you pay. Setting up a specific sub-account for tax funds and making regular payments into it can ensure that you will have enough money to pay your taxes on time.
Laine Redpath
7. Specific expense accounts
You could set a sub-accounts for specific expenses, say for example, travel: all payments for flight or train tickets, hotel stays, food or any reimbursements of travel expenses can be made from a sub-account set up specifically for travel. Sub-accounts like this can be set up to fit your company’s needs like a glove, allowing you to maintain close control over all aspects of your budget.
8. Control access to accounts
As a business owner, setting up sub-accounts gives you unprecedented access to your finances. However, you probably wouldn’t want your entire workforce sharing this view or having access to all accounts. Fortunately, when setting up a sub-account, you are able to not only choose which sub-accounts they have access to, but also their level of access.
9. Move money where it needs to be
Money is the lifeblood of any business, so it is crucial that it can flow where it needs to quickly and freely. Setting up your finances using sub-accounts allows for this; money can be moved instantly between all of your sub-accounts, regardless of amount or even currency. This level of control means for example, that money could be immediately be transferred to a department to carry out a purchase, or made available to a team member travelling abroad on business.
10. Keep a bird’s-eye view of your finances
Sub-accounts can be set up to totally fit your business. Depending on the type of business you run, you might set up sub-accounts for individual projects or perhaps for each of the products and services your company offers. However complex your company structure is, using sub-accounts can benefit you by giving you an instant and accurate overview of your finances.
However you choose to make multi-currency sub-accounts work for your business, what they can offer is a much higher level of control, versatility and efficiency with your finances than has ever been possible in the past. wamo sub-accounts
Being able to create, manage and keep an eye on a limitless number of sub-accounts organised in whatever way you decide is best for your business, means that no matter how big or fast your business grows, your business account will be able to grow with you - and to help make those growth spurts go smoothly. This is what you get with a wamo business account, we want to make sure that as a small business, you have all the best tools available to make managing your finances hassle-free.
To find out more about wamo’s limitless sub-accounts go here, or chat with us.
