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My wife has an issue and knew that the best place to ask would be on here.
She has started helping out at the local air cadets who are great with my daughter (a cadet). The guy in charge has an old fashioned bank account (no online facility) to manage subs and trips and other expenses which is paid in either cash or by direct debit. The bank won't accept cash over the counter if it's less than £400 and if the cash is paid into the machine it arrives in the account without a reference and he struggles to keep track. To get a statement he has to go into the branch and ask them to print one out...
So clearly he needs a new bank account, but I also feel he needs a spreadsheet within the online banking app to allow him to keep track of everything. Does such an account exist (maybe one of those new fangled ones like Monzo or Starling) Or will one of those 3rd party apps that links to your account do this?
Something like accounting software feels like overkill for such a small operation and ideally the solution would be free.
Over to you
Who do they bank with now?
You could ask the Adjutant in another sqn how they run it.
Ps what wing are you. I was a cadet and a CI in Merseyside wing.
IMHO Starling is way better than Monzo.
A spreadsheet, online if needs be, so other people can edit it, or be restricted to 'read only' would be a good place to start. It would need to be edited/controlled by only one person though, realistically, with other interested parties only having 'read' access'.
You can easily knock something up in google drive/sheets, for example, but you'd need to manually update it, as I imagine most bank accounts will simply provide you with statements that need to be manually added into, or exported into said spreadsheet.
In terms of an actual bank account... they pretty much all allow you to log in online and download/extract statements, even if it's a just a PDF that you can integrate into a spreadsheet with a bit of jiggery pokery.
Is it a charity? maybe there are charity type accounts you can open, or even just a bog standard current account rather than opening a business account that might have fees/conditions acttached to it?
A quick face to face meeting with his bank and they can more than likely point him in the right direction.
I had a simmilar but unrelated issue recently, as an executor of an estate...I need to hold and be seen to 'look after' the money for several beneficiaries, and I don't want to just open a random savings account in my name, as it's a fair chunk of money and I don't want any tax ramifications, or people thinking I'm not being transparent.
So I called my bank, and the nice man on the phone said, yeah you need to have a meeting with an advisor, but basically we can set you up with an executors account, or several executors accounts, so they are in your name and you are in control, but the money won't be linked to you for tax purposes etc, and it keeps it all nicely transparent and compartmentalised.
I was considering setting up a trust account, but they incur set up and admin fees, an lots of T&C's blahblah...
So I'd suggest speaking to the bank for a more suitable account in the first instance, book an appointment with an acualy advisor though rather than trying to figure it out over the phone with al the annoyances that can entail!
Thanks, I'll suggest he talks to the other squadrons and the bank.
It's in London - I won't give the squadron number in case anyone knows him!
A separate spreadsheet would be easy to set up but I was hoping there was a solution within a banking app so that all the information was in one place.
There are some specific apps for this - we used Online Brigade Manager with BB's - and I am sure there must be other systems?
OBM would track subs, issue request for payment for trips etc.
PayPal would of course also manage this, with a small fee.
A separate spreadsheet would be easy to set up but I was hoping there was a solution within a banking app so that all the information was in one place.
Well, pretty much all banks allow you to log in and download statements, which you can then share in a basic PDF or put into a spreadsheet.
If it's a realy simple job, the guy could simply just email the monthly statement to interested parties, but it does sound like he needs a more modern bank account:
To get a statement he has to go into the branch and ask them to print one out…
Really?
The Barclays app allows you to categorise spending and some other stuff to keep track of certain things, I guess it depends on how granular you want to make it
Loveadmin . It has it's quirks but this seems to be widely used by sports clubs. Takes payments via card.
Does he actually want to change or modernise? If he does the current bank can probably help him do that with no need to jump through a million money laundering checks! The bank will usually be happy to get him on an account that involves them doing less! And parents may be much happier if they don’t need to find cash!
Yes he brought it up and realises he needs to change as it's a nightmare to manage. I think there will always be a variety of payment methods but this would help keep track at least.
One for cash if the bank/s are being funny about the minimum amount they will accept over the counter is to deposit it via the Post Office. This might limit your choice of bank though.