Tide bank account?

[megaphone]

Anyone use Tide for business banking? I'm just about to start a new small business and need a new account, I'll probably only make 10-20 transfers a month @20p, so it looks good value. Anything I should know?

[softtop]

It's a great service for free. Fast responses from Customer service also. Make sure your account is one where you can have an additional account for saving VAT and tax, makes life simpler knowing what you have available at a glance.

[67Dino]

Recently got Tide for a low-volume business account. Easy to sign up and app works nicely. Contacted them once over a technical query and they were quick to respond and helpful.

[technodup]

I've just switched from Starling and discovered that Tide is absolute ste. First issue is no notification when someone pays money in which is inconvenient. What's inexcusable is the card they give you is a prepaid thing, not a proper debit card, and I can't use it to pay for Google Ads (and no doubt other stuff as well).

I'll be going back to Starling asap.

[anonymous-user]

Yeah it’s brilliant, not sure what the chap above is on about, all those things mentioned and clearly stated in their sign up / t&c’s.

Barclays / HSBC wouldn’t allow a business account for our new company so this seemed a sensible option.

[megaphone]

So they do not send a text or a notification when money is paid in?

[technodup]

megaphone said:

So they do not send a text or a notification when money is paid in?

No. It's apparently in the pipeline but no date.

If someone's used Starling or even Monzo Tide is like going back in time.

[psi310398]

I'm happy with it.

It has a feed available to Xero, which has simplified my VAT filing life.

The only real issue I've got is that you can't pay cheques in but can now pay cash in at a post office or other paypoint (for a small fee).

[megaphone]

technodup said:

megaphone said:

So they do not send a text or a notification when money is paid in?

No. It's apparently in the pipeline but no date.

If someone's used Starling or even Monzo Tide is like going back in time.

Not good, I would have thought this would be a basic feature in an online bank account . I have a NatWest account that is the same, no way of setting up payment notifications, having to log on every time you want to see if you've been paid is a pain, one reason I was looking for a new 'modern' account.

Looking at their 'feature roadmap' it is on the medium term for implementation,

https://trello.com/b/U5zQ5Jus/tide-feature-roadmap

Edited by megaphone on Monday 17th February 09:24

[megaphone]

Also now looking at Starling, any one else using them ?

[Tyre Smoke]

For a personal account Starling is unbeatable imho.

Considering moving my business account over.

[C70R]

I looked at it, and ended up with Lloyds in the same situation late last year. They offer a good deal on small business banking.

We'd heard a few rumours about payments to/from Tide being tardy because of their status, and the benefits were barely better.

[megaphone]

I ended up going with Starling, very straight forward to set-up and I already have a debit card, app and browser work well, just need to earn some money now!

[psi310398]

C70R said:

I looked at it, and ended up with Lloyds in the same situation late last year. They offer a good deal on small business banking.

We'd heard a few rumours about payments to/from Tide being tardy because of their status, and the benefits were barely better.

I had noticed in the past that payments were not at as fast as with other accounts but this seems to have improved recently and both payments in and out now seem very prompt.

In any case for an old bugger like me, the alleged lack of celerity was never a particular issue, growing up as I did when it took a day or two for a cheque to be issued , posted and delivered, another to present it to the bank and three days or so thereafter to clear it. Modern transaction speeds are like greased lightning, even Tide's.

[stablemate]

We have on average between 100 and 200 payments in and out per day. I for one enjoy not being notified constantly of this! But understand that it would be handy feature to have an option for. I use Monzo personally and do like the payment notifications.

If you're not fussed by that then I can't recommend Tide highly enough - even more so lately when payments seem to be much faster.

[simonrockman]

I've just had a very bad experience with Tide. It transpires that there are limits on how much money you can have in your account. We didn't know this until a customer we'd been chasing for months paid. We accused them of not paying, they said they'd paid. It seems the money hit our account and Tide bounced it. Not (thankfully) back to the customer but held it in a Tide account.

At no point were we told that this had happened. Only when we asked (through the app, the only means of communication) were we, after a long delay, told to go and apply for a higher limit and told it takes two weeks to get the limit raised.

All communication is by email, app or web forum. All hosted in the same place so when that fell over this week every single Tide customer was without access to every aspect of their banking. There is no phone number for support. When Tide does "single point of failure" it really doubles down on the flaw.

There is no process for delegation of payments and international payments are difficult.

There is a lot, that is a lot worse, but I'll leave that for now.

It may be suitable for some sole traders but it's not a proper business bank.

[ecs]

I found them to be absolutely crap - the app was painful to use and the web app even worse. You're also limited in the number of accounts they'll give you, before I switched to Tide I was with Lloyds and had various accounts for VAT and Corp. tax. I tried mimicking that with Tide and couldn't get enough accounts with them - probably a niche way of managing money, but it was annoying for me. Their integration with FreeAgent was pretty crap too and didn't seem to sync properly.

I moved to Monzo and solved the multiple account issue with their pots feature which vastly simplified things. Their app is a bit on the clunky side, but does the job and the FreeAgent integration is rock solid.

[CrgT16]

It’s a modern option I am not taking... tried Monzo for a bit of fun and it was OK but for me a property bank is better.

What are the benefits of this online banks? Is it because they are cheaper? They are cheaper but perhaps more limited in their offerings and service. I am with Natwest both personal and business and couldn’t be better, customer service is excellent I have a dedicated person I can email or call directly both for business or personal. Really well looked after. Banking costs might be slightly higher but nothing to loose sleep about and I have excellent service.

Notifications to be paid... not need logging in once a day is enough for me to check all I need.

Good luck with Tide.

[nordboy]

megaphone said:

Also now looking at Starling, any one else using them ?

Yep, I have a starling account, it is far superior to my First Direct account, the app is excellent and gives loads of info and the notifications are very handy indeed.

Also, the near payments direct from phone to phone between starling accounts make moving money between the family really easy. My wife, son and me all have seperate accounts.

[singlecoil]

I use Tide, works fine for me, it's fast, I get a notification when money is paid in, the account limit (£50,000) is higher than I need it to be.