Sole proprietorship - bank accounts

[PLamHK]

Open a business bank account for a sole proprietor.

Can I ask why? Business accounts cost money. I've been running my SoleProp through my personal account (and occasionally credit cards for expenses) for over 15 years now with no issues (including when tax audited by IRD).

[muzzdang]

My wife has a bank account with BoC as a sole prop, i.e. Trading as [name], never head her being charged by the bank?

[big_panda]

Can I ask why? Business accounts cost money. I've been running my SoleProp through my personal account (and occasionally credit cards for expenses) for over 15 years now with no issues (including when tax audited by IRD).

(1) if using a personal account to receive payment, often clients raise a query why the account is not in the trading name of the business. Just avoids this question.

(2) If you have significant banking entries, some banks will raise a flag, as a personal bank account shouldnt be used for business purposes.

(3) if you want to use a online payment processor, they wont generally accept deposit into a personal account.

[PLamHK]

(1) if using a personal account to receive payment, often clients raise a query why the account is not in the trading name of the business. Just avoids this question.

(2) If you have significant banking entries, some banks will raise a flag, as a personal bank account shouldnt be used for business purposes.

(3) if you want to use a online payment processor, they wont generally accept deposit into a personal account.

Yes OK for 2) and 3) but if you have a business that big then I guess it should be a company not a Sole Prop just to separate business risk from personal risk.

On 1) I agree, but the other easy answer is to use you own name as the registered name of the SoleProp.

My impression is that the OP's SoleProp is (like mine) simply selling his/her time for some online tasks, so it should be fairly simple and straightforward.

[big_panda]

If you have few and far banking transactions for the sole pro, then I would agree its fine to use your personal bank account. But otherwise its frankly lazy not to open a business account.