Yahoo Finance 5 Things You Never Knew Your Business Banking Account Can Do (Besides Basic Transaction Services)
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If you are a business owner, you will be familiar with using your business account to make financial transactions for your company such as paying for business expenses and reviewing your monthly e-statements.
However, if you only use your business account to make financial transactions, you are not scratching beyond the surface for all the capabilities at your disposal. Opening a business account isn’t just to help you organise your business transactions and safekeep your money, but also to help you operate well digitally and expand your business.
Starting my own entrepreneurship journey more than five years ago to run a financial media start-up in DollarsAndSense, let me share a little about how we do more with our business banking account – which comes with a suite of powerful tools and services, from cashflow management to payroll and e-invoicing.
Currently, DollarsAndSense uses OCBC Business Account to support us in all our banking-related requirements. Through OCBC Velocity, which is OCBC Bank’s Digital Business Banking platform, we can access additional features to help us in our day-to-day business operations.
#1 Your Bank Account Comes With E-Invoicing (For Free)
If like us, you are a business-to-business (B2B) set-up, then you will be familiar with the mundane routine of having to send out invoices each month to your clients, and tracking and chasing for payments.
However, you can improve this process by adopting electronic invoicing, or e-invoicing.
Explained by IMDA, e-invoicing is the automated creation, exchange and processing of B2B or Business To Government (B2G) payment requests between suppliers and buyers using a structured digital format. It allows businesses to improve its efficiency, reduce costs, and get paid faster.
While you may think that e-invoicing might be expensive and complicated to implement, this is not true. In fact, through your banks such as OCBC Bank, businesses can adopt an e-invoicing system (via Invoice Now) for free.
If your business has yet to adopt e-invoicing, you don’t necessarily need to pay a subscription fee to get started. Simply leverage your existing business banking account to get started.
Read Also: 4 Easy Changes To Adopt (At No Cost) To Improve Your Business Cash Flow
#2 Your Bank Account Can Help You Manage Your Cash Flow
In general, most business owners keep track of their cashflow using spreadsheets such as Excel. Fewer business owners may realise is that you also have the option of managing your cash flow digitally via your business account.
Through OCBC Velocity, we can enjoy free access to Business Financial Management features that chart a summary of our monthly cash inflow and outflow. This allows us to have – at a glance – an overview of how our business has performed over the past year.
These would also include useful information such as the e-invoices we have created, invoice status, automatic reconciliation and also collection reminders in case your clients forget to pay you. If you have multiple bank accounts, you can also pool the information together.
What’s more? This feature also allows you to peek into the future, based on cash inflow and outflow, to realise if there will be a shortfall or squeeze in any period. This acts as an early signal for you to take action in advance.
#3 Get Payment Collection Solutions From Your Bank
If you think the only methods for collecting payments from your customers are via cash, cheques or bank transfers, it’s fair to say that you are not offering comprehensive payment solutions to your customers.
For example, PayNow for businesses enables companies in Singapore to pay and receive Singapore dollar funds instantly by tagging on to the existing PayNow network, which already has more than 2.8 million users in Singapore.
To register for PayNow for businesses, you can easily sign up online through your business banking account. Simply paste the QR sticker label at your retail stores or send customers an invoice with the QR code. Customers can scan the QR code to pay you via PayNow.
OCBC OneCollect is another payment solution offered by OCBC Digital Business Banking that allows customer-facing businesses to process PayNow QR transactions and SGQR. This is great for businesses in retail, F&B, clinics, gyms and even on-the-go businesses such as handyman, home tutors and roadshow booths.
Read Also: Guide To Payment Solutions You Need To Offer Your Customers In Singapore
#4 Access Your Digital Business Dashboard
Another nifty tool OCBC Bank offers to its business banking customers is a customisable digital business dashboard. As business owners, we can connect our company’s digital business dashboard to various operations of our business. As a digital media company, assets that are essential to our operations include our Facebook page, the website traffic and EDM subscribers.
Rather than have to go to each of these platforms (i.e. Facebook, Google Analytics and Mailchimp) to review the information I need each day, I can capture a bird eye’s view on all our assets at once via the digital business dashboard. This was particularly helpful during the circuit breaker in 2020, when I did not meet my colleagues daily but still needed to stay on top of the key areas of our business. And it continues to be valuable as our company has a regular work-from-home arrangement.
The convenient part is that you don’t need to separately login to the individual assets to access the digital business dashboard. So whenever you access OCBC Velocity to review your transactions, you can also take a quick look at other aspects of your business.
With a digital business dashboard, your OCBC Business Account is no longer just a place to monitor your cash inflow and outflow. It also acts as a control station for your business – where you can monitor other critical aspects of your operations.
Read Also: 3 Ways The Digital Business Dashboard By OCBC Has Helped Us Manage Our Business
#5 Use Your Bank Account To Apply For Business Subscriptions You Need
We always think of our bank accounts as places for financial transactions. But few people realise that we can also apply for business subscriptions we may need via our business banking accounts.
As part of the Start Digital programme, supported by Enterprise Singapore (ESG) and IMDA, local SMEs can receive a $500 rebate by purchasing any subscription package under the Start Digital Programme. For example, through OCBC you can get an Accounting + HR bundle that comes with Xero (free for the first 12 months) and Talenox (free for the first 6 months).
You can find out more about the various business subscription packages available here.
To apply, login to OCBC Velocity and confirm your business registration details.
Access Banking Solutions On The Go, Without Compromising On Security
Big or small, there is no doubt a business account is necessary for almost all businesses in Singapore to function. After all, we need a place to safekeep our funds, collect money from our customers and pay for business expenses.
That said, we can (and should) expect much more from our business account in today’s digital-enabled world. And this is exactly what the OCBC Business Account offers us. As described earlier, there are diverse business services, be it financial or operational, that the account can also support you in.
Whether it’s to give us a birds-eye view of our business via the Digital Business Dashboard or simply to check on our bank account balance, through the OCBC Business Mobile Banking app, we can always access the information we need on the go. So choose to take your business forward today with the OCBC Business Account and maximise all the powerful features and tools that can grow your business more effectively.
The best part: all of your information are kept secured with the usual high standards that we can expect from a Singapore bank.
For business owners in Singapore, you can make full use of the services offered above by applying for an OCBC Business Account.
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