Best business account to be paid in euros

[RajaStyle]

If I understand what you want to do correctly (to end up with GBP in a GBP account);

1. Agency/Client pays EUR to Wise.

2. You send EUR from Wise to your GBP account with Mettle (option to convert EUR to GBP within Wise before sending as GBP, but this is an additional step for no reason).

3. In your accounting software you allocate the GBP against the invoice (converted to GBP), Bank Charges, and Gain/Loss on Exchange.

Thanks. Both yourself and Bodger have said euros to wise first and then gbp to mettle which if I understand it correctly are 2 different business accounts? Wise also has a gbp account right? So I'm just trying to understand why you need 2 business accounts with different providers?

Can you not just hold a wise business account and transfer from the wise euro account to wise gbp account?

Can you elaborate on what you said for step 3... using Simple figures if I transferred 10000 euros to gbp and got £8000 with a fee of £8 are your saying mark £8000 received and expense the £8 fee ? How do you calculate and allocate for the gain / loss on exchange?

[SuperLooper]

Can you not just hold a wise business account and transfer from the wise euro account to wise gbp account?

You can, but the Wise account is not a full FSCS-protected bank account, and it doesn't provide some core banking functionality like direct debits.

So you will want a separate "regular" business bank account, and just use Wise mainly for transfers and foreign-currency expenses if you have any.

[Whitelime]

You can, but the Wise account is not a full FSCS-protected bank account, and it doesn't provide some core banking functionality like direct debits.

So you will want a separate "regular" business bank account, and just use Wise mainly for transfers and foreign-currency expenses if you have any.

For the benefit of the OP, Mettle isn't FSCS-protected either. A safer choice for you would be Starling GBP account.

[eek]

For the benefit of the OP, Mettle isn't FSCS-protected either. A safer choice for you would be Starling GBP account.

Mettle seems to be protected test it at https://www.fscs.org.uk/check-your-money-is-protected/

[Whitelime]

Can you elaborate on what you said for step 3... using Simple figures if I transferred 10000 euros to gbp and got £8000 with a fee of £8 are your saying mark £8000 received and expense the £8 fee ? How do you calculate and allocate for the gain / loss on exchange?

If you have an accountant, they'd be able to go through it all with you (it sounds like you should to be fair). Maslins who post here seem to be the go to recommendation if you're looking.

If not, a basic explanation (for FX loss in this case, but the principle is the same);

- Invoice is for EUR10000
- GBP equivalent (as you're a UK company and you record everything in GBP) is GBP8000.
- After sending EUR10000 from your Wise EUR account, you receive GBP7920 in your Starling GBP account.
- Wise tell you they've deducted a GBP30 fee already (the fee will be in EUR, but you know the EUR amount and FX rate used).

GBP7920 + GBP30 + GBP50 = GBP8000 would be allocated to the invoice.

(GBP30) would be allocated to bank charges/fees.

(GBP50) would be allocated to loss on exchange.

How you go about creating these additional entries will vary depending on the software you're using. In FreeAgent, for example, you'd modify the GBP7920 to GBP7950 and an entry of (GBP30) would automatically be created to balance everything. You'd then allocate the (GBP30) to bank fees and GBP7950 to the invoice. FreeAgent knows the exchange rate on the day the EUR invoice was created and would allocate the (GBP50) to loss on exchange automatically.

Honest opinion is that you should get an accountant until this becomes more obvious to you. When you're invoicing GBP8000 a month, GBP100 for an accountant is a no brainer at the beginning.

Brucie bonus: if the foreign agency has never mentioned IR35, SDS, etc then get IR35 insurance.

[jamesbrown]

The easiest way to do this in FA is to have separate accounts for all of your Wise currency accounts so you can easily allocate transfers and fees and the exchange gain/loss is handled automagically after correlating the multi-currency transaction (which is a transfer between two Wise accounts if you follow this approach). There are Wise bank feeds in FA, so it's seamless.

[Whitelime]

Mettle seems to be protected test it at https://www.fscs.org.uk/check-your-money-is-protected/

https://faqs.mettle.co.uk/en/article...-mettle-a-bank

Something sneaky going on there.....

[Whitelime]

The easiest way to do this in FA is to have separate accounts for all of your Wise currency accounts so you can easily allocate transfers and fees and the exchange gain/loss is handled automagically after correlating the multi-currency transaction (which is a transfer between two Wise accounts if you follow this approach). There are Wise bank feeds in FA, so it's seamless.

I saw the feed was available, but my Wise EUR statement doesn't show the Wise fees being deducted. Are you just allocating the entire difference to FX gain/loss and ignoring the bank fees, or am I missing a trick?

[jamesbrown]

I saw the feed was available, but my Wise EUR statement doesn't show the Wise fees being deducted. Are you just allocating the entire difference to FX gain/loss and ignoring the bank fees, or am I missing a trick?

No, the bank fee always shows as a separate transaction for me. For example, if I have a USD invoice, my Wise USD account will show an incoming transaction when the invoice is paid, then an outgoing transaction for the USD-to-GBP conversion fee, plus a separate outgoing transaction for the USD transferred to my Wise GBP account minus the USD fee. In my Wise GBP account, the outgoing (USD) and incoming (GBP) amounts are then correlated and this correlation forms the basis for the realized gain or loss relative to the invoice date. It's all pretty seamless. Again, I always transfer internally between Wise accounts (and represent that in FA) before transferring to an external GBP account.

[Bodger]

I saw the feed was available, but my Wise EUR statement doesn't show the Wise fees being deducted. Are you just allocating the entire difference to FX gain/loss and ignoring the bank fees, or am I missing a trick?

The fee for converting between my Wise Euro and Wise GBP account is shown as a seperate transaction. I just then tag it in FreeAgent as a banking charge. Likewise the fee for txing out to another bank account.

Free agent works well with Wise and mostly I don't need to do much.

One thing to note about the feed for Wise, is it only picks up transactions about once per day, compared to mettle which posts transactions immediately.