Best business account to be paid in euros

[eek]

If you send EUR to a GBP recipient, the exchange rate used is that of the receiving bank, not the sending. That could cost you a rather a lot for the very reasons Bodger mentions. By keeping the EUR within Wise, you make use of their rates which are better.

I think we've had this conversation before when some said they believed Wise did the conversion before sending the money to the UK account

Personally I prefer to do every step manually myself as assumptions have a habit of being wrong.

[Whitelime]

If you send EUR to a GBP recipient, the exchange rate used is that of the receiving bank, not the sending. That could cost you a rather a lot for the very reasons Bodger mentions. By keeping the EUR within Wise, you make use of their rates which are better.

If the recipient is setup in Wise as GBP (with the Union Jack in the circle), Wise will convert EUR --> GBP before sending by default.

[ladymuck]

If the recipient is setup in Wise as GBP (with the Union Jack in the circle), Wise will convert EUR --> GBP before sending by default.

That's a mighty big assumption. Your previous statement didn't have that as a qualifier - it reads like doing a conversion before sending is never necessary.

As eek says, you need to be sure your assumptions are correct as to when the exchange happens.

[Fred Bloggs]

Thanks all any recommendations on an efficient online company setup company also welcome.

Why? Do it yourself directly at Companies House. It costs just a few quid to register a company. Last time I did it, I had the certificate of incorporation in my email inbox within about 20 to 30 minutes of registering the new company. It's a really very simple thing to do.

[ladymuck]

I think we've had this conversation before when some said they believed Wise did the conversion before sending the money to the UK account

Personally I prefer to do every step manually myself as assumptions have a habit of being wrong.

My experience has been that the receiving bank does the conversion because the sending bank doesn't necessarily know what the base currency of the receiving account is.

I have not experienced banks sharing information about such things but then I last did a treasury role in in the early 2000's so things may well have moved on.

[RajaStyle]

You need to be careful looking at fees. Your real danger here is what conversion rate they are using. Wise use the interbank rate, whereas other banks usually skim a bit off this. The fee might be lower, but if the rate used is a couple of percent off the interbank rate, you're losing out.

On Wise website you can input an amount to convert and it will show you the rate used and the exact fees charged. They are pretty transparent.

I get paid in euros, and my setup looks like this:

Paid --> Wise Euro Account
Transfer --> Wise Euro to Wise GBP
Transfer --> Wise GP to Business main account (mettle)

It took me about 25 seconds to do this conversion and transfer yesterday.

Do you still need an additional business account with mettle? As in I was looking to setup a business account that I can provide the account details to the agency for euro payments... So do I need to setup with wise and mettle or starling and then provide agency with wise details? Apologies if I understood incorrectly.

[Whitelime]

That's a mighty big assumption. Your previous statement didn't have that as a qualifier - it reads like doing a conversion before sending is never necessary.

As eek says, you need to be sure your assumptions are correct as to when the exchange happens.

It's never necessary to do the conversion before sending.

Once you've selected the recipient to send to, Wise will literally tell you "You're sending EUR1000, here are our fees, here is the exchange rate, and RecipientABC gets GBP838.38"

[Whitelime]

Do you still need an additional business account with mettle? As in I was looking to setup a business account that I can provide the account details to the agency for euro payments... So do I need to setup with wise and mettle or starling and then provide agency with wise details? Apologies if I understood incorrectly.

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.

[SuperLooper]

It's never necessary to do the conversion before sending.

Once you've selected the recipient to send to, Wise will literally tell you "You're sending EUR1000, here are our fees, here is the exchange rate, and RecipientABC gets GBP838.38"

This is correct. I've done this hundreds of times over the years. Wise does the conversion as part of the transfer.

[Fred Bloggs]

Do you still need an additional business account with mettle? As in I was looking to setup a business account that I can provide the account details to the agency for euro payments... So do I need to setup with wise and mettle or starling and then provide agency with wise details? Apologies if I understood incorrectly.

For a contract paid in Euros you give the agent the account details for your Wise Euro account. (Not your Wise GBP account).