When we opened Mr. A's checking account for his business, he didn't really have a “business” at the time.  He was doing some remodeling work for his sister, and we just wanted to keep the money for materials in a separate account.  Then as time went by, Mr. A decided to take the leap and start his own business.  We've continued to use the same account.  Occasionally a client would make the check out to the business name, and I'd deposit it, and the bank never said anything. I was actually surprised by this, and commented about it to my boss one day. She told me they usually don't pay attention to the name on the check. I guess they just assume it's your check if you're depositing it.

It's kind of stupid, because I know if you have a business, the correct thing to do is have a BUSINESS ACCOUNT.  I mean, once you're actually making money with the business, it makes a lot of sense. With your business name on the checks and one of those stamps to stamp the back of your check so you can deposit it into your account.  I don't know why but I just kept dragging my feet. I guess because I was afraid it was going to cost a lot of money to open a business account.

A couple of weeks ago, I stopped by our bank to deposit the checks Mr. A had accumulated over the past week.  He'd been holding several of the checks for a guy he works for regularly. The guy was in some trouble financially, and needed us to hold the check.  Finally, he gave us the go ahead to deposit the checks.  There were four, and he made them out to four different variations of Mr. A's business name.  The checks also amounted to over $2000 and I guess between the variation on the name and the amount, the teller noticed. She asked, “What is this company? Is it a business?” And then she acted kind of alarmed, like we were doing something illegal.  She called over her supervisor to see if she should even deposit the checks. The supervisor looked at our account, and saw that we've made some tax payments out of the account. She strongly suggested that I open a business account but agreed to let the checks be deposited, and asked if she could have a banker call me. I agreed but I knew that Mr. A wanted his business accounts to be with one of our local credit unions.  I decided that since Mr. A has two businesses, he should have two accounts.  And since he's sole proprietor, he is the only person on the accounts.  I'm a signer on both accounts though.

Mr. A also applied for a business credit card.  I'm glad that we've been working to build credit for him because I think it would have been difficult if he didn't have any credit at all. The credit card will come in handy when he needs to buy materials, but we hope eventually he will have enough money in his checking account so that he doesn't need to use the credit card.

Is it silly to be excited about getting *REAL* checks with the business name and a bound deposit slip book, bank stamp and debit cards with the company name on them?