Every big bank connects to QuickBooks Online, so the portal and the user permissions decide which one works for your business. Stephen Brown reviews six big banks, calls out Capital One for offering no sub users at all and Bank of America for charging extra for access controls, and recommends Wells Fargo and Chase. Physical branches are where big banks shine, and their lending programs are rigid.
General Business
Best Banks for Ecommerce and Small Business | Big Banks Reviewed
4 min
Transcript
0:00 The big banks reviewed
Hi, I'm Stephen with LedgerGurus. In this video I'm going to talk about business bank accounts for ecommerce and small businesses, reviewing specifically big banks.
Now, some of the big banks in the US include Bank of America, Capital One, Chase, Citibank, PNC, Wells Fargo. That's the ones that I'm specifically going to be discussing. Let's discuss what it means to use a big bank if you're an ecommerce business or any other small business.
0:26 Fintech integrations
The first thing I'm going to talk about is integrations with fintech software. Now, we are big users of QuickBooks Online, so the good thing is QuickBooks Online and the big banks all work together just fine. That usually isn't a big problem. Sometimes some of the newer secondary fintech tools are not as compatible with the banks. It will depend. But that's the case for any bank.
0:50 Bank portals
The second thing I look at with banks are bank portals, and when it comes to the bank portals, it's all over the place. You have some that are really good. Wells Fargo and Chase have very good robust bank portals that are very user friendly, that give you the ability to do a lot of different things, including moving money around, managing multiple accounts. You have other bank portals that are not so nice, like PNC is somewhat complex and difficult to use.
1:16 User access, the good, the bad, and the ugly
The next thing I look for in a bank is the user access. Now, this is a very important feature, particularly for accounting. You don't want your accountants to have more access than they need, and so we always want banks that provide a read only limited access user.
The good category again would be Wells Fargo and Chase. They have really good access controls where you can limit the amount of access and which accounts they have access to.
A good example of a bad bank would be like Bank of America, which provides that, but you have to pay an extra fee for those features.
An ugly example would be Capital One, which is an enormous bank that has no sub users. I find this absolutely unacceptable in 2022, especially considering the amount of ad spend that Capital One makes for commercials. To not have a robust bank portal that allows us to have sub users, not acceptable.
2:09 Physical branches
The next feature that you look at with a bank is accessibility. Now by this I mean physical bank branches, and this is where the big banks can shine. They have branches all over the place, and this can be very nice if you need to go in and speak with a bank manager, open up an additional account, deal with an issue, wire transfers, things like that.
There's a lot of fintech tools that make us think that the need for bank access and a branch access isn't necessary, and for the most part that is true, until it's not. And when it's not, you really do want that physical access.
So for big banks, branches is good. Oftentimes this is regional. Some of the big banks have more branches in other parts of the country than others, but they definitely are probably the top of the heap when it comes to physical bank accessibility.
3:01 Lending
Another feature of banks is lending. Now, the big banks will have lending programs. They'll have different lines of credit, you can do SBA loans and all that, but they are very rigid in terms of how they go about that. So what you get with a big bank is what you get. If you can fit inside their programs, great. If you can't, you're not going to get any flexibility with them. So that's what you have to consider with the big bank.
3:25 Should you use a big bank?
Now, in terms of an overall recommendation, should you use a big bank with your ecommerce or small business? It depends. I would definitely lean on those that have good portals, so Wells Fargo and Chase are the two that I would recommend.
In terms of, do you need the physical location, that depends on your business. It can be useful, especially as you get bigger.
The other thing you have to consider with a big bank is they're going to have a lot of other services, like brokerage accounts, the loans again. They might not have the best terms or the best flexibility of the programs, but that can be a nice advantage. So think about all those things as you're considering whether to go with a big bank for your ecommerce or small business.
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