My barber is also cash only. I keep meaning to ask why but as they do a decent job at a reasonable price, I'm not going to be pushy about it.Thats fine, however there should always be an option to accept cards regardless.
A barber shop wanted me to go to the cash machine to pay the bill because they don't take cards.
Indeed, and perhaps the cash card could also be accepted for rail ticket purchases at ticket machines, offices (where and as long as available) and (where the previous two aren’t available) from guards. Also for contactless PAYG (pay as you go) where it exists. If there were sufficient will, the cash card could even be accepted for online rail ticket purchase, making all the features only available online (like split ticketing algorithms) accessible to cash payers for the first time.
A few weeks ago I was in a fish and chip shop in Matlock in Derbyshire. I paid by card and as I was eating my fish and chips I saw a sign saying ’cash preferred’. I always have cash and could have paid with cash if only I had seen the sign before paying.
First Direct allow cheques to be deposited simply by taking a photo of the cheque in the app: https://www.firstdirect.com/help/banking-with-us/paying-in-a-cheque-using-the-app/
www.icaew.com
In my experience some banks impose upper limits on the value of cheques that can be deposited in this way and for a charity that still necessitates an unpaid volunteer taking time during working hours to physically pay the cheque in at a Post Office or bank branch
Sure, but First Direct have been a telephone/internet first bank for their entire existence, so customers like me and the original poster can’t really complain that they don’t have a lot of branch service for cheques, a payment method that’s been obsolete for decades. The truncation limit is £2000 - above that, you can post the cheque, or go to the post office or a branch as you say
I think all banks limit their risk in that way. NatWest is, from memory, £10k per day for all cheques paid in that way - and there are still organisations that insist on making payments by cheque rather than electronic transfer. I was surprised, acting as executor, just how many of these there are - and how vital being able to get to the branch was.
Yes, the limit is £2,000 and the cheque I have received is from one account to another within the same federation of charities (Scouts). The irony is probably that the sending charity doesn't have dual authorisation for online banking either because their bank doesn't offer it or it is prohibitively expensive so they stick to the traditional two signatories required on each cheque.
For what it's worth, I've found Co Op useful if the group is incorporated and registered as a charity. That leaves plenty of groups stuck in no mans land.
I commiserate, having been in similar situations - a favourite was when it took so long to get cheques to the bank (received for camps etc) that they were then rejected as aged items. But the solution is not to keep the whole world paying for cheque and cash handling - it’s for CAF and similar institutions to properly serve their customers needs and for charities to update their fossilised governance. After all, it was equally inconvenient for the actual beneficiaries to pay by cheque and cash - they had bank accounts and couldn’t understand why they couldn’t send us a faster payments transfer or tap a credit card like they did for every other part of their life
The banks could definitely do with sorting stuff out - my experience is as a church chair of finance, dealing with the real world practicalities of banking.
Scout and Guide groups, church charities and some others fall within a category known as "excepted" charities which means not only do they not need to register individually with the Charity Commission, they are in fact not allowed to do so unless they can justify to the Charity Commission why the criteria giving rise to the exception no longer apply.
I wouldn’t suggest that you should, but I would invite consideration about what set of illegible squiggles on a cheque signature line might be accepted by a large bank with no actual relationship with the trustees. An electronic payment authenticated by (two sets of) password and 2FA is a significant upgrade in security
While true, I have had a mandate change rejected because my signature on the change form wasn't a close enough match to what was on file (I'm guessing AI was in play here). So at least some signatures are verified in some circumstances.
It's because they use the same firm to collect money. I think the main one is NPP or something like that, and I guess rolling out contactless would be too expensive and too easy for the public (to make more money lol!)
It’s uncomfortable, but the threat model for many charities has to include self-dealing: the treasurer writes himself or a related party a cheque, or a reimbursement gets inflated over the receipt price. I’ve seen both at least suspected in charities I’ve worked for. Writing a quick initial in the two inch second signature line on the cheque isn’t much of a deterrent and might easily go unnoticed for a while. On the other hand, if you know that any payment you raise is going in a queue to be looked at by another person, who signs off with their own password and token, that’s a different matter.
Absolutely. But you have to get the account facility in the first place. And that is the catch 22 for many organisations - even assuming they can incorporate in the first place.
Maybe not true for your barber but whenever I see "cash only" I immediately suspect money laundering. Like many high streets, our town is riddled with very many barber shops, all brand new and shiny and all "cash only".
Not all church charities* - and many fewer before long due to reductions in the number of exemptions. But you reinforce my point about the difficulties that organisations can have.
As on mine. But the barber in question is more old school than dodgy
Depends what you’re counting as a bank, but Nationwide don’t. ATM, branch, or post only.
Not in all circumstances. One charity of which I am treasurer uses Barclays. In order to set up dual authorisation for online payments we have to have what they term a "complex mandate". This is incompatible with the Barclays app which is designed for a single authorised signatory setup. So I cannot use the app to pay in cheques.
Cash is now much more of a problem than card! You must buy a safe. You must ensure neither your staff nor a thief attempts to steal it. You must take it to the bank, of which there used to be one on every corner but which are now few and far between. You must also get change. An acceptable cost of doing business when payments were overwhelmingly cash but a complete nuisance when a small fraction are.
I’m glad someone else knows this!
A bit of a dirty open secret in the takeaway business, but a common trick in the early days was that businesses would separate orders paid in cash vs card, and hide a good portion of the former from the taxman. All the card payments with a paper/e-trail would be reported perfectly proper, spick-and-span, but a good chunk of the cash orders would go undeclared; this would reduce the taxman's cut while still looking perfectly reputable from even a more detailed glance at the paperwork.
For very many small businesses, I imagine the owner does this while sat in front of the telly. I know when I do it for the charities I volunteer with, that's basically what I do! Technically yes time is money but I think many would rather get the extra couple of percent and count it themselves in their own time.
Only if it actually needs banking though. Many small businesses can pay their suppliers in cash, maybe even their staff in some cases. I have a family member who did a side job delivering for the local Indian takeaway until about a year ago and he was paid in cash, daily, because the money was there in the till anyway.
I agree to some extent, but I think a lot of small business owners accept their spending their own time doing business admin is just part and parcel. I know for my company I don't really think about the time spent doing accounts or Companies House declarations or ICO registrations etc.
I always thought it was, "Turnover is vanity, profit is sanity, but cash is reality."
That's fair enough. Personal accounts shouldn't be used for business, except the sort of hobbyist Etsy trader making £500 a year selling Coke cans turned into mini pancake stoves or whatever.
