The business account and expense management

Why a business account, and which one

As soon as you collect money, you need an account dedicated to the business. For companies, it's a legal requirement. For sole traders, a separate account is typically required once revenue passes a threshold for two consecutive years — but the smart reflex is to separate from the very first euro, even with a simple second current account.

The market has split into two families. Business neobanks (Qonto, Shine, Revolut Business) are 100% online, fast to open, and above all built to integrate with your other tools. Traditional banks remain useful if you need to deposit cash regularly, want a sizeable authorized overdraft, or a loan — areas where neobanks are still limited.

Qonto, Shine, Revolut: which for whom

Here are positioning and price markers (pre-tax, indicative, 2026):

• Shine targets freelancers, sole traders, and small structures. It offers a free plan (€0) that already includes quotes, invoices, and management tools, then paid plans from around €11/month. Award-winning customer service, cash deposit support. Ideal for a tight budget and simple needs.
• Qonto dominates for small businesses and growing startups. Four plans: Basic ~€9, Smart ~€19, Premium ~€39, Business ~€299/month, with a growing number of users, cards, and accounting integrations (30+). Its strength: scalability and the integration ecosystem.
• Revolut Business shines internationally: multi-currency, interbank exchange rate, virtual cards. Relevant if you invoice or spend in several currencies.

Decisive selection criterion: integrations. A business bank that automatically syncs with your accounting software (Pennylane, Indy, Tiime…) saves you hours every month. That's often more important than a €10 difference in subscription.

Cards and expense control

The point of a business neobank isn't just the account. It transforms expense management:

• On-demand virtual cards: create a card dedicated to each software subscription, with a cap. If a service overcharges you or you want to cancel, you block the card in one click without touching the rest.
• Cards per team member or project with individual caps, useful as soon as you delegate.
• Automatic categorization of expenses, which prepares the accounting.

The gain isn't only practical: it's mental. You see where the money goes, you cut dormant subscriptions, and you avoid surprise charges.

The receipt, that detail that costs dearly

For every business expense, the tax authority requires a supporting document (invoice or receipt). Finding them at year-end, in emails and crumpled tickets, is a classic chore — and missing receipts mean non-deductible charges, so excess tax.

The solution is to capture the receipt at the moment of the expense. Best practices:

• Photograph the receipt from the business bank's app, which attaches it automatically to the transaction (Qonto, Shine, and Pennylane do this).
• Forward emailed invoices to a dedicated collection address provided by your accounting software, which files them on its own.
• Enable automatic recognition (OCR) that reads the amount and date from the image.

Set up well, this flow means 90% of your receipts are filed without intervention.

Connecting the bank to the rest of the stack

The real lever is bank synchronization. Once your business account is linked to your accounting software, every movement flows in automatically: payments matched to invoices, expenses categorized and attached to their receipt, balance up to date. This is what enables, in the next chapter, nearly entry-free accounting.

So check, before choosing your bank, that it connects to the accounting tool you're targeting. The logical sequence: choose the bank + accounting pair that talk to each other, rather than two brilliant but isolated tools.

In practice

For this week: open a business account suited to your profile (Shine if budget is tight and needs are simple, Qonto if you plan to grow, Revolut Business if multi-currency), create a virtual card per software subscription, and switch on automatic receipt capture. You've just set the center of gravity of your whole management: a single place where money comes in, goes out, and documents itself.