Freelance Photographer / Bank Accounts / Integrations

[sammyuk]

Hello everyone,

I admit, I have procrastinated for many years in find a bank account that works for me. I come from the UK and miss services like Starling Bank, integration with quickbooks and the ability to automate so much with excellent UX design. I know that's a tall ask here in Japan!

I arrived here in 2020 to start my business (great timing) and somehow I survived and I'm still here! I do love Japan but nowhere is perfect and I find the banking here very difficult. I'm very adverse to hassle (I lived in Thailand for 7 years so I like the relaxed life) and often give up due to the friction. However I'm now determined to fix this and find solutions that work, especially after having a very bad experience with GMO (308 fraudulent transactions with 72 hours not caught by the bank and upto 8 months to refund them).

Currently I have -

JP Post Bank - Cash Card Only
Sony Bank Wallet - Debit Card - Personal Use only - I asked if I could use it for business purposes but they said no / unable to confirm / deny
GMO Personal + Business - Not ideal with no English support, but I will be leaving them due to the security breach
Wise Business - My saving grace, the only place where I can accept international payments from clients. If one day they receive JP native bank details I will dance and sing in joy!

I run a Wedding photography business and keep things simple, sole trader, not an abundance of transactions but of course would like to make things easier for accounting purposes.

May I ask that as a sole trader without a company, can personal bank accounts be used for your business? Or do I need to have a business account? This is my plan going forward...

Japan Post Bank - Savings (without a debit card, I feel more secure to keep excess cash there)
Sony Bank Wallet - Personal Spending unrelated to business
Resona Bank - Business Usage (assuming its OK as a freelancer to use the account for such a purpose)
Rakuten NISA - For investment in ETFs (I assume, with a bit of help from Chat GPT, that fees are lower than Resona NISA)

In terms of integrations with accounting software. Is there anything that works in English that can connect to my bank account? I know there's Freee but that is all in Japanese. I guess nothing will be as good as a UK bank account + Quick books...

Also if you have any recommendations for accountants that would be great too - no longer am I going to procrastinate on this and continue struggling through things. Losing 870,000 yen to fraud on GMO has been a wake up call - I simply cannot use a bank that has no English speaking assistance. Even with help from Japanese friends, the experience has been shocking - my worst bank experience to date!

Thanks everyone!

Sam

[Deep Blue]

I use Prestia who have an English website, app and English speaking call centre. Every time I have visited a branch they’ve had English speaking staff too, but admittedly I’ve not gone to a branch for several years now.

The actual banking experience is just ok, nothing special but it’s pretty easy to use.

[sammyuk]

Thanks for the reply deep blue! In the end I went with Resona - seems their app has won some design awards and some branches have English speaking staff...so should be good. Will see how it goes!

[RetireJapan]

Thanks for the reply deep blue! In the end I went with Resona - seems their app has won some design awards and some branches have English speaking staff...so should be good. Will see how it goes!

Just don't take their investing or insurance advice! I have had some bad experiences with Resona staff

[sammyuk]

haha OK, but for just a simple bank account with a well design app in English, plus English speaking branch staff in an emergency...it does the job?

[RetireJapan]

haha OK, but for just a simple bank account with a well design app in English, plus English speaking branch staff in an emergency...it does the job?

Sure. I think all major banks are going to be fine here.