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UK Bank Feeds

I am testing Xero, Wave Accounting and Clearbooks in an effort to find a solution that will have fully-automated bank feeds for UK banks.

I have gotten PayPal and AMEX to work with Wave but I haven't yet gotten anything to work with Xero (Paypal imports but all the figures read £0.00).

I have personal AND business accounts with Lloyds and HSBC. Both banks use 'random password authentication' which means that bank feeds are not working for me. And yet Xero insists they do work for some customers.

The whole thing is getting very frustrating. After more than a week of testing all three solutions, I'm no closer to finding a solution.

Can anyone in the UK tell me if they have feeds that work? It seems to me only feeds from American institutions work (like PayPal and AMEX) and anything UK-based does not.

Many thanks,

Dom

Tags: accounting, amex, bank, clearbooks, feeds, hsbc, lloyds, paypal, wave

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Permalink Reply by Tim Wettone on October 12, 2011 at 9:45

We have bank feeds working with Lloyds ( a client using it) and NatWest (we are doing the bookkeeping). With NatWest, the internet banking access works fine but, for Bankline, we have to refresh the access codes every two weeks because Bankline insist on the password being changed sporadically. The Lloyds one was problematical at first but now works OK. The bank feed is such a great feature.

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Permalink Reply by Dominic Devine on October 12, 2011 at 10:01

Thanks for your reply.

Can I ask how you get Lloyds to work when it uses a randomised password?

I'm assuming that you, like me, have this new (and very annoying) Lloyds bsuienss account calculator-type device that you have to put a (credit/debit) card into, enter the pin number, then it generates a temporary password that you must enter to log in.

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Permalink Reply by Catherine (Xero) on October 20, 2011 at 0:42

Hi Dom - I know you've been back & forward with our support team regarding PayPal - did you have any luck getting your PayPal or bank feeds working?

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Permalink Reply by Dominic Devine on October 20, 2011 at 1:01

Hi Catherine,

Lloyds finally works. No idea why. It just started. But I *do* have to manually enter a PinSentry code each time which is rather frustrating. But I know this'll be true of any solution. It's just the way British banks work.

Generally, British banks are useless. I spent more than an hour on the phone last week talking to Lloyds. I spoke to their Customer Services Dept, Personal Banking Dept, Online Banking Dept, Business Banking Dept and Corporate Banking Dept and *none* of them had heard of online accounting, never mind bank feeds, Xero or anything else in the field. Useless, useless, useless. :)

PayPal and AMEX seem to work now though. And I'm thinking of moving to HSBC so I can use the arrangement you have with them.

Dom

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Permalink Reply by Catherine (Xero) on October 20, 2011 at 1:17

I hear you with your frustrations about banking systems! Not wanting to dis' my new country of residence but the US leaves me tearing my hair out at times too! Relocation from New Zealand where electronic systems are truly electronic I'm struggling here with 'online payments' still being checks that someone at the bank writes and not being able to create automatic payments to an account at a different bank! Also the freezing of my debit or credit card ... and infinite automated voice activated loops that don't understand my accent! Not wanting to deflect from your issue with getting a feed into Xero but I did want you to know that I empathise :) Regards, Catherine

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Permalink Reply by Chris Smit on October 20, 2011 at 11:07

Dom

If you are looking at switching banks we find that NatWest and Sanatander work best for the bank feeds, and the feeds are free, unlike HSBC who charge £2.50 per month per account for the feeds. Santander also offer free business banking which is an added bonus.

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Permalink Reply by Paul Farmer on February 11, 2012 at 19:30

Hi all,

I'm using (or at least trying to use) PayPal, Barclays Business, and Barclaycard Business feeds.

PayPal seems to work without any effort at all, since it's managed by Xero themselves.

Barclays is sporadic. It uses a 2 factor system with a pseudo-random calculator; you may not like the bother but these are much more secure than a fixed password system. Even when it's working well it takes a few minutes to complete the operation, which is slow. I can log on to my account directly via a browser in a matter of seconds. At other times it is just excruciatingly slow and fails in the end, sometimes displaying the 'loading ...' dialog for 20 minutes or more. It seems that the best time to try is well outside normal working hours, which rather negates the point.

Barclaycard Business: I'm not even off the starting blocks. It doesn't work, but that may be because Barclaycard need to configure my account first. I don't know though, because having emailed their support team twice a week ago I haven't even had an acknowledgement. I phoned to complain, but couldn't get past the first tier of customer service blockers. They just told me that they 'aim to answer emails in 7 to 10 business days' (that's 2 weeks to people with real jobs). I'll post an update if anything happens.

I'm therefore looking at a switch to HSBC for banking and credit cards. I didn't realise they charge for online banking though. A bit of a cheek really as it enables us to do their work for them. Bye for now, Paul.