How to help clients who’ve been asked to change Mettle bank account type
This article explains the action you need to take in FreeAgent if your client has received an email from Mettle saying they may need to change their Mettle bank account from a sole trader account to a limited company bank account.
If your client must change their Mettle bank account to a limited company bank account, their FreeAgent account may be affected in two ways:
- If your client uses a sole trader account in FreeAgent but operates as a limited company, they’ll need a new limited company account in FreeAgent. You can follow the steps below to switch them to a limited company account in FreeAgent.
- If your client already uses a limited company account in FreeAgent, you’ll need to ask them to add their new Mettle bank account and connect their feed instead.
Please note that if your client's sole trader account is currently linked to your Practice Dashboard, you’ll need to ask the client to set up a new limited company account and then send them an invite to link their new account to your dashboard.
Switch your client from a sole trader account to a limited company account
Following these five steps will help you get your client’s limited company account fully set up and ready to use.
1. Gather the relevant data from the client’s sole trader account
First, we’d recommend that you have the following information to hand for setting up the client’s limited company account, which you can export or gather from their sole trader account:
- Trial balance dated the day before the start of their most recent accounting year
- Exported list of contacts
- Details of individual debtors and creditors
- All data, attachments and files in their sole trader account to keep a backup on your own computer - the export file is for record keeping only and cannot be imported into the limited company account.
2. Create a limited company licence
Next, you’ll need to create a new licence for the client, choosing 'UK Limited Company' as the account type.
To bring the client's data from their sole trader account to their limited company account smoothly, you can use FreeAgent’s automated migration tools to import the client’s:
3. Disconnect the Mettle feed in the client’s sole trader account
Once you have their limited company account set up, you’ll need to switch to their sole trader account and disconnect their bank feed.
Please ask the client to ensure that the connection is also removed within their Mettle app as Mettle will only allow their feed to be connected to one FreeAgent account at a time.
4. Ask the client to add their new limited company bank account and enable the Mettle feed
Once the client’s Mettle feed has been disconnected from their sole trader account and Mettle app, ask the client to log in to their limited company account and add their new limited company bank account in FreeAgent.
Ask the client to make sure that they tick the 'Make this my primary bank account' box to make the new bank account their primary bank account in FreeAgent.
If you or your client will be creating invoices, they’ll also tick the 'Show these details on Invoices' box to display the new bank account details on the invoices.
Once they’ve added the new bank account, they’ll need to enable the feed for it.
5. Close the client’s sole trader account
Once the client’s limited company account is set up, you’ll need to change the status of their sole trader account on your Practice Dashboard to 'Closed'.
Please note:
- Once the client’s sole trader account has been closed, account managers will have read-only access to the account but the client won’t be able to access the account at all.
- Once you’ve closed the account, you won’t be able to change the account status back to 'Active' and reopen it. Therefore, please make sure that you’ve completed all the required tasks in the account and exported any data that you might need before closing the account.
Next steps
You may find the following articles useful for getting your client’s limited company account set up and ready to file end-of-year accounts and Self Assessment tax returns: