My colleague and myself have been working on a project that aims to be incorporate as a startup. Both of us are newbies for entrepreneurship. We joined the VentureKick and pasted the stage1. So VentureKick will provide 10k CHF as a fund for our project to develop the business. If we can pass the stage 2, then get 40k CHF.
Now question is: We are not incorporated yet. Thus we do not have a company bank account, so which kind of bank account we should provide for VentureKick to transfer the fund in?
My colleague thinks that this 10k is income if we put them on either of our private bank accounts and one needs to pay tax. I do not think so, because this 10k will be spent within this year and most likely nothing will be left on the account at the end of year (unless we have 40k of stage2).
Since we are not incorporated yet (plan to do within this year), it's difficult for us to open a business account with banks (ZKB, UBS and PostFinance etc. all require the certificate of the incorporation).
It might be a simple/stupid question, but it bothers us quite a while.
Are there any suggestions from experienced entrepreneurs to better handle such situations (we have to provide the bank account very soon)? Thank you very much for your kind inputs
PS: PostFinance offers accounts for Simple Partnerships. However, I strongly suggest to look into the General Partnership and getting a commercial register entry.
You need to start with finding out what type of account the the fund require you to have.... I'd expect they'd have some kind of conditions, otherwise someone could have the money paid in to a private account and just disappear...
I had no problem opening a business account for self-employment with both ZKB and Raiffeisen, before getting an entry in the handelsregister - but yes, it’s recommended you do this anyway within 6 months of operating and it will ease a lot of other paperwork. It also forces you and your business partner to do all the steps together and consider how your relationship will be with each other.
I suggest you link up with these startup support organisations in Zurich:
We talked to the Venture Kick, and they confirmed that the grant is not considered as income (as my colleague thought so), and indeed private account is not optimal