Use one paypal account for personal and business activity

[DTN]

I have a long term verified personal account with Paypal, linked to my personal bank account in my own name. I wish to continue making personal purchases, payments and occasional funds transfers to family with this account, even if it is upgraded to Business.

I also have this personal paypal account set up on my mobile.

I also have a website providing income through a number of other payment processing options (for example Skrill Moneybookers).

I will be adding an affiliate section to the website and have purchased Post Affiliate Pro 4 to allow the smooth operation of tracking affiliate activity. PAP4 can intergrate with PayPal to make single or multiple payments to my affiliates and I would like to use this option.

I do not sell products on the website at the moment but would like to add a range of items using paypal to process purchases.

I am the sole owner of the website. I only have one bank account in my own name linked to my personal paypal account. I do not wish to open another bank account for the website transactions as I can easily split personal and business items and only operate on a sole trader basis. The website name is different from my own name.

The website trading volume would be in your initial 0-25K category.

I would like to move everything to Paypal and (from reading through your FAQ and forum) believe I need a Business Account; as you only allow 1 bank account per paypal account I would need to upgrade to Business, continuing to use my existing personal bank account for deposits and withdrawals.

However I wish to keep all my personal transactions under my own name and email address (without the website name visible) and the website transactions under the website name and email address (without my personal details visible).

The upgraded personal account to Business would still be in my own name but I wish to invoice in the website name where required for those transactions only and use my own name for personal transactions.

I know fees are similar across all types of account and I can upgrade to Business by clicking on upgrade in my personal account, but before I do that:

1. Are there any additional forms/applications to complete?
2. Are there any issues in the requirements explained above?
3. If the Business account is not suitable, is it a simple process to move back down to personal?
4. Is there anything I have missed in the above process?

Thankyou in advance for your help.

[PayPal_lucy]

Hey there DTN,

When upgrading to a business account there are some questions that you will be asked to fill in such as your business type. You would put in “individual” for this unless you have a business number that you wish to add.

Once you pick “individual” we know you’re not a business. The rest of that form you just fill out to what best suits the activity on the PayPal account.

Downgrading can be done, you would need to send in an email with a request before we can do this.

The only issues I can see with this is that is with a business account the business name will always be shown in a transaction to your buyer even if that transaction is not related to your business and its for your personal side of things.

You can have your two email address registered to your PayPal account, but you do have to pick a primary one. That will be the one that we contact you on.

I hope this helps. 

[DTN]

Thank you for the reply Lucy.

A few more questions just to clarify:

I upgraded to Premier but have not completed the Business form or added any Business details, still keeping all transactions personal at the moment.

Paypal describe Premier and Business as Business accounts but I am not sure which one I need as I will be the only person accessing the account - is Business for multi-user companies and Premier for individuals running a sole trader operation like myself? Is there any other difference between Premier and Business and if so should I upgrade to a full Business account from Premier?

If I complete the form with my Business name (let's call it ABC), but the paypal account and my bank account remain in my name, what happens when funds are paid to ABC for a sale, going to the paypal account in my name and I wish to withdraw funds to my account, will my bank continue to see the transfer as coming from me and not ABC?

If I call the Business ABC, any sale (I assume) will show ABC on the top left of the transaction details, in place of the email address that is currently shown when I make purchases. No problem with that.

If I make a personal purchase and it shows ABC instead of my email (as it does now), no problem with that either.

However If I send (for example) a personal payment to my son or daughter, will it show from ABC or my email or my own name in any correspondence with her from Paypal? I don't really want them to think it is from the business instead of me.

I use this email address for my personal correspondence. If I add a business email address, do I make the personal one primary as the main point of contact for Paypal? When is the secondary (business) email address used? Which email address is the default for sales by ABC, purchases by ABC, purchases by me and family payments by me (the 4 types of transactions I will be making)?

I think that is all I need to know, awaiting your reply and appreciate the help.

[Gaylor]

I am trying to figure out how to transfer funds that were deposited in my personal paypal account to my ministry bank account associated with PayPal.  Fees were taken out of the $10. and the $200.00 deposits made to my personal Paypal account. I do not want to pay fees twice when I transfer to my ministry account. Please advise process. thank you

[delyos]

Hi,

I do not want to use the Business Paypal and downgrade to Personal, can you please email me how to do it? delyos510 at gmail.com (secondary email, just for this query)

Thanks