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Anyone aware of any bank accounts (USA based banks) - that allow for some programmatic moving percentages of money between accounts? I want to have it when I d

Anyone aware of any bank accounts (USA based banks) - that allow for some programmatic moving percentages of money between accounts? I want to have it when I deposit client checks in one account it takes the money and moves one third to another account and one third to another. (then I'd like to have a personal account do the same, whenever money is transferred from my business A account to this personal account, take one third and move to savings, one third move to wherever.. My google FU did not find this.. I found a couple of banks saying that you could do transfers, and I think one bank had it so you could choose an amount, like $500 every week or something more static and have that auto transfer... but for freelancing gigs it's not usually a static amount every week. I thought about doing (and may still have to ) an ask HN on this, but this story / thread is likely perfect for this. I'd like to find an actual bank product that would do this, I don't really trust the security of a phone app to mess with accounts, and don't want to put a bunch of eggs into some cloud basket either, so I'd prefer to stay away from third party cloud sites that use my authentication to touch any accounts. This kind of thing would help so many in the gig economy plan for the quarterly stuff better, hope someone can point to a bank that does this.

SmellyGeekBoy 8y ago
+1. I'm absolutely amazed that this isn't a thing. "Put 10% of everything that comes in into this savings account" (for example) wouldn't just be useful for freelancers!
- TheOtherHobbes 8y ago
  It's not a thing because the market is limited, it could be a security nightmare to administer, and because useful rules would be more complicated than "Put 10%..." - because you would have to allow for overdrawn accounts, closed accounts, moved or renumbered accounts, and so on. Product features like these invariably turn out to be far more complicated than they look.
  - mixmastamyk 8y ago
    Nah, you login at the website and add rules for moving money around. Already available. Moving percentages instead of fixed numbers is a small step up from that.
  - stevenicr 8y ago
    I appreciate the thoughts here. I do believe the market it limited to a degree, partially because so many people just get the same check week to week or whatever. However the trend is growing, it may be that a third of the US workers are 'gig economy' right now, but the market is greater than 57 million people, as there are plenty of other workers who have a varying paycheck depending on many factors, not just freelancers. Security nightmare? Not sure about that, as I mentioned in original thought, I don't trust a phone app or a desktop app to a cloud app for those reasons, I know many do for their accounts however, so it can't be that terrible. This is also why I want a bank or credit union to have this option within their system / their online portal though. Useful rules more complex? I disagree here big time. I could save a tone of time and stress, as could so many other people I have spoken to. Every uber / lyft driver I have spoken to is not prepared for self employment taxes. Construction workers and so many others would greatly benefit by setting up percentage based rules - put 30 percent in other account for the tax man alone would be life changing for many. Of course you could market it with other bits of standard advice - whatever that it - put 10% of your money into a rainy fund, put 10% for your church, put 14% into retirement accounts or whatever the popular advice is. I have seen that my two banks have systems in place for making transfers already, within the same bank is simple and fast, and to other banks or phone numbers even is not hard and those systems must already be setup to handle "overdrawn accounts, closed account, renumbered.." and whatever the so on is... I don't think this is difficult to add on to. It does not need to be complicated, someone could even setup a little pie chart GUI with some standard rules that many benefit from, 30% here, 10% to there, 10% to other there - xmas funds - label your own goals.. This would be a huge benefit to many, and it could also go on those banners at the bank - hey setup your auto split to your X fund with our online system, meet your goals with our auto split feature, etc. (kind of like the keep the change from debit transactions can be sent to your savings account) - I'd like to see an option to auto move percentage to HSA accounts and such as well - I could see an 'advanced rules' mode to set it so that there are min and max numbers as well - and an email report of what your bank auto-did for you each week or month - this is not that complicated. Could be setup in excel in minutes right? This should exist already. First bank that does this may get all of my accounts moved to it, and will get lightnight word of mouth from others in the gig econonony, adn proably lots of adcounts suggesting - hey do this to save us all the end of year grief - auto and easy. Other professionals would likely suggest this kind of system in fact I think they already do (X percent to retirement, etc) - but there is no system to do it automatically - silly.
ericcholis 8y ago
Simple.com has something similar, but not to different accounts. You can set up automatic expenses on a schedule and it moves it to expense "buckets". The balance of un-allocated funds is called "Safe to Spend". Plaid.com might be an option, they have a free account level. Not sure our limited it is.
gk1 8y ago
The bank I use for business checking doesn’t even have P2P transfers. So I just write myself a check once a month.

SmellyGeekBoy 8y ago

+1. I'm absolutely amazed that this isn't a thing. "Put 10% of everything that comes in into this savings account" (for example) wouldn't just be useful for freelancers!

TheOtherHobbes 8y ago
It's not a thing because the market is limited, it could be a security nightmare to administer, and because useful rules would be more complicated than "Put 10%..." - because you would have to allow for overdrawn accounts, closed accounts, moved or renumbered accounts, and so on. Product features like these invariably turn out to be far more complicated than they look.
- mixmastamyk 8y ago
  Nah, you login at the website and add rules for moving money around. Already available. Moving percentages instead of fixed numbers is a small step up from that.
- stevenicr 8y ago
  I appreciate the thoughts here. I do believe the market it limited to a degree, partially because so many people just get the same check week to week or whatever. However the trend is growing, it may be that a third of the US workers are 'gig economy' right now, but the market is greater than 57 million people, as there are plenty of other workers who have a varying paycheck depending on many factors, not just freelancers. Security nightmare? Not sure about that, as I mentioned in original thought, I don't trust a phone app or a desktop app to a cloud app for those reasons, I know many do for their accounts however, so it can't be that terrible. This is also why I want a bank or credit union to have this option within their system / their online portal though. Useful rules more complex? I disagree here big time. I could save a tone of time and stress, as could so many other people I have spoken to. Every uber / lyft driver I have spoken to is not prepared for self employment taxes. Construction workers and so many others would greatly benefit by setting up percentage based rules - put 30 percent in other account for the tax man alone would be life changing for many. Of course you could market it with other bits of standard advice - whatever that it - put 10% of your money into a rainy fund, put 10% for your church, put 14% into retirement accounts or whatever the popular advice is. I have seen that my two banks have systems in place for making transfers already, within the same bank is simple and fast, and to other banks or phone numbers even is not hard and those systems must already be setup to handle "overdrawn accounts, closed account, renumbered.." and whatever the so on is... I don't think this is difficult to add on to. It does not need to be complicated, someone could even setup a little pie chart GUI with some standard rules that many benefit from, 30% here, 10% to there, 10% to other there - xmas funds - label your own goals.. This would be a huge benefit to many, and it could also go on those banners at the bank - hey setup your auto split to your X fund with our online system, meet your goals with our auto split feature, etc. (kind of like the keep the change from debit transactions can be sent to your savings account) - I'd like to see an option to auto move percentage to HSA accounts and such as well - I could see an 'advanced rules' mode to set it so that there are min and max numbers as well - and an email report of what your bank auto-did for you each week or month - this is not that complicated. Could be setup in excel in minutes right? This should exist already. First bank that does this may get all of my accounts moved to it, and will get lightnight word of mouth from others in the gig econonony, adn proably lots of adcounts suggesting - hey do this to save us all the end of year grief - auto and easy. Other professionals would likely suggest this kind of system in fact I think they already do (X percent to retirement, etc) - but there is no system to do it automatically - silly.

ericcholis 8y ago

Simple.com has something similar, but not to different accounts. You can set up automatic expenses on a schedule and it moves it to expense "buckets". The balance of un-allocated funds is called "Safe to Spend". Plaid.com might be an option, they have a free account level. Not sure our limited it is.

gk1 8y ago

The bank I use for business checking doesn’t even have P2P transfers. So I just write myself a check once a month.