Business taxi account requirements: what companies ask a taxi firm for

Before a business hands you its account, somebody in its finance team, its HR department or the front office will ask you a set of questions. This guide goes through each of those business taxi account requirements from the client's side: who asks, why they ask, and what you should hand over. For setting the accounts up once you've won them, read our guide to business accounts in your booking system.

What are the usual business taxi account requirements?

Businesses ask for eight things before they open a taxi account, and each comes from a different person inside the company. Knowing who asks tells you how to answer.

None of the eight is hard. Answer them quickly and plainly, and keep the documents in one folder, so the second business that asks gets its answers in ten minutes.

Why does finance want PO numbers and cost centres on the invoice?

Finance wants purchase order numbers and cost centres because it codes every cost to a budget and matches each invoice to an order before paying it. An invoice that doesn't carry their purchase order number can sit in a queue while someone works out who spent the money.

GOV.UK says every invoice must include a unique identification number, your name, address and contact details, the customer's name and address, a clear description of what you're charging for, the date of the service, the date of the invoice, the amounts charged and the total owed. For a taxi account, the description is the journey list. Give each line the date and time, the passenger, the pickup and drop-off, the booker, the purchase order number and the cost centre.

If you're VAT registered, the rules are tighter. HMRC's VAT Notice 700/21 says you must normally issue a VAT invoice within 30 days of the supply, and a simplified VAT invoice can only be used where the total is under £250. A month of account work will usually be more than that, so it needs a full VAT invoice.

How VAT works on the fares also depends on how your firm is set up. HMRC's VAT Notice 700/25 treats account work, where companies settle their bills periodically, as its own case. Where the operator acts as an agent for the drivers, VAT is only due on the fares if the driver is registered, and any administration charge you add on the same invoice has to be shown separately. Our guide to tax for a taxi business covers the VAT threshold and the agent and principal question.

Why do businesses want authorised bookers?

Businesses want a list of authorised bookers so that only the right people can run up a bill in their name. Without one, a temp, a contractor or a member of staff on a night out can put a journey on the account, and finance finds out a month later.

Ask for each booker's name, phone number and work email when the account opens. Agree in writing what your office does when somebody who isn't on the list rings: take the job as a normal paid booking, or ring the account holder to approve it. And ask the client to tell you the day a booker leaves.

What journey reports do businesses ask for?

Businesses ask for a report of every journey on the account, broken down by passenger, booker and cost centre, with the date and times. Finance uses it to check the invoice, and HR or payroll uses it to check staff travel.

You keep the details anyway. The Department for Transport's statutory standards expect operators to record each booking with the passenger's name, the time of the request, the pickup and destination, the driver and vehicle, and who took and dispatched the booking, and suggest keeping those records for at least 6 months. Our guide to operator record keeping has the full list.

There's a reason payroll cares about times. HMRC's guidance on late night taxis says an employer can pay for an employee's taxi home without it counting as a taxable benefit, but only if all four conditions are met on each occasion:

1. The employee is required to work later than usual, and until at least 9pm.
2. The late working is irregular.
3. By the time they finish, public transport has stopped, or it wouldn't be reasonable to expect them to use it.
4. The journey is by taxi or similar private road transport.

The exemption covers no more than 60 such journeys for each employee in a tax year. You don't need to advise a client on their tax. But a report showing the date, the passenger and the pickup time makes it easy for their payroll team to check, and that's a reason to pick your firm over one that sends a single total.

What do businesses expect about drivers, DBS checks and safeguarding?

HR expects every driver to be licensed and checked, because their staff often travel alone and late. Tell them what your council requires, not what you think it requires.

The statutory standards expect councils to require an enhanced DBS check, with barred list checks, for every licensed driver, and to check for new information every 6 months through the DBS Update Service. They also expect operators to have seen a basic DBS check for everyone who takes bookings or dispatches cars. GOV.UK says a basic check costs £20.

Then explain what happens at the pickup. The passenger knows the driver's name and the car's registration before it arrives, checks the plate before getting in, and has a number to ring if anything feels wrong. If the client has young staff, apprentices or visitors who don't know the town, say what your drivers do differently for them. Our guides to safeguarding for taxi firms and wheelchair-accessible taxis cover the policies behind those answers.

How do businesses want to pay: card or BACS?

Businesses pay a taxi account either by card or by bank transfer (BACS) against a monthly invoice, and finance will want the choice in writing. Card payment carries no credit risk for you. BACS on monthly terms means you're lending them the fares until they pay.

For card payments, send a secure payment link rather than taking card numbers over the phone. Our guide to card payments for taxi bookings explains why.

For BACS, agree the number of days in writing. GOV.UK says that if no payment date is agreed, a business payment is late 30 days after the customer gets the invoice or the service is done, whichever is later. Agreed dates must usually be within 60 days for business transactions, and longer only if that's fair to both businesses. Before you agree terms with a large company, look it up on GOV.UK's check when businesses pay invoices service. A business with at least two of £54 million turnover, £27 million on its balance sheet and 250 employees must report how long it takes to pay its suppliers, at least twice a year.

What to charge, and what credit costs you, is in our guide to pricing corporate taxi accounts.

Why do they want a named contact?

Because when a car is late at 5.50pm, the office manager wants one person who knows their account, not a queue.

Give them a name, a mobile number and the number for nights and weekends. Ring them once a quarter to ask what went wrong as well as what went right.

What does reliability mean to a business client?

Reliability means the car is there at the agreed time, at the hours the business actually works, and that someone tells them before they have to chase. A factory needs cars at shift changes. A hotel needs them at 4am. Agree the hours you'll cover and the pickup window for each kind of journey when the account opens.

When a car is going to be late, text the passenger and the booker before the pickup time, not after. Have a plan for the night a driver doesn't turn up: our guide on what to do when a driver doesn't turn up sets one out.

A booking system takes some of this off the office. Dispatch AI is booking and dispatch software for taxi and private hire firms, with accounts for your business customers. The passenger gets a confirmation by text and email, and a live link to track the car.

How should you handle the staff details a business gives you?

Treat staff names, phone numbers and home addresses as personal data, because they are. A business sending you its staff list will want to know who in your office can see it and how long you keep it.

The ICO says organisations that use personal information need to pay a data protection fee unless they're exempt. For a micro organisation, with a turnover of up to £632,000 or no more than 10 staff, the fee is £52. For small and medium organisations it's £78, and paying by direct debit takes £5 off. Pay the data protection fee to the ICO before you take on account work, and keep the receipt for the supplier form.

Then keep only what you need. Home addresses go on the booking, not on a printed sheet by the radio. Our guide on who owns your booking data covers where that data lives.