A bank account for the band and simple bookkeeping

Most bands run their money through the leader's personal account, a pile of screenshots and a vague memory of who paid for the last set of strings. It works until the first 4,000 EUR wedding deposit lands next to the leader's rent, or a member leaves and asks for their share of "the band fund". A separate account and a small routine fix both problems in an afternoon.

This is not tax or legal advice. The right legal form for a band differs by country; the practices below work under most of them.

Which kind of account

You have three realistic options, in order of effort:

1. A dedicated personal account in the leader's name. Free or nearly free, opened in minutes, and a big improvement on mixing band money with personal money. The weakness is that legally it is the leader's money, and the leader's tax return has to explain it. Fine for a band grossing under roughly 10,000 EUR a year.
2. A joint account with two or three signatories. Many banks offer joint current accounts. Two members see every transaction, which removes the "trust me" problem. Some banks will not open joint accounts for non-couples, so ask.
3. A business account for a legal entity. If the band is an association, partnership or small company (the names differ per country), the entity holds the account, invoices clients and pays the musicians. Costs 5–20 EUR a month at most banks, more admin, but clean separation and clear ownership when people leave. This is the normal route once a band grosses 20,000–30,000 EUR a year or has employees such as a sound engineer.

Whichever you pick, write the decision into the band agreement: who owns the balance, and what happens to it when someone leaves or the band folds.

Who signs, and for what

A band account is a trust exercise, so make the rules boring:

• One person handles day-to-day payments (the treasurer; often not the leader, which is healthier).
• Any single payment above a threshold, say 300 EUR, needs a second person's OK in writing. Most banking apps support two-person approval; if not, a message in the band channel is enough.
• Members can see the balance. A screenshot in the monthly summary is the minimum; read-only access for one other member is better.
• Nobody, including the leader, borrows from the account.

What goes through the account

Everything that is band income or band cost, and nothing else:

• In: deposits, balances, festival fees, merch sales, cash from the night (paid in within a week, with the gig name as reference).
• Out: musician payouts, deps, sound engineer, van hire and fuel, rehearsal room, gear bought for the band, insurance, software, marketing, meals on the road if the band pays them.

Personal gear stays personal. If the band buys a shared item, the account pays for it, and the inventory records that the band owns it (see running a gear inventory).

The reserve

Keep a reserve that does not get split. Bands that run on zero fold at the first cancelled wedding or blown power amp. Two common models:

• Percentage: 10–15% of every fee goes to the band fund before the split.
• Fixed per gig: 100–200 EUR per gig into the fund.

A target reserve of 1,500–3,000 EUR covers a broken PA speaker, a deposit refund you decide to make out of goodwill, or a quiet January. Decide in advance what the fund may be spent on; "gear over 200 EUR, emergencies, and things a majority agree on" is a workable rule.

The 30-minute monthly routine

Put it in the calendar on the first weekend of the month. Thirty minutes, one person, one coffee.

1. Reconcile. Open the bank statement and the gig list side by side. Every fee that should have arrived either has, or gets a chase email today.
2. Categorise. Tag every transaction: income by gig type, expense by category (transport, rehearsal, gear, deps, marketing, software, insurance, fees and bank charges). Eight categories are enough; see band expenses you should track.
3. Pay people. Musician shares for last month's gigs go out in one batch with a reference like "2026-08 gigs". Late payouts are the most common source of resentment in a band, and the easiest to prevent.
4. File receipts. Photograph every paper receipt into one folder per year. Name files 2026-08-14 fuel 82.40.jpg. Your accountant, or future you, will thank you.
5. Summarise. Post four numbers to the band: income this month, expenses this month, paid out to members, balance of the fund. Attach the reconciled list of gigs. Ten lines, no commentary needed.

Tools

• A spreadsheet is enough for most bands: one tab per year, one row per transaction, columns for date, gig, category, in, out, running balance. Add a pivot table by category and you have annual accounts.
• A free or cheap accounting app (there are several with free tiers) becomes worth it once you issue more than a handful of invoices a month or need VAT reports. For the invoicing side, read VAT and invoicing basics.
• The bank's own export. Download CSV monthly rather than retyping.
• A shared folder for receipts, contracts and quotes, with a strict naming convention.

Avoid anything that requires everyone in the band to learn a new app for money. One treasurer, one spreadsheet, one summary message.

Do this today

• Decide the account type and open it this week; a personal dedicated account takes 15 minutes.
• Agree the signing threshold and the reserve rule, and write both into the band agreement.
• Create the spreadsheet with the eight categories and enter the last three months.
• Put the monthly routine in the calendar with a named owner.
• Tell the band the four-number summary is coming on the first of every month, then send it.

Where expert.band helps

expert.band is not accounting software, and it does not try to be. What it gives your treasurer is the income side already organised: every gig carries its fee, every quote has a status and a total, and an accepted quote linked to a gig shows the agreed amount on the gig itself. At month end you reconcile the bank statement against that list instead of against memory. Details are in the gigs and quotes documentation.