Can I locate the name of an account holder by the account number and sort code? (U.K.)
"No, the best you can do is (probably) determine the bank, from the sort code. using an online checker such as this one from the UK payments industry trade association. Revealing the name of an account holder is something the bank would typically require a warrant for, I'd expect, or whatever is covered in the account T&Cs under ""we provide all lawfully required assistance to the authorities"" Switching to what I suspect is your underlying problem - if this is a dispute that's arisen at the end of your tenancy, relating to the return of the deposit, then there are plenty of people to help you, for free. Use those rather than attempting your own detective work. Start with the UK government How to Rent guide, which includes links on to Shelter's pages about deposits. The CAB has lots of good info here too. Note that if your landlord didn't put your deposit in a deposit protection scheme, then as a professional landlord they could be penalised four times (I think) the deposit amount by a court, so stick to your guns on this."
"Accounts track value: at any given time, a given account will have a given value. The type of account indicates what the value represents. Roughly: On a balance sheet (a listing of accounts and their values at a given point in time), there is typically only one equity account, representing net worth, I don't know much about GNUCash, though. Income and expenses accounts do not go on the balance sheet, but to find out more, either someone else or the GNUCash manual will have to describe how they work in detail. Equity is more similar to a liability than to assets. The equation Assets = Equity + Liabilities should always hold; you can think of assets as being ""what my stuff is worth"" and equity and liabilities together as being ""who owns it."" The part other people own is liability, and the part you own is equity. See balance sheet, accounting equation, and double-entry bookkeeping for more information. (A corporate balance sheet might actually have more than one equity entry. The purpose of the breakdown is to show how much of their net worth came from investors and how much was earned. That's only relevant if you're trying to assess how a company has performed to date; it's not important for a family's finances.)" "That's Imbalance-USD (or whatever your default currency is). This is the default ""uncategorized"" account. My question is, is it possible to get the ""unbalanced"" account to zero and eliminate it? Yes, it's possible to get this down to zero, and in fact desirable. Any transactions in there should be reviewed and fixed. You can delete it once you've emptied it, but it will be recreated the next time an unbalanced transaction is entered. Ideally, I figure it should autohide unless there's something in it, but it's a minor annoyance. Presumably you've imported a lot of data into what's known as a transaction account like checking, and it's all going to Imbalance, because it's double entry and it has to go somewhere. Open up the checking account and you'll see they're all going to Imbalance. You'll need to start creating expense, liability and income accounts to direct these into.  Once you've got your history all classified, data entry will be easier. Autocomplete will suggest transactions, and online transaction pull will try to guess which account a given transaction should match with based on that data." Of course not, this is confidential information in the same way that I cannot phone up your bank and ask to see a list of the transactions that you have made. Any bank has to be extremely careful about protecting the private transactions of it's customers and would be subject to heavy fines if it revealed this information without the customer's consent. "To the best of my knowledge the UK's online banking systems look purely at the Sort Code and Account Number when routing transfers.  The name is not cross-checked to ensure it matches. This is why it's so easy to misdirect transfers if you make an error entering the numbers and inadvertently enter the details for a valid account belonging to the wrong person. So in your case so long as you're sure you have the correct account number and sort code it doesn't matter what you put in the name field - it'll end up in the account to which those numbers apply.  Of course you might as well put your ""best guess"" into the name field since it doesn't hurt, and in the event that something does go wrong it's backup evidence of your intentions." I think you'll find that a credit card does have an account number and sort code, I have had a Visa card previously and currently have a Mastercard. Both were paid by Direct Debit, and I could then transfer money to the account when I wanted to pay more than the minimum payment off. Check the introductory letter from the card provider, it should be on there, failing that, contact the provider and ask them for the details, how to pay, or a direct debit mandate for either the whole amount or the minimum amount. "Generally, it would be an accountant. Specifically in the case of very ""private"" (or unorganized, which is even worse) person - forensic accountant. Since there's no will - it will probably require a lawyer as well to gain access to all the accounts the accountant discovers. I would start with a good estate attorney, who in turn will hire a forensic accountant to trace the accounts." You need to report your accounts, not other persons. However, if you have a joint account with another person - it is your account, jointly. So the joint account has to be reported, your girlfriend's personal accounts - not (unless the money there is yours or you have signature authority, of course). For a joint account - you need to report who are the joint holders, yes. I used to use Quicken, but support for that has been suspended in the UK.  I had started using Mvelopes, but support for that was suspended as well!  What I use now is an IPhone app called IXpenseit to track my spending. My bank claims they cannot trace since the money never reached them. Your bank is right. They can't generally trace this. I asked the sender to initiate a trace with Natwest, but no results for 3 days now. Natwest should be able to trace and confirm it. This usually takes anywhere from 7 to 10 days. Be interesting to see how this falls in line with new rules on data protection in the EU (and probably more relevant, the UK as it's maintaining them after Brexit..).  Some of the data being held may well not be shareable without consent and if someone turns a spotlight on banks sharing data it could get quite ugly quite quickly. "In Europe in most of the countries there is also a thing called ACH. In UK there is a thing called BACS and in other countires there are other things. Essentially every country has what is called a ""Low value Net Settlement System"" that is used to transfer funds between accounts of different banks. In US there is rounting number, in UK there is a Sort Code, in Indonesia there is a sort code. Essentially a Bank Identifier that is issued by the Governing body within respective countires.   Certian identifiers like SWIFT BIC [Bank Identification Code] are Unique across world." "Shares do not themselves carry any identity. Official shareholders are kept at the registrar.  In the UK, this may be kept up to date and publicly accessible.  In the US, it is not, but this doesn't matter because most shares are held ""in street name"". For a fully detailed history, one would need access to all exchange records, brokerage records, and any trades transacted off exchange. These records are almost totally unavailable." It appears all you have to do is submit a form. It might be better if she submitted it herself instead of you doing it on her behalf.  All natural persons (individuals) and non-natural persons (businesses)   are entitled to access and inspect the data held on record about them   in the Central Credit Information System (KHR). "It's generally not possible to open a business account in the UK remotely.  It's even difficult (near impossible) for a non-resident (even if a citizen) to open a business or personal bank account while visiting the UK. A recent report says that it may be possible to open an account via Barclays Offshore in the Isle of Man.  This requires a large deposit, and probably lots of paperwork and fees (most offshore locations have stricter ""know your customer"" rules than major countries). Note that while the Isle of Man is inside the UK banking system (for sort codes, account numbers), it is a separate territory that doesn't have the same deposit guarantees as the UK. There is no legal reason why a UK company has to bank within the UK banking system, although many companies paying the company would expect it or require it, and an account in anything other than sterling would complicate the accounts. It could have an account in your home country.   It's not even a legal requirement that the company has an account in its own name at all.  Some people use a (separate) personal account for this purpose.  There are plenty of reasons why this is a bad idea (for example it's unclear who/what owns the money in the account, and can give the appearance of director's loans), but it's a work-around.  Most inbound electronic payments only require a sort code and account number, the account owner name is not checked. The UK does have a much simpler and cheaper company registry than most European countries, but the near-impossibility of opening a bank account for a business in the UK as a non-resident has made it an unsuitable place to register a small international company." If iban and name don't match. This shud have been refunded. Logic says so. Otherwise they just ask for iban without other details if they won't be considered