Your bill and online account

Log in to your OneAccount and navigate to the section called Business Rates. Click on the link, Access Business Rates online.

On the next screen, you will be prompted to authorise the Northgate application access to your account details.

Northgate, which is also known as NEC is the application that we hold your business rates account details on and this question is asking you to confirm that you are happy to link your Business Rates details to your OneAccount.

If you click Allow you will be able to progress; however, should you click Reject you will be informed that you can’t continue to add the service.

You will then be presented with the Business Rates Options page which is the home page for Business Rates online services.

Various tasks can be undertaken here even though you haven’t linked your Business Rates account to your OneAccount yet.

Tasks that you can undertake here without linking your account includes the ability to sign up for a Direct Debit, search for the rateable value of a Business Rates property and upload documents that you may have been asked to supply.

More services will be added to the Business Rates Options page over time.

You will also see the link that says View your Business Rates online in the top right hand corner of the page.

Clicking this will enable you to progress with adding your Business Rates account to your OneAccount.

Starting the registration, you will be able to choose to register as an Organisation or as a Person.

Should you be registering as an organisation, you are required to enter the organisation name as shown on your Business Rates bill as well as your Business Rates account reference number.

Should you be registering as a person, you will need to enter your first name, last name and Business Rates account reference number.

Please note that if we haven’t been provided with your first name, we may have this recorded on our records as an initial.

Your Business Rates account reference number can be found on your business rates bill.

You may find that some of these fields have already populated with information from your OneAccount. If the details for your Business Rates account are different, please update these fields accordingly.

Once you have entered the required information, click Next.

You are now required to answer two of the four security questions to verify that you are the account holder.

Most customers answer the first two questions, these being the online key which is located in the bottom corner of your bill and the current postcode.

Please note that the current postcode is the postcode of the property address that you pay Business Rates for and not your contact address.

Other questions you could answer include the last three digits of a telephone number we hold on record for you and the last three digits of your bank account number should you currently pay by Direct Debit.

After answering two of the four questions you will be able to progress by clicking Next.

Should you encounter any issues at this stage and believe that you have answered the security questions correctly, please get it touch so that we can assist you.

You are now on the final registration screen and will need to enter the email address you wish to be associated with your online Business Rates account. We recommend that you keep this the same as the email you used to register for your OneAccount.

You also have the option to sign up for paperless billing.

This is a free service and you will receive an email when a new bill is available to view online. An email will be generated for each year if an outstanding balance is due in multiple years.

Please note that applying for paperless billing means that no paper bills will be issued to your address in the post. This does not apply to certain recovery notices which we are required to send in the post.

The final question asks for you to agree with the terms and conditions which you can view by clicking on the link that is presented to you.

Should you agree to the terms, tick the box and then click Submit to finalise your registration.

That’s it! You have now added the Business Rates service to your OneAccount.

You will notice that the Business Rates Options screen now displays more information which is specific to your account.

Should you have other accounts that you are liable for, you should be able to access them from the Business Rates Options screen as well.

If you expect to see another account which is not shown, then please get in touch so that we can investigate this.