You opened your first PC with a checking account at the corner bank. You opened your fifth at 2 a.m. on a Sunday because that's when you finally had time. The corner bank doesn't scale. Most banks don't.

Here's what banking looks like at every step from 1 PC to 10. And what to ask for before you outgrow it.

1 PC: The Setup Almost Anyone Sells

One PC, one checking account, one debit card. You're a small business as far as the bank is concerned. Anyone can do this.

What works:

• Local credit union or community bank

• One signer

• Manual reconciliation by your office manager

• ACH for payroll, checks for vendors

What you'll outgrow: visibility, sweep options, and the assumption that one signer is fine forever.

3 PCs: The First Cracks

Now you have three logins, three reconciliation cycles, three sets of statements. Your CFO does math in a spreadsheet on Sunday nights.

Start asking for:

• A consolidated dashboard across PCs

• Per-entity reporting, not "all combined"

• Sweep rules that move idle cash to interest-bearing accounts

• Higher FDIC ceiling per entity

If your bank can't deliver these in under an hour of explanation, switch.

5 PCs: The MSO Becomes Real

At 5 PCs, you almost certainly have an MSO doing payroll, vendor management, and shared services. The MSA is real. Money moves between entities monthly.

Now non-negotiable:

• Onboarding a new PC in under 10 days

• Virtual accounts per location for payer EFT routing

• Automated management fee transfers, papered to the MSA

• Role-based access. No more "everyone's an admin"

• $10M+ FDIC per entity via sweep network

This is where most generalist banks tap out.

10 PCs: You're Running a System

At 10 PCs, banking is infrastructure. You're not picking a bank. You're picking a platform.

The new questions:

• How fast can you onboard a new PC the day after a JV signs?

• Can you produce per-entity audit reports for PE diligence?

• What's the SLA on payment failures?

• How do sweeps work across 10 entities and 30 virtual accounts?

For Lemma, those answers are same day, yes, 4 hours, and with a single rule set you write once.

Why Most Groups Wait Too Long

Switching banks feels expensive. New paperwork, new logins, retraining the front desk. So groups keep limping along.

The real cost is on the other side. Idle cash earning nothing. CFO time burned on reconciliation. A diligence pack that takes a quarter to assemble. By the time a PE process starts, you can't fix it on the timeline you have.

Switching at PC #3 costs a weekend. Switching at PC #8 costs a deal.

The Order of Operations

If you're scaling from 1 to 10 over the next 24 months, do these in order:

1. Pick a multi-entity-native bank before PC #3

2. Stand up the consolidated dashboard before PC #5

3. Document the MSA cash mechanics before any PE conversation

4. Move to virtual accounts before payer-EFT misrouting eats Fridays

5. Switch to per-entity sweep rules before $10M lands in one account

The bank you opened with isn't usually the bank that gets you to 10. Pick one that does, before you have to switch under deadline pressure.