
Covid-19 Protect Your Business
During our first webinar, we covered various topics including accessing government support, business grants as well as cash preservation and maintaining up-to-date records.
Newham Business Desk Team covered the grants funds.
82% of the Business Grants (47 million worth) have been now paid out by Newham Council to local businesses. Applications are processed on the same day and are paid out within 5-6 working days.
The central government will allocate additional funds which will cover more grants for businesses, including:
- Small businesses in shared offices; regular market traders who do not have their own business rates assessment;
- Bed&Breakfast which pay Council tax instead of business rates;
- Charity properties in receipt of charitable business rates relief;
When applying to grants, please check your business and payment details to avoid payment delays. You cannot receive multiple grants.
The Self-Employment Income Support Scheme is now open and can be claimed.
Greg Lishak from Jones & Partners spoke about Cash preservation and covered:
- minimising outflows (staff costs, rent/mortgage payment; other creditors, tax payments)
- and maximizing inflows (continued marketing debtors reviews & management; selling nonessential items; reviewing loans options).
Few other important points:
- the importance of keeping your records updated, including your bookkeeping system, debtor and creditor balances, etc, they will help when applying for loans
- this is the time to start thinking how your business will look between now and when the lockdown is lifted or when the Fourlough is over (i.e. security measures)
- go through your suppliers' list and see if you need all of the services, have a call with them and have an honest conversation
- don’t stop your sales or marketing activities, use social media to communicate with your customers and talk about your product/service
- diversify your revenue streams-think where you can change your revenue (for instance where business goes into takeaways etc)
- use real-time data to make cashflow forecast (more appropriate data to use when considering a loan application process)
If you have questions or assistance regarding any topic that was covered in the presentation, you can contact Jones & Partners directly.
You can also check their COVID19 Business resources hub: http://clientresources.co.uk/