If you’re losing track of current leads or struggling to close deals – or your sales team grows to more than a couple of people – then having a formal sales pipeline could be the right call for you. Here, we explain what a sales pipeline is, how you should set it up and how to manage it.

What is a sales pipeline?

A sales pipeline gives you a visual overview of sales prospects. It’s typically represented by a horizontal or vertical bar and includes the different stages of the sales cycle. Having a sales pipeline will break down deals into small, achievable tasks.

They’re usually used for gathering sales leads, building relationships with prospective customers and closing deals.

The markers of success in a sales pipeline can be:

• Number of deals
• Conversion rate
• Average deal size
• Average win rate
• Sales velocity (how quickly a sales team closes a deal and generates revenue)

In the early days, a sales pipeline can be created with Excel or Google Sheets as a lower-cost solution. “If you were starting a business and you’ve literally got a handful of leads, you might well get a standalone Excel spreadsheet or a flipchart or a whiteboard on the wall,” said Martin Knowles, co-founder of Sales Untangled.

When you’re generating more sales though, it’s worth moving to a sales pipeline platform. Most of the time, a sales pipeline will be part of a larger Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system.

“A Sales CRM enables you to keep all your customer and deal records safe and up to date in one place,” said Jonathan Branney, strategy director of BANC.

The next decision to make is who oversees your sales pipeline. “A common mistake is setting up a sales pipeline within a CRM tool without having someone appointed internally to keep on top of this. The process requires constant resource and attention — but investing this time and energy will only pay dividends for a more managed and effective process,” said Branney. Note that you won’t need to hire someone to oversee it unless you have a larger sales team. Say, 30 or more people.

Naturally, the features that are in your sales pipeline/CRM should be near the top of the list of considerations. You want the usability that your business needs now and will need in the future, but without the bloat of unnecessary extras.

“The thing about CRM is you can get yourself in a world of pain by focusing on hygiene and filling in a CRM. There’s a real balance between it being a useful amount of information and a burden on people who are trying to close stuff,” said Emma Maslen, founder of sales strategy consultancy, inspir’em.

Knowles agrees, acknowledging the importance of budget. There’s everything from free to very expensive platforms – even from the same supplier. “If you do decide to switch suppliers, you want a relatively easy transition,” he added.

How a CRM fits into your company and its culture must rank highly too. “However good your system is, how your people use it will determine how successful it is,” said Knowles. “It’s about how easy it is for people to input and how much value it adds to them in their jobs, which will then encourage them to actually keep the data up to date and keep it relevant rather than you ending up with an expensive database that doesn’t work.” Read a few reviews before buying a CRM.

Setting up a pipeline for sales

First of all, establish your needs as a business. “Set out your objectives first and be really clear what it is that you want the system to do for you. It’s almost like you design your sales process before you decide what tool best does it for you,” said Knowles.

The second is to know who your audience are along with their needs. Gather a list of prospective buyers (based on buyer persona – demographics, education, interests, buying habits and other traits).

For those B2B firms looking for whomever holds the purse strings, strategise carefully. “The problem with budget holders is [that] budgets get withdrawn at a moment’s notice,” said Maslen. “Look at what’s happening – we’ve had Covid, there was Truss, the cost-of-living crisis, we’ve had Ukraine, we’ve now got Israel. The budgets are really fluid right now.

“If, all of a sudden, a budget holder is not a top priority, they’ll have their budgets withdrawn. What you need to do is be picking people who can go and access discretionary funds and get things on the priority list so that they’re always on the priority list.”

Then define your sales process. What steps does your team need to conduct to close a deal? We’ll go over how to define pipeline stages in just a moment.

“I don’t recommend flipping the customer over to someone else, because you will lose time and lose relationship currency”

Emma Maslen, founder of inspir’em

Look at what you can automate, such as email and text messages that go out to prospects or leads. This will save you a lot of hassle day-to-day.

Sales pipeline stages

Many pipelines are made up of five stages, but some could be up to eight stages, depending on how refined you want your sales process to be. It’s all based on your business’ needs.  

Maslen said that these can essentially be broken down into the research phase, scoping phase and closing phase.

Nothing has to be too rigid here as you can refine stages as you go along. Stages can be set into sub-stages too. One pointer is to try and keep the sales cycle as short as you can to avoid overcomplicating the process for the customer. A lot of back and forth might encourage them to abandon a sale altogether.

“I think one of the best things for your CRM is having the stages in there, but also having really clear criteria, a small number of criteria, about how you move [customers] between the stages and what constitutes a move,” said Maslen. “When you talk to a lot of small business owners, they say, ‘Oh, we’re awash with pipeline and it’s all near to closing. But for some reason, we can’t close it, we can’t convert it.’

“They all have those deals all over the place. Some of them know why the customer is buying something. Some of them know who the buyer is. In some cases, they know who the procurement person is, but there’s no consistency with those stages of deals. So, these gates just allow you to be consistent. And they prompt you to think, ‘Okay, have I got everything to be able to move it forward?”

Regardless of how many stages you decide to go for, simplicity, consistency and relationship building should be a focus throughout the pipeline. “I don’t recommend flipping the customer over to someone else, because you will lose time and lose relationship currency,” added Maslen.

So, what are some of the stages you could consider?

Prospecting

This is the point where your potential customers discover who you are through some kind of promotional material.

You might want to think about where your audience are so that you can find them through email marketing, social media, through your website, over the phone and at trade shows. “Making yourself easy to do business with is underpins the success of it,” said Knowles.

Lead qualification

A qualified lead is the right fit for what you’re selling, which is why it’s so important to establish your target audience profile early on. Qualify them based on budget, need and readiness to buy.

You could always place leads in different pipelines if you have that option available. Multiple pipelines are suitable when you’ve got multiple sales channels or you sell different types of product.

Demonstration or meeting

This is your first contact with a possible buyer – this could be over the phone, email, in-person or on social media. This will be their proper introduction to your product or service.

Proposal

Where you go for the sell. Try and convince the potential customer that your product or service can help them with any pain points they have at a reasonable cost.

Negotiation

Discuss the specifics of the sale such as expectations and pricing.

Sale

Closing the deal and/or signing the contract.

Post-sale/retention

Some experts will regard this as a stage in your sales pipeline, while others won’t. It seemed worth mentioning here anyway.

Post-sale can involve referrals, feedback and targeting these customers with future products, maintaining a relationship beyond the sale. Remember the Pareto Principle when applied to sales (it was originally based on population). Under this principle, 20 per cent of leads account for 80 per cent of revenue, so it’s worth focusing on them – even post-sale.

“The customers that you’ve sold to are your best ambassadors, which means they’re also going to shout from the rooftops around the stuff that you’ve delivered for them,” said Maslen.

“Anybody that comes through those referrals is going to be cheaper than getting a new customer. But also, they should be the ones that you’re focused on in terms of upsell, because again, it will be a cheaper upsell for you than a hit and run sales approach.”

She suggests inviting them to be case studies, or to user groups/advisory groups. “They’ll post that on LinkedIn, and they’ll say that they had a good time – it’s more customer advocacy. Invite them to give you some recommendations on the product as well. People like to be asked their opinion, and then they like to tell people that they’ve been asked their opinion.”

Sales pipeline templates

If you’re completely bewildered by the whole thing, start off with a sales pipeline template. These can be very simple or very complex depending on the nature of your company sales.

Most of the pipeline software providers we list out further down this article have templates as part of their offering. Here are a few other examples available online (some as downloads):

• OnePageCRM – A spreadsheet template for either Excel or Google Sheets to create a step-by-step sales process from scratch
• Spreadsheet.com – Includes built-in charts and the ability to breakdown your pipeline in multiple ways.
• Atlassian – If your company already uses Jira for project management then you might consider using this template based on its Kanban-style visualisation.
• Indzara – A free Google Sheets template. They also a offer an Excel version.
• Notion by Template Road – If you are a user of the Notion workspace app this template is available for US$4.00.

Sales pipeline management

Monitor the performance of these sales (the ‘key markers of success’ bullet-pointed earlier can be a good set to start with) and see if there are any obvious flaws or irregularities in the process.

Now, there’ll always be the chance that a prospect will disappear unexpectedly, even if they’ve agreed to the sale. “There is an attrition rate from that and it’s probably one of the biggest sources of frustration if the customer says, ‘Yes, okay, sounds great’ and then they don’t go ahead because they disappear or they start ghosting suppliers – it drives people mad,” said Knowles. “But there are various reasons why things go wrong, even at the last minute.”

That’s part of the reason why you should review your pipeline regularly. “The best thing to do when the pipeline is stalling near the end, is to go back to the beginning: why is the customer even interested in the first place? Just by going back to the beginning, and starting again, you will accelerate your pipeline. It feels like that’s counterproductive, but it’s really not because usually you’ve missed something in the beginning,” said Maslen.

That missing piece is often researching your prospects enough to carry the sale through.

“We have this term that we use quite a lot, which is ‘show up and throw up’,” said Maslen. “This is when we get really excited when people come through our website and say, ‘Hey, we’d like a meeting’ or ‘Hey, we’d like a demo’. Then we don’t do any research, we just turn up and hit them with all of the stuff. It’s almost like we’re throwing as much stuff up against the wall just to see what sticks.

“Most people say, ‘It takes us several meetings before we get conversion.’ It’s because, actually, you’re taking several meetings to listen to what you should have been listening to in the first couple of meetings.”

She says that three of the most effective questions to ask are:

• What’s the implication if they don’t solve the problem that they’re trying to solve?
• Is the problem that they’re trying to solve a paper cut which they could live with and just crack on? Is their business going to bleed out? Or is it going to be a leg amputation, which means that they are going to be more in a hurry to get something done?
• If they solve this problem, what would success mean to them?

“Whatever the thing is, and just by asking them those questions, then the customer will realise, ‘Well, actually, this is a big deal to us. Because if we don’t solve this, we’ve got a really big problem. And if we do solve this, we’ve got great success’,” added Maslen.

If it isn’t a big problem after all, you can then focus your efforts on another prospect.

You can set up multiple automated processes and introduce more over time too, which is why it’s worth considering in regular reviews. Think about tasks that you do repeatedly and whether they can be automated.

Finally, for potential buyers and those even earlier in their decision making process, build content that will attract and retain leads. These draw customers to your website and give them something informative and practical to associate with your brand.

Create content for them at all stages in their search. This could be how-to guides, point-of-view articles on news stories, infographics, videos and podcasts. Remember those calls to action (CTA) too.

Sales pipeline software

Here are some sales pipeline/CRM providers, complete with features and pricing.  

Small Business Pro

https://smallbusiness.co.uk/business-pro/

With Small Business Pro, you can build sales pipelines with a tool tailored to small businesses, at a fraction of the cost of other CRM systems. It comes as part of a full membership which includes low-cost payments, 24/7 access to NHS GPs and legal and employee protection. Plus, you’ll automatically be entered into a monthly competition to win a £2,500 grant.

For full Small Business Pro membership

Sole trader: £39.99 a month (including VAT)
1 to 30 employees: £49.99 a month (including VAT)

HubSpot

https://www.hubspot.com/

The HubSpot sales pipeline is customisable, allowing you to add, edit and delete sales stages. Plus, it’s easy to drag and drop these deals between stages as they progress. It’s easy to identify roadblocks and identify revenue blockages so that you can optimise sales performance.   

It also has a sales pipeline template for Microsoft Excel.

Prices for CRM suite

Free: £0
Starter: From £18 a month
Professional: From £1,404 a month

Insightly

https://www.insightly.com/

On Insightly, centralise customer data, create engaging customer journeys and connect to the apps you already use including Xero, Slack, asana and WordPress. Have your sales reports created in a Kanban-style and alter your settings for automated pipeline alerts.

Free: £0
Plus: $29 (£24) per user, per month
Professional: $49 (£40.50) per user, per month
Enterprise: $99 (£82) per user, per month

Monday.com

https://monday.com/crm?selectedTag=sales_pipeline

Look at your sales pipelines in multiple views on Monday.com: table, form, chart and calendar. Customise which steps of the sales process that you automate. Monday.com has integrations with Salesforce, HubSpot, Mailchimp and more. Use the Mirror feature to view and edit columns’ data from connected boards for easier collaboration.

The sales pipeline template lets you forecast revenue, generate insights and learn where to focus your efforts.

Free: £0
Basic: £7 per seat, per month
Standard: £9 per seat, per month
Pro: £14 per seat, per month
Enterprise: Bespoke

Pipedrive

https://www.pipedrive.com/en/products/what-is-crm

Spot opportunities, measure key activities and set automated reminders and follow-ups to increase productivity, with real-time reports to help you shape priorities. Customise your pipeline so that you can see your entire sales process at a glance.

Pipedrive has a sales pipeline template for Microsoft Excel.

Essential: £14.90 per user, per month
Advanced: £27.90 per user, per month
Professional: £49.90 per user, per month
Power: £64.90 per user, per month
Enterprise: £79.90 per user, per month

Zendesk

https://www.zendesk.co.uk/sell/features/sales-pipeline-software/

Zendesk features end-to-end conversational CRM and automated outreach, as well as forecasting and analytics. Integrations from Zendesk Marketplace include Shopify, Slack and Google Reviews. Plus, you can store and access details so that you can access contacts quickly.

It has a sales pipeline template for Microsoft Excel.

Sell Team: £15 per agent, per month
Sell Growth: £45 per agent, per month
Sell Professional: £89 per agent, per month

Zoho

https://www.zoho.com/crm/sales-pipeline.html?source_from=crm-ft

Zoho promises more accurate pipeline management and forecasting, helping you to allocate resources to the right deal. Create notes, tasks and comments easily. Make cross-selling and upselling more straightforward by identifying those that are more likely to buy and targeting your efforts at them.

Standard: £12 per user, per month
Professional: £18 per user, per month
Enterprise: £35 per user, per month
Ultimate: £42 per user, per month

Further reading on sales

The best CRM system for your micro business – A customer relationship management (CRM) system can really help your micro business to grow. We take a look at key features and platforms

Building a sales team: What to consider as a small business – Building a sales team is a daunting prospect for any growing company, but can be achieved with the right people, technology, and activities. Here are some tips to getting it right

A beginner’s guide to sales prospecting – For businesses to find success, they need to understand and actively hunt sales. In this article, Katie Deverill, operations manager at Company Check, offers some prospecting tips for businesses

The post Sales pipeline management from a small business perspective appeared first on Small Business UK.

UPDATED: Now that your business is ready to take payments, it’s time to think about how you’ll be processing payments. Alternatively, you might just want to change your current payment system. But how do you know which are the best payment processors for UK small businesses right now?

You’ll find that payment processors perform largely the same tasks, but it could be a single feature – or the cost – that’ll ultimately steer your final decision.

Knowing what’s on the market will help get you going, which is why we’ve compiled a list of the most widely recognised systems. But first: a quick definition.

Why getting up to speed on card payments is essential for SMEs – In this piece, in association with Boost Capital, we look at why card payment technology is crucial for small businesses to stay ahead of the curve

Setting up card payments for retail and online selling – Find out how to set up and get the most out of a POS system for your retail or hospitality business

What payment processor should I go for?

Let’s compare some of the best payment processors for UK small businesses on the market, focusing on cost, pros, cons and what kind of payments the system is best suited to.

Or, if you feel like you’re ready to decide, why not get quotes today? All you need to do is provide us with some basic info about your business in the form at the top of the page and we’ll match you with the best providers for your needs. 

WorldPay

What is it? WorldPay has specialist small business packages which you can fit to your requirements.

You can choose your equipment and pricing plan. You’ve got your pick of countertop card machines, portable card machines, mobile card machines and Pax terminals.

It can also take a variety of global payments. You can accept Visa, Mastercard, Maestro, Diners’ Club International, Discover, China Union Pay, JCB and American Express (with a separate agreement).

How much does it cost? WorldPay offers the Simplicity Payment Gateway which can be bought as a standard package or a bespoke item:

Simplicity Payment Gateway (£19.95 a month)

It has:

• Free next business day settlement
• No set-up fee
• Visa Checkout
• PayPal
• Digital payment links
• Phone payments
• Standard fraud management tools
• Support service

Bespoke

Many of the features on the other package, plus:

• Lowest transaction fee based on volumes
• Bespoke set-up available
• Advanced fraud management tools
• 24/7 support line
• Fully customisable
• Account management

Pros: Strong customer reviews on TrustPilot, can deal with all types of different payments with one merchant ID.

Cons: Auto renewal can catch some customers out unless they write to WorldPay 30 days before contract end telling them they don’t want to renew, reports of pushy salespeople.

Best for: Medium-sized businesses with consistent transaction levels all year round or more established businesses with higher transaction volumes and more complex needs.

Compare payment processor quotes

Small Business Pro

What is it? Small Business Pro is an all-in-one solution for entrepreneurs, allowing you to take payments with some of the lowest rates on the market, organise your appointments and invoices – you’ll even have the chance of winning a £2,500 grant every month.

How much does it cost?

Small Business Pro has two packages depending on the size of your business:

Sole Trader
(excluding employment disputes)

£39.99 (including VAT) per month

1 to 30 employees
(including employment disputes)

£49.99 (including VAT) per month

Pros: Save over £30 per month with an all-in-one package.

Cons: Not suitable for businesses with over 30 employees.

Best for: Construction, healthcare and beauty, coaches and freelancers, hospitality, retail and market traders, taxis and driving instructors

Zettle

What is it? Zettle by PayPal (formerly iZettle) offers up a point of sale, card reader, invoicing and an ecommerce platform. Manage your inventory, send abandoned cart emails and get a better grasp of your performance with real-time sales analytics. It has the ability to generate sales reports, do inventory management and track staff performance.

How much does it cost?

Zettle Payment Terminal (£149 a month + VAT)

• All-in-one reader and POS service
• No monthly fee
• 1.75 per cent transaction fee

It has:

• Preloaded SIM card in case WiFi is unavailable. Mobile usage covered in original policy
• Terminal with built-in barcode scanner for speed and ease of transaction
• POS app which helps to manage inventory and print receipts
• Get bank deposits in 1-2 business days
• Accepts PayPal QRC, Payment Links, Apple Pay and Google Pay

Zettle Card Reader 2 (£59 + VAT)

• Card reader only
• No monthly fee
• 1.75 per cent transaction fee

It has:

• Payment data encryption
• Is tamper-proof
• Capabilities to work with a range of POS apps
• Integrates with platforms you may already use including Lightspeed, Quickbooks and BigCommerce
• 12-month warranty

Pros: This payment processing platform has no contract and the ability to integrate with Xero and Shopify. It’s also compatible with iOS and Android, accepting Samsung, Google and Apple Pay. It has a visually pleasing design and you get deposits to your bank account in one-two business days.

Cons: The only phone support is available 9am-5pm Monday to Friday.

Best for: Food and drink, retail, health and beauty and service-based businesses that run on multiple platforms.

Compare payment processor quotes

Square

What is it? With Square, you set up an account and buy a reader online or in-store. You’ve got the option to take payments in person, over the phone, by invoice or online. The basic version comes with free real-time analytics as well as inventory and location management.

How much does it cost?

• Chip and PIN, mobile and contactless payments in person: 1.5 per cent
• Manually entered transactions: 2.5 per cent
• Online payments with UK cards: 1.4 per cent + 25p
• Online payments with non-UK cards: 2.5 per cent + 25p

Pros: Square is an easy to use payment gateway with quick launch and a free magnetic stripe reader which accepts international cards. Invoicing and virtual terminal are also included. Integrate Xero and Synder, elect to get your money the next business day.

Cons: Reviews on Trustpilot reveal that customer service is poor

Best for: Small businesses with less consistent sales who want to start up quickly.

Compare payment processor quotes

Stripe

What is it? Stripe is a payment solution for online payments which is customisable with applications and third-party integrations.

How much does it cost? Depending on the size and sales volume of your business, you’ve got two options.

Standard

• UK cards: 1.5 per cent + 20p
• EU cards: 2.5 per cent + 20p
• Link cards: 1.2 per cent + 20p
• International cards: 3.25 per cent + 20p

Customised

You can design a custom package for your business if you have large payments volume or unique business needs. Base it on volume discounts, interchange pricing, multi-product discounts and country-specific rates.

Pros: It offers simplicity, with customised billing plans for membership and subscriptions, rolling bank transfers which can be made weekly or monthly depending on when you want to get paid. Stripe also offers integration with the mobile app, uses over 135 different currencies and customers don’t need a Stripe account in order to pay, so the process is seamless. There are no setup fees, monthly fees or hidden fees to worry about either.

Cons: The chargeback policy may lead to some aggravation. You’ll be charged £20 for any disputed transactions (from April 10, 2023).

Best for: Online businesses with access to a developer.

Compare payment processor quotes

GoCardless

What is it? Collect one-off or recurring payments with GoCardless, with a package specifically geared at small businesses.

How much does it cost?

Standard

• 1% + £/€0.20 per transaction
• 2% + £/€0.20 per transaction for international transactions

Advanced

• 1.25% + £/€0.20 per transaction
• 2.25% + £/€0.20 per transaction for international transactions

Pro

• 1.4% + £/€0.20 per transaction
• 2.4% + £/€0.20 per transaction for international transactions

Pros: Has integrations with Xero, QuickBooks, Sage and Salesforce, successfully collects 99 per cent of one-off payments and 97 per cent of recurring payments are collected first time, customisable packages, no set-up costs.

Cons: Takes a while for payments to clear, limits to how many currencies it can accept, can be difficult to track payments.

Best for: Small businesses looking for ease.

Compare payment processor quotes

Amazon Pay

What is it? I’m sure this payment system needs little explanation. Customers on Amazon Pay can make purchases using their Amazon account on eligible websites and apps and do their shopping by voice with Amazon Pay for Alexa Skills.

How much does it cost? If your monthly payment volume is under £50,000, your payment processing fee will be 2.7 per cent and the authorisation fee will be 30p per transaction.

If it’s over £50,000, then you can apply to Amazon for a payment volume discount.

Cross-border fees

Amazon Pay also charges cross-border fees for sales outside the UK of up to 1.5 per cent.

Amazon Pay cross-border fee

Currency conversion

Amazon charges a currency conversion set at 0.5 per cent above its bank’s wholesale exchange rate.

Chargeback dispute fee

If you dispute a chargeback claim not covered under Amazon’s payment protection policy, Amazon Pay charges a fixed fee of £14 + VAT to your merchant account.

Pros: Amazon Pay gets a huge boost from its name recognition – lots of people have an Amazon account. Shopping is quick and easy if the user is already logged in, but you can embed a “buy now” button on your site to make purchasing even easier. It’s also high security, offers merchant protection, and integrates with Shopify and BigCommerce

Cons: Amazon Pay can be quite a target for fraudsters. You may find your account being shut down without prior warning for security reasons, there’s no PayPal support and the transaction fee is pretty high.

Best for: Online retail businesses

Compare payment processor quotes

You can find the right card payments provider for you with takepayments.

Shopify Payments

What is it? Shopify Payments allows you to accept credit cards directly with Shopify in contactless, Chip and PIN or by swiping the customer’s card.

Offers online payments solutions and ecommerce as well as a point of sale system.

How much does it cost?

The standard prices are listed below. However, using Shopify Payments removes the commission Shopify takes on top of payment gateway fees. That’s 2 per cent on Basic, 1 per cent on Shopify and 0.5 per cent on Advanced.

Basic

• Monthly cost: £25 (£1 per month for the first three months)
• Online credit card transaction fees: 2 per cent +25p
• In-person credit card fees: 1.7 per cent + 0p in person

Shopify

• Monthly cost: £65 (£1 per month for the first three months)
• Online credit card transaction fees: 1.7 per cent + 25p
• In-person credit card fees: 1.6 per cent + 0p in person

Advanced

• Monthly cost: £344 (£1 per month for the first three months)
• Online credit card transaction fees: 1.5 per cent + 25p
• In-person credit card fees: 1.5 per cent + 0p in person

Pros: You can set up Shopify Payments instantly and try it out free for three days. Your customers can still pay through another payment system if they prefer. However, using Shopify Payments removes extra transaction fees.

Cons: Shopify also has chargeback fees of £10 per chargeback and, like Stripe, if the decision doesn’t go your way, you lose the fee.

Best for: Online retail businesses

Compare payment processor quotes

SumUp

What is it? SumUp offers card readers that can be used on-site or on the go.

How much does it cost?

No contract

Transaction fees of between 1.69 per cent and 2.5 per cent when you take a payment using a SumUp card reader but no monthly charges or contract.

• £0 monthly cost
• Card readers 1.69 per cent
• POS Lite 1.69 per cent
• Tap to pay on iPhone 1.69 per cent

SumUp One

Lower fees if you take out a cancel-anytime subscription plan.

• £19 monthly cost
• Card readers 0.79 per cent
• POS Lite 0.79 per cent
• Tap to pay on iPhone 0.79 per cent

POS Pro

• £49.99 monthly cost
• Card readers custom
• POS Lite custom
• Tap to pay on iPhone custom

Pros: SumUp’s offering has a fixed transaction rate which is lower than its competitors and no monthly fee. It also has paperless onboarding and no contractual obligations. The Air can process over 500 transactions on a single charge while the Solo card reader has unlimited mobile data and WiFi connectivity.

Cons: There’s no phone support on weekends or late evenings and their social media feeds have several complaints about poor customer service.

Best for: Remote businesses, such as freelance beauticians or food vans.

Compare payment processor quotes

Adyen

What is it? Adyen has the ability to take online payments and in-person with a POS system. If your customer is paying online, they can do so through the web, in-app, pay by link or subscription. It also has AI-powered fraud protection.

How much does it cost?

You’ll be charged a processing fee of €0.11 (10p) plus a fee depending on what payment method you use (MasterCard/Visa 0.3-0.4 per cent, American Express 3.95 per cent)  

Pros: Adyen has no monthly fee and no set-up, integration or closure fees.

Cons: With the fees it does charge, it’s expensive for businesses with lower volumes of sales. Plus, it’s no good for high-risk merchants (ones that get a significant number of chargebacks) as you’re more likely to get blocked. The system is not really designed for brand-new start-ups – you must a minimum of 1,000 transactions a month to keep your account in good standing. Reviews on TrustPilot say that the customer service is lacking.

Best for: Better for larger SMEs, not start-ups.

Compare payment processor quotes

Cybersource

What is it? Owned by Visa, Cybersource allows you to accept payments online, in-person and via mobile throughout the world. Automated screening helps you prevent fraud and Click to Pay allows customers to pay faster without account details or passwords, meaning more satisfied customers and a lower likelihood of abandoned carts.

How much does it cost?

Contact Cybersource directly to find out pricing.

Pros: Cybersource has payment acceptance in over 160 countries around the world in more than 50 currencies.  

Cons: Larger sales volumes incur larger fees and it’s available on a long contract. On top of that, you can’t access transactions that are more than six months old, no free trial.

Best for: More established small business who have developers.

Compare payment processor quotes

Opayo

What is it? Opayo (formerly Sage Pay) offers solutions for online payments, card terminals, phone and point of sale.

How much does it cost?

Pricing plans are split as follows:

Face-to-face payments

• Start Simple: No monthly fee and 1.75 per cent transaction fee, £29 one-off device fee
• Business Booster: From £15 per month for two card machines with a 0.99 per cent transaction fee
• Operate Smarter: £40 per month for tablet-sized terminal with a one per cent transaction fee
• Business Control: £62 per month with a 15.6″ talech Register touchscreen with a 1.2 per cent transaction fee

Payments online (also covers payments over the phone and by mail)

• Always Open – fixed: £25 per month, from 0.99 per cent transaction fee, no joining fee, 350 free transactions
• Always – Pay as you go: £0 with transaction fee from 1.99 per cent, £0.12 gateway click fee, £99 one-off joining fee
• Pros: No hidden fees, 24/7 telephone support available, quick to set up, strong customer service reviews on Trustpilot.

Cons: Opayo is more expensive than Sage Pay was.

Best for: Small businesses who want to go with a trusted name.

Compare payment processor quotes

Easily find the right card payments provider for you with takepayments.

Further reading on payments

Five tips to get started taking card payments
High risk merchant accounts: What you need to know
How to set up a POS system for your small business

The post Best payment processors for UK small businesses – 11 of the best appeared first on Small Business UK.

The moment you start selling a product or service, your company is out there in the wild. Simply by existing, your business is at risk from things like fires, floods, lawsuits, cyber attacks and so much more. Hopefully you’ll never have to deal with any of these things, but many business owners choose to protect against them just in case.

With so many options out there, it can be hard to know where to start. Commercial combined insurance can take away some of that stress, by allowing you to buy multiple types of coverage in one go. That’s why it’s called “combined” insurance, in that you can handle lots of different problems with a single policy, like an insurance Swiss Army knife.

How does commercial combined insurance work?

You could compare commercial combined insurance policies to package holidays too. By buying various types of business cover together, the idea is that you’ll save money and effort in the long run, with something that’s also tailored to your needs.

Let’s say you run a manufacturing business that makes aeroplane parts. You’ll have a factory space, where you have all your equipment, machinery and the people who work for you. You’ll probably have somewhere you store the aircraft components you’ve made too, along with vehicles to transport those finished aircraft parts to paying customers. 

Each of those areas – staff, stock, warehouse, equipment, goods in transit – can all be insured. If you wanted, you could go to different insurers to buy a separate policy for cover against each specific risk. Or you could just speak to a single provider and get everything sorted in one fell swoop. 

The actual process of taking out commercial combined insurance is like other types of business insurance. Providers will look at your business, consider what’ll need insuring and assess how risky your operation is overall, by examining things like your turnover, claims history and industry sector. Then they’ll use that information to come up with a policy that suits you, which you can work with them to fine-tune.

What does commercial combined insurance cover?

If you’re in the market for a type of commercial insurance, the chances are you’ll be able to weave it into a combined policy. So there’s a pretty broad range of coverage available, but a lot of package policies tend to include one or more of the following:

1. Public liability insurance: Coverage in case a customer or member of the public takes your business to court for a personal injury or property damage claim
2. Employers liability insurance: A type of insurance you’re legally required to have, which protects your business against compensation claims if your employees get ill or injured through work
3. Products liability insurance: Coverage which relates to the products your business makes, fixes or supplies, and insures against them being faulty and causing harm
4. Warehouse insurance: With this type of cover, you can safeguard against the theft or damage of stock held within your warehouse
5. Business interruption insurance: Insurance that covers against financial losses from a fire, flood or other unexpected events
6. Director and Officers’ Insurance: Protects senior members of the business from legal action taken against them
7. Personal accident: This cover will protect you if an employee becomes sick or gets injured at your place of work

You might also look to protect against things like loss of licence, deterioration of stock and even terrorism. The same goes for insuring your computers, other equipment, the cash you keep on your premises and so many other areas. It all depends on the line of business you’re in and what events could cause you to lose money, stop trading or end up in court. 

Why do businesses take out commercial combined insurance?

One of the main draws with combined policies is that they’re flexible. Rather than a one-size-fits-all approach, combined commercial insurance allows you to get something more personalised, with elements you can usually adapt, add on and remove as you see fit. 

Another reason businesses seek out a package policy is to save money, like buying in bulk. But it goes further than that too, by giving you peace of mind as a business owner. Having all the bases covered means your business can benefit from far-reaching protection. 

Commercial combined insurance isn’t a one-off purchase either, since you’ll be paying your premiums each month, possibly for decades to come. By bundling all of your insurance policies together, you take away the bother of dealing with multiple providers and payments. So perhaps the biggest benefit of all is that you’ll save yourself a whole lot of admin headaches. 

What kinds of businesses take out commercial combined insurance?

Since combined insurance can incorporate such a broad range of insurance coverage, it appeals to a wide range of industry sectors. It all depends on what your business does, and the type of coverage you’re after. Your need could also be influenced by your location and market reach.

That said, if you run a pretty limited operation, you may not need something so exhaustive. Commercial combined insurance works best for companies with lots of moving parts, which would benefit from grouping all of their premiums together under one umbrella. Builders and developers are a great example, since they deal with property, contractors, employees, transportation, equipment and more, sometimes in potentially dangerous working conditions. 360-degree insurance protection can be a vital part of any development project. 

But there’s many other complicated businesses that can benefit from a commercial combined insurance policy too. You might run a wholesaling business, an accounting firm, a restaurant group, or something else entirely. Whatever you do, it’ll help to speak to somebody from an insurance company first, who can help you figure out what’s right for your business.

If my business has previous claims, can I still get commercial combined insurance?

When an insurer puts together a combined policy, they’ll look at the potential risk you present to their firm. A big part of that could be the claims you’ve made in the past. 

If you have made historical claims, that’s by no means a deal-breaker – but you can do yourself a favour by showing that you’ve taken action to reduce the likelihood of something similar happening again. You might introduce enhanced security, change the way you work or improve company processes. Either way, showing that you’ve learned from the past certainly won’t hurt. 

Ultimately, the best insurance deals are a two-way street, with advice from your provider and careful thought from you. In the same way that a parent may take out life insurance to protect their family, commercial insurance is all about safeguarding. By dealing with every potential risk at once, you can put that protection in place in a far easier way. 

Find commercial combined insurance now

Now that we’ve examined why commercial combined insurance might be useful for your business, you may have realised you want to get protection or evaluate your current cover.

If you’re looking for business insurance and aren’t sure where to begin, why not use our free quote tool to find a tailored commercial combined policy that will cover all your needs.

Simply fill in our free quote-finding form and answer a few questions about your business (it takes less than a minute).  

The post What is commercial combined insurance? appeared first on Small Business UK.

Why do small businesses need HR?

HR develops the culture of an organisation, manages pay and recruitment and strives to maintain or improve employee satisfaction, as well has handling grievances and disciplinary procedures.

However, businesses with fewer than 50 people rarely have an inhouse HR department. Mostly they go down the outsourcing HR route, which is why there are many HR consultancies specialising in small businesses.

Whether you decide to manage HR in-house or decide on outsourcing to an HR agency depends on the circumstances and priorities for your business. Here, we break down the pros and cons of each.

A guide to outsourcing HR – Outsourcing HR makes sense for businesses that are too small to have their own inhouse manager. However, you need to be clear about what you need from the outset to avoid a one-size-fits-all approach

Pros and cons of outsourcing HR

Advantages of outsourcing HR

Here are the advantages of outsourcing HR according to Citrus HR’s Rachel Mudd:

• Cost-savings. “Outsourcing is significantly cheaper than hiring a qualified HR professional, even part time, for almost all small companies. It also fits the need better—very few small companies actually need an HR person for even one day per week, so hiring is often wasteful.”
• Access to specialist knowledge. “Outsourcing means you can keep on top of the more specialist aspects of HR, for example employment relations issues or handling a TUPE transfer. In-house professionals rarely have all that expertise themselves and have to be more generalist.”
• Legal compliance. “Good HR providers will ensure you are up to date with legal requirements for businesses, which is important, as the law changes most months, often with enormous consequences for breaches.”
• Cover for absences. “Any employee needs time off for holidays and can get sick from time to time. By using an outsourced HR service, you can ensure that you always have access to expert advice whenever you need it, which is not possible with an in-house HR pro at a small company.”
• Time efficiency. “By outsourcing these functions, employers can free up time to focus on making their business successful and profitable.”

6 HR software tools you can use for small business – Streamlining your HR functions is key to running an efficient business. Here are seven HR software tools that can help you do just that

Disadvantages of outsourcing HR

• Less control. Outsourcing is less personal and could result in feeling a loss of control. An employee may find it easier to approach a colleague they work with regularly
• Culture disconnect. An organisation’s culture stems from its HR strategy. If the HR team is external, this may create a disconnect between its strategy and the employees
• Worries over data protection. By outsourcing HR, you’re entrusting a third party with your data

Top 10 HR tips – Donna Obstfeld of DOHR takes you step-by-step through the staff onboarding process and explains why, in today’s post-Covid workplace, regular HR appraisals feed in to communicating the company culture you want to promote

Pros and cons of an inhouse HR team

Pros to having an inhouse HR team

• Easier to find the right talent. “In-house recruiters are there to ensure the small business can get the right talent that sticks around, helping SMEs to grow in the most organic [and cost efficient] way possible,” says Anna Moore of Pollinate’s HR team. “Our own in-house recruiter has been with us from the beginning and has made a massive impact across the business, working closely with hiring managers, line managers and candidates to ensure we get the right fit, resulting in an annual staff turnover for 2021 at an impressively low 12 per cent.”
• More personal. Employees can hold a face-to-face meeting at any time, building trust and engagement between an organisation and its staff.
• Quicker resolutions. Having a member onsite should, in theory, allow for discussions to escalate quickly and for any issues to be resolved efficiently.

How to decide on HR policy for your small business – An HR policy sits alongside your marketing strategy and financial policy when it comes to day-to-day operations. But it’s so much more than just a set of rules and regulations, it’s a document which defines your business

Disadvantages of having an inhouse HR team

• It can be expensive. Depending on the size of your business, hiring employees can be more expensive than outsourcing.Of course, you might think about hiring someone in-house to be your HR manager. According to HR outsourcing firm Peninsula, if you do decide to hire a full-time HR manager, the average national HR manager salary is £43,000. This compares to around £1,200-£3,600 per year for fully outsourced HR management, including health and safety, payroll, etc.
• An employee may have a heavier workload. By having a small HR team, each individual will have a wide range of responsibilities, from payroll management to recruitment. When this is outsourced, the third party will have experts in each area.
• Access to HR systems. The chances are, the software you have in-house will not match the capabilities of systems used by outsourcing HR agencies.

7 of the best HR consultancy companies in the UK – Want to outsource your HR but don’t know who to go to? We’ve got a round-up of some of the best HR consultancy companies in the UK

This article was originally published in May 2022.

More on small business HR

Small business HR – everything you need to know – HR starts the moment you hire your first employee. There are plenty of resources and organisations out to help run your HR systems smoothly. But you should see HR as an opportunity, not a burden

The post Outsourcing HR v inhouse HR management appeared first on Small Business UK.

What is HR?

Human resources (HR) in its literal sense means the workforce of an organisation. Its responsibilities, however, are wide ranging.

As your business becomes more established and your team grows, HR will involve managing recruitment, onboarding, developing workplace culture, managing benefits, managing employee relations, and training. The main aims of the department is to ensure the business is compliant with laws, support productivity and improve or maintain employee satisfaction.

Taking on your first employee

The turning point for any small business is taking on your first member of staff, which is where HR first enters your business life.

Even if you’ve only got one staff member, you need to be mindful of HR protocols and procedures – otherwise you could find yourself in front of an employment tribunal defending yourself against one aggrieved employee.

At its most basic, HR involves telling your employee what’s expected of them, hours to be worked and where, holiday entitlement, payment procedure and sickness policy. That could either be written down in an employment contract or a staff handbook.

The truth is that many business owners are frightened by hiring because of the potential risks but done right employing staff will take your business from surviving to thriving.

Top 10 HR tips

HR specialist Donna Obstfeld has written exclusively for SmallBusiness about the top 10 things to be aware of successfully managing employees in your business.

Top 10 HR tips

How to decide on an HR policy for your small business

Having an HR policy for a microbusiness may sound grandiose but writing down your HR policy gives you an opportunity to articulate the very purpose of your business – enthusing staff, even if it’s just a handful of people, about the vision for your business. What’s the journey you’re on?

An HR policy sits alongside your marketing strategy and financial policy when it comes to day-to-day operations. But it’s so much more than just a set of rules and regulations, it’s a document which defines who you are, your core values.

How to decide on an HR policy for your small business

A guide to outsourcing HR

Outsourcing HR makes sense for businesses that are too small to have their own inhouse manager. Businesses with fewer than 50 employees rarely have an HR team. Instead, a senior manager who may have had some HR experience in the dim-and-distant past may have been seconded to the role. Not only does this leave your small business vulnerable to legal challenges when HR procedures have not been rigidly followed, doubling up like this takes away time from his or her day job.

Or, if you yourself are handling HR, it takes time away from running your business and eats into your own productivity – one of the biggest challenges facing any small business.

With the ongoing cost-of-living crisis, rising inflation and spiraling wage bills, companies will be looking to save money where they can.

Outsourcing HR v inhouse HR management

Outsourcing whole or parts of the HR function can be a cost-effective way of reducing overheads, while benefitting from expert skills.

However, you need to be clear about what you need when approaching an outsourced HR company from the outset to avoid a one-size-fits-all approach.

Whether that’s achieved through an in-house team or outsourcing depends on your business’s priorities.

Outsourcing HR v inhouse HR management

How to choose an outsourcing HR provider

Start with their experience (and which sectors their clients are in). You’ll know you’re on to a winner if they’ve had numerous previous clients in your industry, with extra points if they’re larger and better-known.

Similarly, having proof of qualifications reassures you of their competence and what they can offer you.

Think about how their services align with your business growth strategies and growth forecast over the next year.

Next up, hunt for any hidden fees. Do they charge extra or impose financial penalties for leaving the contract early? The firm may seem cheaper upfront but, like the worst budget airlines, they can really give you a swift kick with those sneaky charges.

While you’re there, check the clarity of the payment and contract terms. Flexible payment should be available (paying as a one-off or on a retainer). It’s all the better if they can offer you a free trial – working on a smaller project, for instance.

Even though they’re not known as the money maker, you need to have a return on investment from your HR. It won’t necessarily be in monetary terms either – think increased productivity, lower turnover and decreased absence. Ask what ambitions your HR supplier has and how long a timespan they need to establish these.

It’s even more important that they understand your company culture. If they don’t, they run the risk of making the wrong decisions on your behalf. Or worse, they hire the wrong staff, causing you all manner of long-term problems. Again, a free trial option is beneficial here.

7 of the best HR consultancy companies in the UK

Want to outsource your HR but don’t know who to go to? We’ve got a round-up of some of the best HR consultancy companies in the UK.

It’s all well deciding that you need to outsource your HR, but which consultancy should you plump for?

With such a wide range of companies offering largely similar products, it can be difficult to know exactly which one to choose.

We’ve profiled 7 of the best HR consultancy companies in the UK to inform your decision, listing the key features of each provider.

citrus HR
Peninsula
Workplace HR
HR Solutions
Avensure
Moorepay
Adviser Plus

7 of the best HR consultancy companies in the UK

Lastly, remember to take professional references from your chosen supplier – two or three is ideal. Once you’ve agreed to work together, be clear about what’s included in your deal and that it can be changed at a later stage to suit the needs of your business.

6 HR software tools you can use for small business

It may be that you don’t want to outsource your HR but take a more do-it-yourself approach using online HR software.

The case for HR software tools has grown as more businesses shift towards a hybrid or remote working model.

Plus having HR software in place can help to increase productivity, provide working insights, more benefits for employees.

An HR tool – also known as HR management tool – can mean a whole platform or it can be one component such as recruitment or absence management software.

Every small business has differing needs. We’ve listed some of the best HR software tools below, giving you a run-down of key features and integrations which can work with your existing software.

6 HR software tools you can use for small business

HR is an opportunity for your small business

Remember, HR starts for any small business the moment you take on your first employee. Whether you set out your statutory obligations in an employment contract or take the time to write a staff handbook is down to you.

As you grow, you may think the most cost-effective solution will be to outsource your HR to an external provider, as opposed to hiring a fulltime HR director.

Or you could take a hybrid approach and do most of the small business HR paperwork yourself but use HR software to ease the workload.

Whichever way you go, think of HR as helping you define the purpose of your small business, not just a burden, and one of the planks which execute your strategy alongside finance and marketing.

This article was originally written in May 2022 by Tim Adler.

More on small business HR

A guide to outsourcing HR – Outsourcing HR makes sense for businesses that are too small to have their own inhouse manager. However, you need to be clear about what you need from the outset to avoid a one-size-fits-all approach

The post Small business HR – everything you need to know appeared first on Small Business UK.

The worst happens: you log on and find that your website, and other essential functions, are gone. But what do you do if you lose your domain?

This can happen because your domain has been hijacked, it’s expired or there could be complications during a transfer.

In this article, we’ll be exploring what can happen if you lose your domain and how to recover if it happens to you.

First, let’s run through some definitions.

Domain: An address that you use to access a website
Registrar: Where you register and renew domains
WHOIS: A place where you can find out the information around people, groups or organisations who own a domain name
SSL: Now replaced by Transport Layer Security (TLS), SSL/TLS is an encryption security protocol. You’ll recognise it as ‘https’ at the start of a URL rather than ‘http’

What can happen if you lose your domain?

If you lose your domain, you’ll lose access to your website (and possibly your emails) as well as experiencing a drop in search engine rankings, orders and potential new customers.

Pedram Mershahi, co-founder of Kloris CBD, talks to Small Business about how a verification email from Google turned into a nightmare for his business.

For background, Google Domains has been sold to Squarespace. The announcement was made in June 2023, affecting 10m domains. Unless users change their domain, they will be transferred over to Squarespace. 

I have two email addresses registered with Google for my Google Domains account. A validation email (below) was sent to my secondary email on December 29, 2023 – right between Christmas and New Year – and went straight into my spam folder. They then suspended our account on January 17, 2024, without any further communication with us.

Having regularly checked our Google Domains dashboard and primary emails (all Google-based), there wasn’t a single notification to say there were any issues. In fact, all of their systems have been showing that our Google domain is verified and fully operational.

They should not shut down business domains and emails without contacting a company through their main websites or domain portals and dashboards. Because, crucially, shutting down business domains and emails of independent companies has the very real danger of sending businesses bankrupt very quickly. This obviously means people losing their jobs. We have full time staff wages that we are responsible for, not to mention a host of freelancers and external supplier contracts to honour. 

For the past seven days (up to January 24, 2024), we’ve been going back and forth with Google. We had to move our domain from kloriscbd.com to kloris.co. We received a ‘Congratulations! You’ve got your domain’ and our primary emails back from Google on January 23, 2024, but we had effectively been wiped off the face of the internet as a business.

How it’s affected our business

Hard-earned rankings are the main ongoing issue now. Five years of work to build up our ranking has been undone in less than a week, as we’ve lost all the domain authority that we’ve built. With our email being down, we have also lost some wholesale customers. Google’s incompetent infrastructure in this acquisition has threatened to ruin a number of people’s livelihoods. If this sale has affected 10m domains then we cannot be the only business this has impacted so negatively. They must take responsibility for that. 

It’s been incredibly stressful too. The insomnia has been the worst thing – I have epilepsy and sleep deprivation is the biggest trigger for seizures.

I can easily say the last seven days have been the hardest – and not just for me. It’s put a strain on my partners Kim and Matt, who co-own the business. This stress has put a huge strain on the entire team, especially with young families to look after.

We’re waiting on another email back from Google [at the time of publication] to see what they can do to restore our rankings and presence in search engines, but we fear it will be another automated email, which means more time (and earnings) lost. 

They (Google) seem untouchable. They would say it’s your fault or your responsibility to check your spam folders. We couldn’t even access our primary email account because it was blocked from accessing much of the information they had requested, so it really is a crazy scenario that they expect businesses to navigate through. 

Help from the community

Our customers and community have been so supportive. Customers have stepped up and helped us through social media support as well by buying our products, tagging their friends and sharing messages of support. We are genuinely overwhelmed by how kind our customer base have been. 

To help rebuild, we’ve offered 20 per cent off orders, plus free gifts, for customers who use a discount code. 

The advice I would give small businesses is to remember to check the spam, even on your secondary email accounts. A big issue is that a lot of Google emails look like phishing emails, so you have to really check and check again. 

Small Business approached Google and Squarespace for comment but they have yet to respond.  

However, in a response to an information request from us, founder and CEO of Trio CEO, Conor Gillivan, got in touch.

One of my clients nearly missed important deadlines during this process because important emails landed in their junk folder as their domain transfer was pending. We luckily caught the issue in time. My recommendation is to monitor communications through the changeover vigilantly. Also, confirm your contact and payment details are up-to-date in your Squarespace account. Take the opportunity to review your domain and DNS settings as well.

Squarespace has stated pricing for existing domains will hold steady for one year. Considering my years of experience assisting businesses online, I expect the technical domain handoff process to go smoothly for most. 

What to do if you lose your domain unexpectedly

We’ve asked some of the experts what you should do if you lose your domain.

Huw Ramsey, technical director at Kaweb

A domain name dropping off the gird can be extremely stressful – especially if it’s business critical – and what domain isn’t these days?

The first thing to do is establish who the registrar is for the domain – this is the body that secures the domain and renews it. Logging in to their control panel (if you have access) or contacting them and asking them for more information on its status will help ascertain next steps. The domain type will dictate what to do next as different domain types have unique processes as to what happens should they expire, for example. Performing a WHOIS search online, via tools such as https://whois.domaintools.com/ will give you more information as to the Registrar and Name Servers (which may help you track down who has access to the domain in order to renew).”

“The first thing to do is establish who the registrar is for the domain”

Huw Ramsey

Peter Wood, chief technical officer at Spectrum Search

First and foremost, communication is key. If your domain, including email, is suspended, it’s crucial to promptly inform stakeholders using alternative communication channels. Whether it’s through social media, temporary email services, or even traditional methods like phone calls, maintaining transparency with your customers, partners and employees, this can mitigate the reputational damage.

Simultaneously, initiate a domain recovery process. Contact your domain registrar immediately to understand the cause of the suspension. It could range from administrative oversights, such as expired registrations or unattended policy violations, to more complex issues like security breaches. Understanding the root cause is pivotal in formulating an effective recovery strategy.

If recovery seems prolonged, securing an alternative domain through a reputable provider is a prudent step. This, however, is more than a stopgap solution; it’s about ensuring business continuity. When selecting this alternative domain, it’s essential to choose a name that’s intuitive for your current users, thereby minimising confusion and maintaining brand recognition.

From a technical standpoint, leveraging automation and AI (artificial intelligence) can be a game-changer in these scenarios. Integrating AI and ML (machine learning) tooling can significantly streamline and accelerate recovery processes. Automating certain aspects of your digital infrastructure can not only aid in swift domain transition but also bolster your overall digital resilience.

Finally, this incident should be a catalyst for a thorough review of your digital assets and security policies. Implementing robust security measures, regular back-ups and a comprehensive disaster recovery plan is imperative. As someone who has extensively worked with emerging technologies, I cannot over-emphasise the importance of proactive risk management in safeguarding your digital presence.

“It’s crucial to promptly inform stakeholders using alternative communication channels. Whether it’s through social media, temporary email services, or even traditional methods like phone calls, maintaining transparency with your customers, partners and employees can mitigate the reputational damage”

Peter Wood

Chelsea Hopkins, social media and PR manager at Fasthosts

First of all, check if you have some form of back-up of your site so that when you do get your domain back or find a new provider you can get back online as soon as possible – this is one of the many reasons why having your site backed up is extremely important. 

If you still have email access, have a look through to see if you’ve missed any emails from your provider that could indicate what’s gone wrong. This could be anything from an upcoming renewal date or a message that a domain is set to expire if you’re renewing manually – the vast majority of web hosts won’t suspend or delete your domain without prior warning.

If you do end up with no option of recourse and have to find a new provider, don’t rush into it, however tempted you may be. Do your research to make sure you’re getting the right deal for you and your business, as the long-term issues that could arise from choosing the wrong provider can far outweigh the short-term losses of not panic buying.

“Check if you have some form of back-up of your site so that when you do get your domain back or find a new provider you can get back online as soon as possible – this is one of the many reasons why having your site backed up is extremely important”

Chelsea Hopkins

Danielle Holmes, co-owner of Black Nova Designs

This is a very common occurrence unfortunately, and in reality, there is no coming back from it if you lose access especially if it’s not in your company name. You can occasionally request domain access by proving your identity to the registrar, which can take up to six months to validate.

The way to fix this is to always buy the domain name yourself or from a supplier that puts the domain in your name – always. 

You purchase domains yearly or sometimes biannually so it’s easy to lose access or log in details – keep them safe, or buy from a trusted supplier.

The domain is the hub of everything: emails, website, newsletters, CRMs, everything. It’s imperative that it’s registered in the company name from the beginning as rectifying these issues are time consuming, difficult and can be costly. 

“You purchase domains yearly or sometimes biannually so it’s easy to lose access or log in details – keep them safe, or buy from a trusted supplier”

Danielle Holmes

Vance Tran, co-founder of Pointer Clicker

Another crucial step is to check domain marketplaces and search engines to see if your domain has been registered elsewhere in the interim. If found, the next best thing is to contact the new owner to explore negotiation with the intention to regain control.

Backordering the domain is also a smart tactic if it’s still available. This essentially puts you in line to purchase it if the new registration falls through.

For the long term, closely review any contracts with website developers regarding ownership obligations to avoid unintended transfers. Just as important is self-managing registration, using strong security measures to prevent unauthorised access that could lead to loss.

Most importantly, let’s not do a do-over: set calendar reminders well ahead of renewal dates so re-registration stays top of mind.

“Check domain marketplaces and search engines to see if your domain has been registered elsewhere in the interim. If found, the next best thing is to contact the new owner to explore negotiation with the intention to regain control”

Vance Tran

If you lose access, speak to your contacts

In short, contact your registrar if something goes wrong. Unfortunately, as Kloris CBD’s case demonstrates, you may be directed to web guides and find it near-impossible to speak to an actual human. For this reason, it’s essential to have website and email back-up in case your systems falter.

Remember that your community are around to support you as well. Let customers know what’s happening via your social media accounts, lean on fellow small businesses for advice and let your loved ones know what’s going on so that they can lend an ear.

If you’ve been affected by something like this or have any issues that you would like Small Business to investigate, please email anna.jordan@stubbenedge.com.

Read more

Choosing the right .co.uk domain name for your business – The right domain can help you attract potential customers and succeed online. And a .uk domain shows that you’re based in the UK and are a reputable business

Different domain endings – do you need to buy them all? In partnership with the UK Domain, we ask whether you really need to buy all of the domain name endings for your small business website

Why should you have a custom domain? – In partnership with the UK Domain, we tell you why you should go for a custom domain name

The post ‘We’d been wiped off the face of the internet’ – what to do if you lose your domain appeared first on Small Business UK.

Instagram is one of the most popular social channels out there and, over the years, small business profiles have seen real success on the platform.

Any small business can produce imagery (it’s actually a lot easier than you think!) and reap the rewards that Instagram offers.

One of the first steps to getting started with Instagram is setting up an Instagram business account. This is different to setting up a personal account, so this guide will help you get your professional account up and running. For more details on all of these steps, check out this article.

1. Sign up to Instagram

You’ll need to download the Instagram app from your phone’s app store (it’s best to use a mobile device to access Instagram). If you already have a personal account, you can sign in and choose the “Add Account” option.

Follow the instructions and sign up using your phone number, email address or Facebook login. You’ll also need to enter your name and create a password. Don’t worry if you use your personal name here, you can always change this later on.

As Instagram and Facebook are both owned by Meta, you can create an Instagram account if you have a Facebook account.

2. Set up your profile

Next, you’ll be guided to set up some of your new profile including:

• Username: It’s important this relates to your business and is recognisable. If it’s available, using your business name is best practice.
• Profile picture: Keep this simple and use your business logo so your brand is instantly recognisable on the platform. The ideal profile image size is 320×320.

3. Switch to a business profile

To transform the Instagram account you’ve just created to a business profile, you’ll need to head over to your profile by clicking the profile icon in the bottom right hand corner.

Next, click the small cog in the top right-hand corner and go to the ‘accounts and privacy’ option. Click on ‘account types and tools’ and choose the ‘switch to professional account’ option.

You’ll be prompted to choose the best option for your business profile between a creator (most suited to influencers) and business (best for retailers and businesses). You’ll then be guided through some of the business features, have the option to connect your Facebook page, and choose industry categories which are most relevant to you.

Once you’ve confirmed your business details are correct, you have successfully created an Instagram business account!

4. Completing your profile

Before you start posting, there are a few important settings to look at to complete your setup:

• Profile name: If you set up Instagram using your personal name, you can change this by selecting “edit” on your business’ profile page.
• Bio: Take some time to complete your bio, providing a description of your business and adding your website address.
• Action buttons: One of the perks of having a business account is that you have the options to add additional buttons to your profile. Under public business information, click Action buttons. Select the action and click ‘done’.
• Public profile: Make sure your new profile is public so people can start finding your content straight away.
• Additional settings: Enable two-factor authentication to protect your account. It’s also a good idea to set preferences for your notifications, so you can be alerted when people follow you and comment or like your content. It’s also worth heading over to ‘Insights’ where you’ll be able to access data around your post performance and followers.

You can find more details and helpful video links for these steps in this guide.

To make the most of your new Instagram profile, take some time to create and develop a marketing strategy for the platform. This online guide will help you create your own strategy and get started on the platform including guidance on stories, going live, hashtags and influencer marketing. View the guide here, where you’ll also be able to download an interactive checklist to help you get started.

When you’re ready to start posting, check out this guide to writing great Instagram captions and learn more about making the most of social media for your business in this dedicated content hub.

This article was brought to you in partnership with The UK Domain.

Read more

Instagram Stories: How you can use video and photos to build your business

The post Your 4-step guide to setting up an Instagram business account appeared first on Small Business UK.

When you’re at the stage where you need to build a website for your small business, it is one of the most important things you’ll need to get right as an owner.

However, paying a professional developer to build you a complex website from scratch can cost thousands of pounds upfront.

But the internet can be a difficult place to navigate alone. There is the negotiating and bidding on Google AdWords, graphic design and considerations to make such as whether you will need coding knowledge or not.

Here, we’ll take you through the step-by-step process of setting up a website for your small business using a website builder. You don’t even need the tech know-how.

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How do I get a domain name?

Once you have the name of your business, you’ll need to buy a domain name. This is your website name and URL and it should be the same name as your business.

Once you are clear what business name you are going to use, search on 123reg.com, Go Daddy or fasthosts.com to see if your name has been taken. If it has, don’t fret.

Both the UK domain (.co.uk and .uk) and Verisign (.com) have widgets for choosing domain names.

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You may have your heart set on a .com or .co.uk domain name but if this isn’t available or is too expensive you can always use a less common domain like .uk for UK-based firms.

Google UK gives more prominence to UK domains, so it could potentially rank higher than one with a .com domain.

If you’re launching a blog or portfolio website, using .me.uk works well, too.

Your guide to starting an online business – A survey of small and micro-businesses found businesses with a website were 51 per cent more likely to grow than those without

How much do domain names cost?

There’s no hard and fast rule when it comes to domain names; they vary in cost from 79p to thousands of pounds a year. They will tend to also be much cheaper for the first year and then increase in price as it auto-renews.

The price will depend on whether it’s a brand-new domain name or one that’s been registered for a while. It’ll also depend on the registrar (company host) and the top-level domain (TLD).

How to choose a name for my business

Make sure your domain name is straightforward and reflects your business name because that’s what potential customers will search for.

The name should be easy to recall, say or type. Avoid numbers, long words, words that are difficult to spell, contain more than two or three words and include hyphens.

Domain names have become a key consideration when choosing a business. Some entrepreneurs have gone as far as making up words altogether for their names – including Häagen-Dazs and Google. Having a unique username also gives you a better chance in search engine rankings.

Some opt for tweaking an existing word to make it unique – taking some of the letters out, for example. This has worked in the case of Flowerbx and Flickr.

Talking of SEO, include relevant keywords to your product or market in your name. This is especially true of pre-existing businesses.

Is the name future-proof? There are also SEO issues involved in changing it, so it’s best to make sure that it is before you decide.

If you’re still stuck, put a keyword related to your business into a search site like AnswerThePublic or Chrome plug-in Keywords Everywhere (KE) and they’ll give you some ideas. For example, a search for ‘vegan food UK’ gives you real-time related searches that people are making, including businesses. They could be the ticket to a strong and memorable business name.

Once you’ve decided on the name, try and buy the variants of your domain name like .org.uk or.com to prevent confusion.

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Website functionality

Once you’ve sorted your domain, it’s important you have a clear idea in your mind of what your website should do. Think about the layout, colours and fonts that you want to use. Then decide who you want to sell to and what the key selling business points are.

It’s worth writing a page or two about your brand and what your vision for the website is and how you will achieve it.

Decide how you are going to draw people into your site: it could be through striking images, a video, a customer testimonial or something completely different.

Look at three or four of your industry peers that have a website you like and suss out what it is that you like about them. Having a clear idea of this first will make the process of building a website much easier in the long run.

Website builders and CMS

There are a wide range of website builders available for small business owners. Some of these are:

Wix

• Gives you template pages, SEO support, logo support and storage from £7.50 – £20 a month
• There are extra plug-ins available like payments from providers such as Stripe and PayPal
• Wix has a Trustpilot Score of 4.6 based 13,845 reviews

Overall, Wix is your best bet if you want a flexible website builder with lots of apps to plug into your website. One example of a small business that uses the platform is wedding cake firm, Cotton and Crumbs. 

Squarespace

• Squarespace offers you bandwidth and storage, up to 1,000 pages, encrypted security and 24/7 customer support from £12 – £35 a month
• It has around 200 plug-ins
• It has a Trustpilot score of 1.4 based on 851 reviews. It doesn’t have any Google reviews

Squarespace is a good option if you want a good-looking site, perhaps for a fashion or trendy food and drink product. However, it has a poor Trustpilot score compared to others on this list.

Examples of small businesses that use Squarespace:

VR training business, InSilico

Beauty brand, Lauren Napier Beauty

Chocolate brand, Ocelot Chocolate

All these site builders provide drag and drop website templates for your website and tend to work well for simpler websites.

Website builders may work well for e-commerce sites but can struggle to provide value for some tradespeople. In this case, as well as having your own website, it’s wise to list your business in a search tool like Trust A Trader to reach a wider audience.

Emanuel Tomozei, co-founder of InSilico and Squarespace customer says that if you really want to make your website in your own unique style you need to learn to code. “Squarespace is fine if you’re happy with their templates, a lot of which are really nice.

“But if you want to customise the templates yourself, for example, creating images that move as you scroll up and down the page this can be problematic. For me, it worked well for desktop but didn’t look right for mobile.”

GoDaddy

• It has a variety of website building packages from basic (£4.99 a month), standard (£7.99 a month, premium (£11.99 a month) to e-commerce (£13.99 a month)
• The builder has functions to optimise your website for search engines, create email marketing campaigns and have a business listing on Google
• GoDaddy has a Trustpilot score of 4.7 based on 89,310 reviews

GoDaddy is a good one for beginners as it’s easy to use and the websites look great on mobile.

Examples of websites that use GoDaddy:

MOT, servicing and bodyworks firm, Motaworx Service

Physiotherapist, Focus Muscle Therapy

Mettrr

• Mettrr will build and help maintain a website for you for £25 a month
• If you don’t want to commit to an annual fee, you can pay quarterly for £32 a month or monthly for £44 a month.
• It has a Trustpilot score of 4.8 based on 279 reviews

This is a good site for people with limited tech skills and limited time who just want someone else to design and populate their site for them. It’s worth knowing that if you want to make a change to your site, you must call Mettrr and they will make the change for you.

An example of a small business that uses Mettrr is garden landscape firm, M Buck & Son.

Others website builders include Weebly which offers unlimited storage, site analytics, video and SSL security for £19 a month (when paid annually). However, it has a Trustpilot score of 1.5 based on 673 reviews.

And then you have Mobirise which has a Trustpilot score of 4.6, but it’s only based on 116 reviews.

Domain provider 123 reg also offers website building services.

All of the mentioned website builders allow you to create a mobile optimised site.

WordPress

Originally used by bloggers, content management system WordPress can be a good solution for you if you have moderate tech skills and want to create a fairly complex website. It has thousands of free plug-ins, including ones for e-commerce.

It now powers 30 per cent of the world’s websites, according to Venture Beat.

A creator account costs £20 a month and an entrepreneur account will set you back £36 a month, which gives you the ability to display products by brand, custom marketing automation and sell in over 60 countries.

How to create an online payments section for your website

Of course, if you’re selling online you will be dealing with debit and credit cards.

However, as a small business, not everyone will have heard of you. It’s vital to show your customers that you can be trusted when it comes to online payments as well as being able to create content.

The website builders also allow you to integrate the most popular payment methods into your e-commerce site.

Online payment provider Stripe, integrated into Squarespace and Wix, allows you to reach most of the credit/debit cards that people have in the UK and Europe.

PayPal is also a useful payment tool to have on your site because as a small business not everyone will know your name and may not trust you completely (yet). To prevent the customer pausing and potentially abandoning your site, PayPal encrypts user payments and gives them extra safety when dealing with you.

This means that small businesses get paid straight away but customers don’t pay for the item until they’ve received it. There’s a 14-day allowance for this.

“PayPal is a useful payment tool because as a small business not everyone will know your name and may not trust you completely”

Providers like WorldPay and Sage can also process your payments for you.

Whichever way you decide to design your website for your small business, be honest with yourself of how tech-savvy you are and also consider how much control you want to give over to website builders.

Once you know this, as well as your brand vision, you should have a good idea of how you are going to build your website.

E-commerce website builders

If you’d prefer to go for an e-commerce platform, you have a few options. Here are two of the most popular:

Shopify

• Shopify has an app store where you can add features and functionality – it has over 2,200 apps that integrate directly with Shopify
• Shopify experts are on hand to help you set up and run your site
• It is rated 1.2 on TrustPilot based on 861 reviews

Shopify is a good call if you’re interested in launching an e-commerce site. You can find a business name, buy a domain and create a brand. Explore different ways to sell and different marketing campaigns.

Examples of websites that use Shopify:

Natural baby products and gifts, naturalbabyshower.co.uk

Printed accessories and stationery, nikkistrange.co.uk

Textile designer, lauraspring.co.uk

EKM

• EKM is UK-based
• It allows free migration from Shopify
• It has a 4.5 Trustpilot rating based on 2,895 reviews

EKM is a desirable alternative to Shopify for people who want a platform based in the UK. It comes with a range of templates and will be built ready to take payments from the get-go.

Examples of websites that use EKM:

Online whiskey vendor, Whiskey Vault

Luxury watch shop, KC Watches

BigCommerce

• Page builder and visual editor
• Mobile optimised
• WordPress integration by backend editing
• Digital wallet friendly
• Plans from $29 per month
• Has a Trustpilot score of 1.5 from 411 reviews

BigCommerce has some handy tools for selling product and merchandise. Its visual editor allows users to insert text, imagery, video or products and its page builder tool has more than enough widgets to get a good quality site finished up relatively sharpish.

Examples of websites that use BigCommerce:

• Ted Baker
• BMW

More on website building

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The post How do I build a website for my small business? appeared first on Small Business UK.

Your job title. It’s simply a label that doesn’t carry much weight, right? Well not exactly. The choice of job title carries legal implications, responsibilities and accountability, so it is a very important thing to get right. 

In deciding what title is appropriate you have to look at the legal structure and the responsibilities associated with the role.

The title of director should only be used when dealing with a company. If you own a business as sole trader then you should call yourself the owner.

People may be tempted into giving themselves titles which overrate their position, but this is a big mistake. With a title comes legal responsibilities which gives rise to accountability and if a business becomes insolvent, whether as a company or managed own business, then depending on your title you may become personally liable.

When you use the title of managing director then remember you are the captain and have overall responsibility for the company; if you are a financial director you are responsible for the finance. When you have a title you should be clear what responsibilities go with that title and should not act beyond those duties.

When managing people it is always important they understand your role and your authority. Certain types of authority come with a title. People need to know who they are accountable to and why. Having a title helps.

Only use the title of partner if you are in a partnership.

Having the correct title is also important when it comes to dealing with third parties. Lenders will want to be clear who they are dealing with and the authority that they hold. With a title comes authority to bind a business.

Do not allow people to act in a way which exceeds their authority as this could give rise to a personal liability. This can often be the case when dealing with shadow directors.

Limited companies and partnerships

Remember, if you are operating a limited company, then your job titles will need to be much more specific, as all limited companies must have a director. A limited company is a separate legal identity, owned by its shareholders and run by the director or directors, so in most cases the owner/manager would adopt that job title. If you are setting up a partnership, the title of partner or ‘associate partner might be most appropriate.

Always remember, with a job title comes responsibilities and liabilities. The title is important and is also a sign of achievement to be proud of.

This article was originally written by Nick Johnson, managing partner of Glaisyers Solicitors LLP in March 2018.

More on starting a new business 

Start a new business

The post Which job title is right for you? appeared first on Small Business UK.

Customer relationship management (CRM) systems help micro business owners to keep all of their communications together.

If you’re a small company or sole trader struggling under a growing mound of paperwork, any kind of streamlining is hugely appreciated. But it can be easy for a micro business to buy the wrong system, overloaded with features that they don’t need, draining their pockets unnecessarily.

To give you some steer, we’ve asked an expert what you should be looking for in a CRM as well looking at what’s available on the market right now.

What is a CRM?

A CRM is a customer relationship management system. It’s a technology that’s used to manage interactions with customers and potential customers. They can help increase sales, improve customer service and increase profitability.

It’s a more advanced solution to keeping information in spreadsheets, electronic documents, in a notepad or even in your head.

They collate data and turn them into actionable insights. Everyone in a business can update records and access this up-to-date information. On top of that, they often have contact management, lead management, sales forecasting, instant messaging between employees, email tracking and integration and file content sharing as well as dashboard-based analytics. Some premium services provide extra features.

You can get a desktop CRM which runs on a single computer, a client/server database stored on a server and normally self-hosted or a cloud system hosted by a third-party provider.

Small Business Pro allows you to build your own sales pipelines with our tool which has been specially tailored for small businesses – all at a fraction of the cost of other CRMs.

It will also help with the heavy lifting of taking payments, insurance, finance and HR, plus you’ll get a host of personal wellbeing benefits.

You can find out more about Small Business Pro here.

What should I be looking for in a CRM?

David Midgley is the director of Total Processing, explains the most important considerations to make when you’re shopping around.

If you’re a micro business looking for a CRM system, it’s likely you’ll be looking to improve the relationships you have with your existing customers as well as potential new customers. Through adding information to leads and existing customers, you can build and maintain quality relationships.

As a micro business, you’re looking to grow and you need a CRM system that will enable you to store data in an organised manner, even as you expand. As you expand, you’ll also need greater insights into your sales reporting. It’s important to know exactly where each lead stands in the sales funnel so that you can target them appropriately, whether this is through call, email or any other marketing method.

If you’re an e-commerce micro business, it’s advantageous to use a merchant provider that offers both a payment gateway and a great CRM system. You don’t just need a provider that can take secure payments; you need one that can provide reports and insights into your sales data, as well as in depth customer insights. This way you can use different targeting strategies for new customers, existing customer and loyal customers to upsell or retain.

A greater understanding of your commercial activity as well as your customer will enable growth.

If your CRM system is the same system that takes your online payments, you’ll want to ensure you check out their reviews for system failures and downtime. Downtime not only means that you can’t collect revenue, but it also means data cannot be recorded or it can even become lost during a system failure.

Take these vital factors into account when choosing your CRM system.

Cost-efficient

You’re a micro business; you don’t want to spend too much on a CRM system. Pick a reasonable budget and match your business needs to a CRM system that has the best features that meet your needs.

Some platforms have free trials so that you can decide whether you like it before you commit to purchase.

If you do go for it, make sure you know how the payment structure works. Some of them charge per user while others charge a fee for a certain number of users.

User-friendly interface that is easy to use

You’re new to CRM systems; you want one that is easy to use. It’s highly likely that in a micro business you’re extremely busy, which means you’ll want a system that you can use with ease. Remember you want a CRM system to streamline your day-to-day life, not complicate it.

Sales reporting and customer insights

Your business wouldn’t be running without sales or customers, so you really need to understand your data. Understanding your sales data not only highlights red flags, it also highlights opportunities. The more you know about your customers, the better you can meet their wants and needs as well as provide a positive experience for them.

Easy to integrate and offers integration with other tools

Later down the line, you’re going to be using a lot of tools – or maybe you are already. Your CRM system will be at the heart of everything you do, so ensure you choose one that connects to useful tools within your industry.

Good reviews

Reviews have become a huge considering factor for consumers and choosing a CRM system for business is no different. Don’t just listen to what the provider has to say about their company, take time to look at their reviews.

David Midgley is the director of Total Processing, a payment solution and CRM provider.

What CRM systems can I buy?

It’s a little more difficult to say as there isn’t a CRM specifically for micro businesses – though there are plenty out there for small businesses. The key is to minimise complexity so that you’re not spending money on features that you don’t need.

Prices listed are per month and billed annually. If you’re lucky, there might even be discounts on the standard packages when you’re doing your search.

Capsule

Pros:

• Office 365 integration
• Sales team can track bids, deals and proposals
• Mobile app for capturing new leads

Cons:

• Less functionality than other CRM systems
• Some issues with third-party integrations – not smooth in some cases
• Free plan is limited to 250 contacts

Capsule is a task manager as well as a CRM, so you can manage your sales pipeline and create reports. Its features allow you to track bids, deals and proposals too. On the personal management side of things, you can track tasks and emails, attach documents and share important bits of information with colleagues while the calendar allows you to create tasks.

It has a simple layout and design with emails attached to the contact card. It’s also customisable and comes with an app so you can use it on the go.

On the downside, some users have reported that there are issues with integrations – Mailchimp isn’t so smooth, for example.

Free (for up to two users): £0
Starter (per user, per month): £14
Growth (per user, per month): £27
Advanced (per user, per month): £42
Ultimate (per user, per month): £60

Packages are available on a 14-day free trial

Zoho

Pros:

• Integrates with G Suite and Office 365
• Can build apps for more customisation
• Strong email marketing features

Cons:

• Customer support sometimes use copy and paste messaging
• Limited email marketing templates
• Domain name verification is lengthy

Zoho is a CRM product which is highly customisable with apps. Apps span across sales and marketing, finance, email and collaboration, IT and help desk, human resources and custom solutions. G Suite and Microsoft Office 365 integration. Apps for Apple Watch.

Apps include:

• Invoicing
• Mobile device management
• Analytics

Zoho has social media integration and you can build apps that you need for your business. You’ve also got a 15-day free trial to test out the full version which is free for up to three users.

It scores 4.4/5 based on 4,571 reviews on Trustpilot. Some reviewers said that it was overly complicated and that the domain name verification process is a slog.

Standard (per user, per month): £12
Professional (per user, per month): £18
Enterprise (per user, per month): £35
Ultimate (per user, per month): £42

Pros:

• Tailored small business tool to build sales pipelines
• Send proposals and book meetings and appointments
• A fraction of the cost of other CRM platforms

Cons:

• Not suitable for businesses that have more than 30 employees
• Doesn’t integrate with Outlook or G Suite

Small Business Pro is an all-in-one solution for small business owners. For a fraction of the price of other CRM platforms, you’ll have access to our tailored small business tool where you can build sales pipelines. Say goodbye to lots of paperwork and admin and easily arrange meetings, send proposals, quotes and invoices and set reminders.

Small Business Pro’s CRM offering doesn’t exist as a standalone product. The prices below are for the full Small Business Pro membership, depending on the size of your business.

Sole trader: £39.99 per month
1 to 30 employees: £49.99 per month

HubSpot

Pros:

• AI tools for drafting prospecting emails, generating social copy, building a website and conducting company research
• Split deals won with deals lost
• Customisable per user

Cons:

• Reports of overpromising and underdelivering
• Trouble implementing ERP platforms
• Limited features as your company grows

This one is more directed at sales teams.

You’ve got a free version which can manage your pipeline with interactions being tracked automatically and displayed on one dashboard.

What’s more, you can split deals won from deals lost. Keeping up with matters in-house, HubSpot can be synced with Gmail or Outlook. You can make calls inside the CRM, as well as create and measure email templates.

The platform received 3.1/5 on Trustpilot based on 631 reviews.

Free (CMS, marketing, sales and more): £0  
CRM Suite Starter (for new customers): £18 a month
Starter (includes 1,000 contacts): starts at £17 a month
Professional (includes 1,000 contacts): starts at £702 a month

There are packages for larger teams and enterprises, but we’ve kept it simple with the individual and small business offerings.

Salesforce

Pros:

• Cloud-based CRM
• AI functionality
• 30-day free trial

Cons:

• Can be expensive
• Non-user-friendly UX
• Complaints of poor customer service post-sale

Salesforce is a cloud-based CRM with a dedicated small business package, – it comes with a customisable dashboard too.

It’s a good fit for businesses with scaling potential, with opportunities to up your sales, service and marketing offering as your business grows.

Can integrate Office 365, Google Apps and Quip for easy communication.

If you’re not sure, download the 30-day free trial which gives you access to the features on Sales Cloud’s Professional edition.

You’ve got a steep learning curve in picking up all of the features and deciding whether they were necessary for your business.

It scores 1.4/5 on Trustpilot based on 394 reviews. Complaints are about customer service and selling tactics.

Starter: £20 (per user, per month)

FreshBooks

Pros:

• Supportive onboarding process
• Comes free with Barclays Business Banking Account
• Multiple ways for clients to pay – Barclaycard, Stripe, PayPal

Cons:

• Only five billed clients allowed at a time on free version
• Helpline is open 8am-8pm EST which is 1pm-1am GMT – not great if you have an emergency during the earlier hours of the working day
• Problems reported with Making Tax Digital function

FreshBooks gives your clients multiple ways to pay with no hidden fees. Set up recurring billing, store credit card details and accept partial payments. Customers based overseas can pay in international currencies too.

You can track time from apps you already use such as Trello, asana and Basecamp. Use accounting goals and know the costs of running your business. There are also handy tools like logging photos of receipts and auto-categorisation of expenses into tax-friendly categories.

FreshBooks has a score of 3.4 out of 779 reviews on Trustpilot, but the British reviews appear to be largely positive.

Lite: £7.50 a month
Plus: £12.50 a month
Premium: £17.50 a month
Select: Bespoke

All packages come with a 30-day free trial

Teamleader

Pros:

• Bill clients directly on invoices
• Run sales forecasts
• Easy to create, send, monitor and manage proposals

Cons:

• Reports of integration issues
• Not the most straightforward software
• Less developed mobile app

Stay in touch with clients by creating website forms for them to contact you and book appointments with you. Do several invoices at once and check the payment status of your clients. Make payment easier by sending recurring invoices by email or post, sending late payment reminders if necessary.

Link your Gmail or Outlook email account as well as your accounting software.

Teamleader scores 4.2/5 on Trustpilot but the majority of reviews are in Dutch. There are more English reviews on g2.com.

Teamleader Focus (all prices below cover two users, but you can add more)

Go: €50 (£43) a month
Move: €66 (£57) a month
Boost: €90 (£78) a month

NetHunt

Pros:

• User-friendly interface
• Omni-channel customer communication
• 24/7 customer support

Cons:

• Customisation is limited
• Some features too basic
• Can’t split email threads

NetHunt is a Gmail-based CRM which can be used as a Chrome or Safari extension.

Features include customising your email campaigns, building reports and forecasts, tracking team and performance and automating routine tasks. It integrates with Gmail, G Suite, LinkedIn, Slack, Outlook and WhatsApp.  

Omni-channel communication with customers including emails, phone calls, online chats and social media. NetHunt also has sales pipelines to give you an overview of your sales process and see what works and what doesn’t.

It scored 4.3/5 on Trustpilot, but this is only based on nine reviews.

Basic: $24 (£19.50) a month
Basic Plus: $34 (£22.50) a month
Business: $48 (£39) a month
Business Plus: $68 (£55.50) a month
Advanced: $96 (£78.50) a month

14-day free trial

Insightly

Pros:

• Good for project management
• Integration with other applications
• Mobile-friendly features

Cons:

• Features limited on free version
• Interface outdated
• Could be a steep learning curve

Insightly focuses on project management – it can track project activity and performance and help you manage leads, customers, partners and suppliers. It also features workflow automation, relationship links and can convert closed deals to projects.

You’ve also got configurable reporting, social media integration and integration with other applications including Google Drive and the ability to take your work on the go with the mobile app.

It has a score of 3.2/5 on Trustpilot, based on only six reviews.

It may be worth forking out for one of the paid versions as the features are more limited on the free version. It allows up to two users, five email templates, up to 2,500 records, ten mass emails a day, two custom fields and custom page layouts.

Features in the more advanced versions include Google and Microsoft 365 integrations, the aforementioned Insightly mobile app and the ability to convert won opportunities into projects.

Free (up to two users)
Plus: $29 (£23) – 100,000 records
Professional: $49 (£34) – 250,000 records
Enterprise: $99 (£78) – unlimited records

SugarCRM

Pros:

• Can self-host if you have developers on-staff
• Mobile-friendly features
• Has unique features

Cons:

• Steep learning curve
• Pricey
• Difficulty in using certain features

SugarCRM has flexible solutions so that even as a small business, you can shape a suitable plan. It also has an AI-powered pipeline and analysis tools, with automation of certain processes to save you time.

SugarCRM scores 2.5/5 on Trustpilot, but reviews are mainly from businesses outside Great Britain.

A seven-day free trial will give you some more time to decide.

Essentials: £39
Advanced: £68
Premier: £108

Pipedrive

Pros:

• Highly customisable with apps
• Many integration opportunities including Slack, Trello and Mailchimp
• Drag-and-drop functionality make platform easy to use

Cons:

• Limited advanced customisation
• Functionality issues on advanced packages
• Phone support only available on Power and Enterprise accounts

Pipedrive is another sales-focused CRM, promising minimum input and maximum output. It has full email integration, easy import and export of data and an open API. Charges are made per seat rather than by user band.

Use customisable web forms to get leads into the CRM – see what stage your deals are at and how they can progress. What’s more, you can customise it with apps in Pipedrive Marketplace.

It has 4.5/5 on Trustpilot, based on 1,655 reviews.

Unsure? Experiment with Pipedrive’s features on its 14-day free trial.

Essential: £14.90
Advanced: £27.90
Professional: £49.90
Power: £64.90
Enterprise: £79.90

Apptivo

Pros:

• Has project management, invoicing and other capabilities
• Create custom fields for sales without restriction
• Lower cost than competitors

Cons:

• Slow operating speeds
• Limited customisation options
• Not enough support for complex issues

As well as CRM, Apptivo does project management, invoicing and other tasks. To broaden its functionality, it can be integrated with Google Apps, Dropbox, Office 365 and PayPal.

On the internal features, you can create email templates and send emails to contacts, creating targeted lists for mass email marketing. Team that with the mobile expense reporting and simple approval workflow tools to keep up your productivity.

Take control of your supply chain with supply chain management which has vendor tracking and inventory.

Like a couple of other CRMs, the software looks a bit dated.

It has scored 2.6/5 on Trustpilot based on six reviews – with no reviews above two stars.

On Apptivo, you’ve got a 30-day free trial and can switch between the Lite, Premium and Ultimate packages.

Lite: $8 (£6)
Premium: $12 (£9.75)
Ultimate: $20 (£16)
Enterprise: Bespoke (contact Apptivo)

Bitrix24

Pros:

• Group chat and instant messaging functions
• On-premise version available
• Website builder included

Cons:

• Free version doesn’t include all of platform’s features
• Mobile app not as developed as web version
• Steep learning curve

Bitrix24 has group chat and instant messaging, project management, online document storage and a social intranet. It’s a strong contender for collaborative features. You’ve also got support for repeat sales and sales automation.

The platform has a rating of 3.6/5 on Trustpilot based on 49 reviews.

Accept payments via Stripe, Braintree, Authorize.net and more. It can issue quotes too.

Free: £0
Basic: £36 per month
Standard: £74 per month
Professional: £149 per month
Enterprise: From £299 per month for 25 users

The post The best CRM system for your micro business appeared first on Small Business UK.

It’s back again: 15 January marks Blue Monday 2024.

This infamous day gets a mixed reception when it rolls around, with some feeling concerned and others flouting it and treating it like any other day.

After all, the whole idea of Blue Monday comes from a formula to define ‘the most depressing day of the year’ in order to boost sales.

Even Cliff Arnal, the psychologist who devised the formula to pinpoint this gloomy day in the calendar, has vehemently refuted it since and urged people not to buy into it.

It’s easy to see how people get sucked in though. Blue Monday is everywhere. We’ve been getting loads of press releases about how staff can boost employee morale, facing the marketing deluge head-on.

But with all this said, web searches for ‘employees’, ‘morale’ and ‘Blue Monday’ are on the up too.

That tells me that, prescribed or not, there is bleakness around today. It’s enough for some employers to want to step in and minimise the damage, anyway.

How are they helping?

Whether you see it as a genuine positive or easy point-scoring, any chance to boost employee morale is a good thing.

It doesn’t even have to be much: arranging an informal do, bringing cakes in or doing some sort of team-based activity.

Here are a few examples of how small businesses have made Blue Monday their own.

Erris de Stacpoole, senior account manager at The Media Foundry

‘In a bid to tackle Blue Monday, we at The Media Foundry have launched an annual pub quiz called ‘Bye Bye, Blue Monday’. We are on a mission to banish any doom, gloom and blues. The first prize is a Golden Sausage Award’

James Shillaker, director at Incorpore Ltd

‘This Monday we will be treating our office to breakfast and coffees all around to start the day right and put people in good spirits.’

Steve Arnold, CEO of e-days

‘I brought a puzzle back from my holiday in Mexico and on Blue Monday every employee (about 30 of them) will get the chance to complete the puzzle the fastest (within ten minutes). The fastest person gets a prize – an early finish from work.

‘It means everyone gets a fun 10-minute extra break, and it’ll take their mind off work for a little bit. It also creates a great atmosphere of competition, engagement and excitement that everyone can get involved in. It’s a simple idea that’s great for mental wellbeing, for brain health and for general camaraderie.’

Rebecca Siciliano, managing director at Tiger Recruitment

‘This year, Tiger has timed Blue Monday with the announcement of its company incentives for the year, to get staff motivated and engaged about the year ahead. We are also running an exercise bootcamp to get people moving after work and for those who can’t take part in that, have organised a drinks get-together.

‘There’s also have a mental health ambassador who has written a newsletter on wellness and mental health to go out on Monday with tips to avoid the January blues.’

To counter the very notion of Blue Monday, Samaritans runs an annual Brew Monday campaign. It encourages people to get together over a cuppa for a catch-up on the third Monday in January – or at any other time of the year.

Making real change

Despite the cynicism around the third Monday in January, it arguably has the same role as sadness does in general: pulling attention towards a problem that needs addressing.

“It arguably has the same role as sadness does: pulling attention towards a problem that needs addressing”

Some of your employees might not even be feeling down, but it’s essential to have the information they need if life takes a turn. Debra Clark, head of wellbeing at Towergate Health & Protection, explains: “Typically people only take notice of the things that directly affect them. If they are not suffering from mental health issues at the time, they will likely ignore any messages regarding mental health support. This is why it is vital that a wellbeing programme has all elements regularly communicated, so that support is front of mind at the time that it is needed.”

For some small business owners, Blue Monday highlights changes that can be made to improve staff morale in the longer term rather than just for one day.

Alan Lynch, CEO of Compare&Choose

‘As a company, we believe in looking after mental health and not just on specific days.

‘We have a flexible work policy in place. I don’t like the pressure that is puts on my staff when they have set work hours. Their tasks must be done but in their own pace – if my staff need a mental health day then they get one.

‘So, if any of my staff will be feeling worse for wear coming, they know they can come to me and do whatever they need to do to feel better. It’s possible because we’re a small company with a handful of staff.’

Mike Foster, creative director at Straight Forward Design

‘I believe the feeling of ‘Blue Monday’ (something which arguably rolls out intermittently over the whole year) can be staved off with in-house projects which are not client-based.

‘On top of that, I try to keep employees happy throughout the year by encouraging side projects in-office. It makes good business sense: smart employers want their team members to feel fulfilled, connected to the organisation and motivated to do great work.’

Mike Nolan, co-founder of PressPlugs

‘Rather than some gimmick, we try to help employees by advising them to focus on the positive. It’s all about a healthy mindset.

“Blue Monday is a great day to start to change things”

‘Every Monday morning – and we’ll probably go for a longer session on Blue Monday – we stop what we’re doing for around 20 minutes and practice some mindfulness meditation. This is followed by a simple exercise where they are asked to write down 20 things that they are grateful for.

‘Finally, we try and all have a healthy lunch – having something pleasant built into the day covers all points.

‘It’s vital that employers take note of their employees’ mental health and Blue Monday is a great day to start to change things.’

Read our essential guide on improving employee motivation in the workplace for more.

The post Blue Monday and employee morale: moving beyond the gimmick appeared first on Small Business UK.

In an increasingly cashless society, if you don’t have card payment machines, you risk losing out on sales.

There are countless card machines for small businesses on the market today, and most enable you to take chip and PIN, contactless, and mobile payments.

But there are differences in features, fees and upfront costs which will make some more or less suitable for your business than others.

This article will break down the hardware and functionality of the best payment machines currently on the market to help you choose the one that’s right for you.

You can jump straight to a particular card machine or read on to find more info on the 10 (plus one bonus!) best card payment machines for small UK businesses in 2023.

40% of the UK’s micro businesses do not accept card payments – This is despite digital payments being the preferred way to pay for 47pc of shoppers

Card payment machines

1. SumUp Air
2. Zettle Reader 2
3. Square Reader
4. MyPOS Go
5. Dojo Go
6. Barclaycard Smartpay Anywhere
7. TakePayments
8. Tyl (by Natwest)
9. Shopify
10. Tide Card Reader
11. Small Business Pro

With Small Business Pro, track your invoices as well as getting in-person and online transactions at one of the lowest rates on the market. It will also help with the heavy lifting of managing customers, insurance, finance and HR, plus you’ll get a host of personal wellbeing benefits.

You can find out more about Small Business Pro here.

How much does a typical card payment machine cost?

Card payment machine costs are made up of the cost of the device and the cost of payment processing fees.

Device cost

Mobile card readers generally cost between £15 and £30, countertop card machines cost between £150 and £200.

You can either buy the device outright or rent the device for a monthly cost. This changes from provider to provider.

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Fees

Transaction fees are taken by your card payment provider as a percentage of every payment made through your card machine. They’re typically between 1.5 per cent and 2 per cent of the value of the transaction.

So, if the customer buys an item costing £25, and your transaction fee is 1.75 per cent, you’ll be charged around 43p by your card payment provider.

Card payment providers will also advertise a card not present (CNP) transaction. A CNP transaction occurs when neither the cardholder or their card are present for the transaction – in other words, an online or phone payment, or a recurring payment.

CNP fees are usually around 2.5 per cent. They’re higher for the simple reason that there’s a greater risk of fraud during these kinds of payments.

Countertop vs portable vs mobile card readers

There are three types of card payment machine: countertop, portable, and mobile.

Countertop card machines are designed to be used at designated till points in your store. Although they don’t offer any portability, they’re usually very reliable in terms of their connectivity. They’re best for businesses with a fixed payment point such as a grocery or small retailer.

Portable credit card machines are battery-powered devices that use Wi-Fi to take card payments anywhere on your site. They’re best for cafes and restaurants.

Mobile card readers are even more compact, battery-powered devices that use a GPRS (3G or 4G) signal to take card payments wherever you are. They also usually have Wi-Fi functionality as well. They’re great for pop up shops, markets, festivals, street food vans – anywhere really.

This article will predominantly focus on mobile card readers, as they’re the most affordable and offer the most flexibility to growing small businesses.

Most of the providers below also sell other hardware such as charging docks, receipt printers, countertop systems and tills.

You only need the card payment device to start taking payments, but these items allow you to enhance your POS system as your business grows.

8 payment systems for festivals, pop-ups and street food markets – Take a look at this rundown of payment systems that are ideal for festivals, street food markets, pop-ups and promotional events

Card payment machines – the options

The 10 card payment machines below are great options for small businesses, offering competitive fees and great features.

SumUp Air Card Reader

Thanks to its ease of use and practicality, this stylish and lightweight portable card reader is currently one of the popular card readers for small businesses.

It’s easy to set up and start using. All you need to do to start accepting contactless, chip and PIN, and mobile payments from all major providers is to pair the device with your smartphone, which takes minutes.

You can then start using the SumUp Air anywhere with Wi-Fi or data coverage, and it can process 500 transactions on a single charge – at 12 hours, it’s probably the best battery life on the market.

Available for a one-off cost of just £39, and with a reduced 1.69 per cent transaction fee, it’s also very affordable. And they have also sped up the length of time for payments to appear in your account to just one day.

You also get access to a handy smartphone app, with a dashboard that allows you to view your product catalogue, track sales, and send digital receipts.

Compare card payment machine quotes

Zettle Reader 2

The Zettle Reader 2 is another lightweight (just 130g) device that you can pair with your Apple or Android smartphone and start using within minutes using the Zettle app.

It accepts all major debit and credit card payment types and has a decent eight-hour battery life – though this only lasts for around 100 transactions, which is no match for SumUp’s 500.

Where the Zettle Reader 2 really seeks to differentiate itself is in its focus on security. Claiming to be one of the safest card readers on the market, Zettle’s tamper-proof device adheres to the highest industry standards, and is fully encrypted by HSMs cryptographic servers.

And if you do spot a suspicious charge, Zettle’s transaction protection covers up to £250 in chargebacks per month.

As with the SumUp Air, there are no monthly fees – you just pay a flat rate per transaction, though at 1.75 per cent, this is slightly higher than its rival.

But at £59 + VAT, the Zettle Reader 2 is dearer than the SumUp Air, and the in-dock charger will cost another £39 + VAT on top.

Compare card payment machine quotes

Square Reader

The Square Reader is the most sleek, simple and affordable card reader on the market. This appropriately square-shaped device costs just £19 + VAT, much lower than competitors.

And weighing in at just 56g, it’s not just the price that’s low. All you have to do is sync it to your phone via Bluetooth and start selling. You can then monitor and manage all your sales from Square’s free app. All funds are deposited the next working day.

Nifty features include specially-designed POS dashboards for restaurants, restaurants and mobile businesses who need to make appointments, such as hairdressers or masseurs.

And Square also has a whole arsenal of other payments kit you can buy to create a full POS setup including terminals, registers, and other hardware and accessories.

Square is offering new customers a reduced 1.5 per cent transaction for the timebeing.

And businesses that take more than £200,000 a year in card sales pay a lower transaction fee.

Compare card payment machine quotes

myPOS Go

Weighing 180g, its design isn’t as sleek and stylish as rivals, but under the hood, myPOS Go 2 is another highly functional and compact mobile card reader.

The device costs £39 + VAT and its transaction fee is just 1.10 per cent + 7p and can be much lower (depending on the amount you’re taking).

The Linux-driven myPOS Go 2 card reader has several other features that set it apart from competitors. You get a free e-money merchant account, with a dedicated IBAN in 14 currencies, making it easy to take international payments.

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Unlike the days you might have to wait with other providers, card payments are settled in your account in less than three seconds, and you get instant access to funds via your free VISA business card.

We also like the multi-operator mode, which allows you to monitor individual staff performance and split tips accordingly.

Compare card payment machine quotes

Dojo Go

Dojo Go describes itself as the “ultimate all-rounder”, a small business card machine that’s just as handy as a mobile (operating on 3G/4G connectivity) and a portable (using Wi-Fi) device.

Dojo Go’s big selling point is its speed: the company claims its device can take card payments in around two seconds – nearly 60 per cent faster than the industry average. And you can keep track of all those payments in real time using the Dojo Go app.

Dojo is supremely confident in its product – so much so that, if you’re switching from an existing provider, it will pay your exit fees up to a value of £3,000. (You have to share your recent statements with another provider with Dojo before it decides on the transfer value.)

We also admire Dojo’s help and support, which is available 24 hours a day. And if you can’t get things fixed over the phone, Dojo can take over your device remotely to investigate.

All payments are transferred in your account at 10am the next working day, which it claims is faster than any other provider as standard.

There are two tiers of transaction fees: 1.4 per cent + 5p per transaction plus £20 per month terminal rental, if your annual card turnover is below £150,000; if you’re above £150,000 then your credit and debit card rate and the monthly terminal rental fee are negotiable.

Pro tip: Dojo sets a minimum £24.95 monthly charge for customers who have not taken card payments before, which is the minimum cost you must pay in transaction fees each month – even if you have zero takings. This is on top of the monthly £20 terminal rental. After six months, the contract flips to monthly rolling.

Because you’re tied into a six-month contract if your card turnover is below £150,000, Dojo Go is better for scaling small businesses with consistently high monthly takings.

And, if your business needs cash quickly, Dojo offers a merchant cash advance powered by YouLend, which is repaid through a percentage of your card takings. Dojo charges a fixed one-off fee for this cash facility.

Compare card payment machine quotes

Barclaycard Smartpay Anywhere

Barclaycard Smartpay Anywhere is aimed at hospitality and retail businesses, with the “app” turning it into a POS solution. It does not connect with cash drawers, or barcode scanners – but does connect to wireless printers and an app and web portal.

It has next-working-day settlement and, in addition to the standard Mastercard and Visa, accepts Amex and Diners Club (Discover).

The transaction fee is 1.6 per cent, among the lowest of any major provider.

It’s also powered by a feature filled app as well as access to a web portal providing real time data and insight into your business performance. If you need support there is a 24/7 customer support team, and it is PCI compliant without fees or the need for attestation.

However, unlike some rivals, when applying for Smartpay Anywhere, you have to go through an online vetting process checking financial and borrowing history to be approved for a device, which Barclays says ensures the device is suitable for your business before you pay for it.

The pros are that it’s a compact and affordable card reader at £29 + VAT with low transaction fees and payments settled the next business day.

Compare card payment machine quotes

TakePayments

Stockport-based TakePayments has provided card terminals and online payment solutions for over 30 years. It is one of the fastest-growing card payment companies in the UK with over 70,000 customers.

A fast and reliable Android terminal that lets you take both card and cash payments.

Some key features include:

• Speedy 4G and WiFi connection
• Stock and pricing management from the device
• Ability to split payments
• Detailed transaction reporting to see how your business is performing
• Access to a Management Portal to handle your business remotely

takepaymentsplus pricing: £25 + VAT monthly (18-month contract)

Or, if you’re just looking to take payments quickly, their A920Pro card machine and DX8000 terminal take only four simple steps to set up. Stay connected with 4G and WiFi, and accept Apple and Google Pay as standard.

Terminal rental from £15 + VAT.

The transaction fee based on business turnover and the CNP (card not present) fee is dependent on payment acquirer.

Own POS system

TakePayments uses its own EPOS system called tPOS, which cannot be downloaded onto an iPad or other tablet and has its own tablet register.

tPOS is available in two forms, Counter and Complete. Plus, their dedicated team will provide full training and customer support seven days a week.

tPOS starts from £45 a month.

Some key features include:

• Product management and stock inventory
• Ability to split payments and serve multiple customers at once
• Fixed discounts and offers
• Ability to add notes and configure orders
• Enhanced reporting

Get a quote with takepayments now

Tyl (by NatWest) Clover Flex

Weighing in at 453 grams, Tyl’s Clover Flex card reader is at the chunkier end of the mobile card reader market.

Although it still utilises Wi-Fi and 4G, allowing you to use it anywhere, it’s still significantly heavier than the other devices, which does affect its portability.

However, more does in this case mean more. The Clover Flex acts as an all-in-one POS system that allows you to both take payments and manage your business from one device, including inventory and customer management, itemised receipts and more.

It has a decent eight-hour battery life and a high-res 5’’ touchscreen, which enables you to use a variety of the 150 apps on the Clover App Market. However, while it’s handy to have this functionality in one place, we’d wager most people don’t mind switching to their phone for these functions if it means having a smaller device.

Also, it’s not the most affordable option for small businesses. You’ll pay £16.99 per month for the 4G mobile version before transaction fees are even factored into the equation. The transaction fee is a flat 1.5 per cent on all cards, excluding American Express.

However, NatWest is offering to waive hire fees for new customers for three months, once they commit to a 12-month contract.

Tyl is also waiving its monthly fees on its e-commerce gateway for 12 months, up until the end of December 2023. Normally, it charges £14.95 + VAT per month.

4G usage is charged up to £9.99 + VAT per month depending on how much you use.

Clover Flex is better for larger small businesses with a large, consistent sales volume.

Compare card payment machine quotes

Shopify WisePad 3 Reader

Although only available for Shopify customers, we think it’s worth highlighting Shopify’s WisePad 3 Reader.

It’s lightweight (130 grams) and accepts all major payment cards and types. You have to subscribe to Shopify though to be able to use it and it only works with an iPad or through your iPhone.

Shopify subscriptions

Shopify has three subscription levels for its Wisepad 3 card reader: Basic, Shopify and Advanced. Basic costs £25 a month, Shopify £65 per month, and Advanced £344 a month. All are billed annually.

Basic (£25pm)

Credit card rates

• 2% + 25p online
• 1.7% + 0p in person

What’s included in Basic

• Basic reports
• Up to 1,000 inventory locations
• 2 staff accounts

Shopify (£65pm)

Credit card rates

• 1.7% +25p online
• 1.6% + 0p in person

What’s included in Shopify

• Professional reports
• Up to 1,000 inventory locations
• 5 staff accounts

Advanced (£344pm)

Credit card rates

• 1.5% + 25p online
• 1.5% + 0p in person

What’s included in Advanced

• Custom report builder
• Up to 1,000 inventory locations
• 15 staff accounts

However, there is no contractual obligation you have to sign with Shopify, so you are not tied in for months or years. Plus there is a 14-day free trial period for you to try out the Wisepad 3 card reader.

There are also slick add-ons to the Shopify Wisepad 3, including a tablet stand (£120), a barcode scanner (£199) and a Bluetooth receipt printer (£259).

However, with a £49 purchase price (compared with, say, £39 for the SumUp Air card reader), plus monthly subscription fees, Shopify Wisepad 3 works out as one of the most expensive readers on the market.

That said, if already use Shopify as your POS system, this would be a no-brainer.

Compare card payment machine quotes

Tide Card Reader

The Tide Card Reader is designed for mobility, so you can use it for in-store or on-the-go transactions. It is your ticket to seamless payments, anytime, anywhere.

With Tide Card reader, you can accept card and mobile payments on the go with no monthly contracts and minimal transaction fees. You also have unlimited 4G data, eliminating the need for Bluetooth connectivity. With a lifetime of free 4G connectivity and compatibility with Visa, Mastercard, ApplePay, and GooglePay, it’s time to unlock a new level of payment convenience.

The device has a one-off cost of £49 + VAT with a transaction fee of 1.50 per cent.

Small Business Pro

And finally… we can’t forget our very own payment processor, which forms part of our Small Business Pro membership. 

How much does it cost? 

WisePad 3 terminal (£49 one off cost) OR WisePOS E (£179.00 one off cost) + monthly membership fee (£39.99 sole traders and £49.99 for businesses) 

• All-in-one reader and POS service 
• Monthly subscription cost (£39.99 for sole traders and £49.99 for businesses) 
• From 1.25 per cent transaction fees for standard cards, premium cards (such as corporate cards) are 2.25 per cent

It has: 

• No monthly payment fees 
• No minimum spend amounts 
• Built-in fraud detection 
• PCI compliant 
• Integrated with customer management tool to monitor transactions 
• Bank deposits in 3 business days 

Pros: Our transaction fee is the lowest on the market for any payment facilitator starting from 1.25 per cent. 

Cons: It’s not available as a standalone payments service, so you’ll need to purchase a monthly membership from us. 

Best for: Food and drink, retail, health and beauty and service-based businesses that are looking to streamline multiple tools and platforms.

Which is the best card payment device?

By now you’ve either discovered the card reader that’s right for your business, or you’ve left bamboozled by a dizzying range of different card payment machines, fee structures and additional features.

If it’s the latter, don’t worry. For most small businesses, we’d recommend SumUp. It’s an affordable device with one of the lowest transaction fees on the market, and as it’s a flat rate, it’s predictable and transparent. We were also impressed by its long battery life, which can process more than 500 payments on a single charge.

MyPOS Go also really stands out to us as another great option for small businesses. As well as very competitive transaction fees, it has great added features like multi-operator mode, which make it a great choice for cafes and restaurants. It’s also great that you can access funds instantly.

That said, we’ve selected all the above card payment machines for their flexibility, simplicity and practicality, and each one would be a great option for your small business. Happy selling.

Need a card payment device quote?

Want to compare prices from all the best card payment devices we’ve listed above? Why not use our free comparison tool to be matched with the most suitable provider for your needs.

Simply fill in our free quote-finding form, and answer a few questions about your business (it takes less than a minute). We’ll match you with the most appropriate card payment provider.

Further reading

Best payment processors for UK small businesses – 11 of the best – What’s the best payment system for your small business? 11 of the best payment processors for UK SMEs reviewed

The post 10 card payment machines ideal for small business appeared first on Small Business UK.

Research from recruitment specialist Michael Page found that 73% of British workers factor workplace benefits in their decision to turn down a job. From motivating your team, to retaining and attracting new talent, workplace benefits have the potential to play a big role in your business’ success.

Key findings from PageGroup study*

• 82% think businesses over-complicate workplace benefits
• 37% of respondents did not know what their benefits package comprised of before they accepted the job
• 65% were surprised to find a particular benefit was available only after working in a role for some time
• 85% said a flexible benefits package was desirable to them but only 20% were completely satisfied with their current package
• The most popular benefits were flexible working (71%) and the ability to work from home (55%)

* Survey conducted among 1,000 UK adults 18+ years

Employee health and wellbeing

Companies such as Airbnb that offer holiday allowances to employees, and Netflix, that doesn’t have prescribed time off policies for salaried employees, are a new breed of organisation pioneering benefit concepts that appeal to a new generation of job candidates. Rather than focusing on conventional monetary benefits, there is a clear trend towards providing employees with a better quality of life, both inside and outside of work.

Deloitte predicts that millennials will make up 75% of the global workforce by 2025, and much research suggests that their motivations and values are different from the baby boomers before them.

A recent study by Fit Small Business found that, while many businesses are introducing novel benefits geared towards ‘millennials’ such as free holidays and office dogs, 34% of those aged 18-34 stated that they actually see healthcare as the most important benefit that their employer can offer.

Not only are healthcare and wellbeing benefits now proving popular with the latest generation of workers, benefits related to wellbeing are becoming a strong tool to help businesses maximise their profits, with advantages including the retention of employees, increased productivity, and fewer workplace accidents.

The World Health Organisation compiled a list of the advantages of health promotion at work, which includes:

• Promoting a caring public image
• Improving staff morale
• Reducing staff turnover
• Lowering absenteeism
• Increasing productivity.

Common wellbeing initiatives offered by companies to their workers include stress management, weight loss support, and gym membership; all of which are proven to keep your team engaged with a belief in the organisation and a willingness to ‘go the extra mile’.

Wellbeing initiatives can be implemented based on business objectives, incorporated as flexible benefits that address particular HR concerns, or can be based on employee feedback. When benefits are driven by feedback, it can encourage increased engagement in wellbeing efforts.

Employee engagement is a critical part of a company’s success – the staff are the means by which the business plan is executed, and their engagement determines the company’s outcomes.

When employees are engaged with their job, they are connected with the company’s overall vision and see their role as integral to achieving the organisation’s aims. It is a positive emotional attachment to their work.

The Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) has identified three parts to employee engagement:

• Physical – When they’re engaged with their job, employees go all-out to complete their work, using high levels of energy to fulfil tasks
• Emotional – Having an emotional connection to their work means employees are strongly involved in what they are doing, and have a sense of purpose. They are inspired and challenged by their job
• Cognitive – Employees are fully immersed in their work – and less likely to ‘drift off’ on the job.

When teams are engaged on each of these levels, they are more invested in their work. But according to Gallup, we are facing a worldwide engagement crisis that could have long-lasting effects on the global economy. Gallup’s research revealed that worldwide, 87% of employees are not engaged with their organisation. It also found that companies whose workforces are highly engaged outperform their competitors by a staggering 147% in earnings per share.

How to elevate your employees’ engagement levels

If your employees are not engaged, you could be putting yourself at a competitive disadvantage. Businesses that can improve engagement levels among staff stand to improve their profits, retain talent and gain customer loyalty. Here are some tips to help bring employees on board.

Empower staff

When your team feels empowered they will feel more engaged at work. According to the Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service (Acas), good leadership should empower and motivate rather than control.

Embed company values

Another key ingredient is company values – these should be embedded throughout the organisation, and ‘lived on not just spoken’.

Promote positive relationships among colleagues

Bad blood among colleagues will most certainly result in a disengaged team. To create engagement, build a supportive environment in which employees help each other and treat each other with respect and integrity. Management can help promote this positive culture by focusing on the strengths of employees as a team, not praising individual performance.

Creating a culture of engagement

Engagement involves a cultural shift in the way organisations behave. It should be rooted into the business culture, rather than addressed annually, for instance when staff return an employee survey. Employee engagement should be at the forefront of every interaction between management and their teams.

Focus on strengths, not weaknesses

Research from Gallup shows that when management focuses on strengths rather than weaknesses, the result is greater engagement among staff. It found that employees learn their roles more quickly, produce more and significantly better work, and stay with their company longer. When managers support their employees’ growth and development by focusing on their strengths, team members are more than twice as likely to be engaged.

Shared goals

Employees are more engaged when they have a strong connection to shared goals, and an understanding of how their role fits in with the wider organisation. When staff are aligned with company objectives, they – and the company – are more likely to be successful.

Pietro Carmignani is UK country manager at Gympass. 

Further resources on employee engagement and wellbeing

• How to reinvigorate your workforce and make engagement a priority – Phil Sheridan, senior managing director of Robert Half UK, on the benefits of making employee engagement a priority
• New Engaged Employer Report Highlights Key Benefits for Attracting and Retaining Talent – This report from Moorepay is available to download
• How to improve employee motivation in the workplace – We chat to the business owners that managed to create a motivated and engaged workforce, and explore how you can recreate their success
• 6 ways to minimise work-related stress and health problems – Gemma Harding encourages business owners and managers to make the effort to help your employees towards better mental health

The post How to elevate employee engagement levels appeared first on Small Business UK.

In an increasingly crowded marketplace, more and more businesses are turning to artificial intelligence (AI) tools to boost their marketing efforts.

AI can help to drive sales, improve customer journey, automate repetitive tasks and facilitate fraud detection and prevention – an extra spot of reassurance for your customers.

Here, we’ll be explaining what to look for in AI marketing tools and taking a peek at what’s on the market right now.

You won’t find an all-rounder product that has AI functionality for every part of your marketing plan. Rather, they’ll focus on key areas such as your SEO, content or analytics.

Harvey Morton, founder of Harvey Morton Digital, explains what AI tools you could utilise to better your business.

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) tools

AI-powered SEO tools assist marketers in optimising their websites and content for search engines. These tools offer features such as keyword research, content optimisation and competitor analysis to improve rankings and organic traffic.

Content strategy platforms

These are AI marketing tools to automate content creation and optimisation. They generate high-quality, SEO-friendly content tailored to specific keywords and niches, saving time and ensuring content performs well on search engines.

Social media marketing tools

AI tools for social media marketing aid in audience segmentation, content scheduling and sentiment analysis. Marketers can create highly targeted and engaging social media campaigns that resonate with their audiences.

Google Ads optimisation software

AI-driven tools optimise Google Ads campaigns by automating bidding strategies, analysing ad performance and refining targeting parameters. This maximises the return on investment for paid advertising efforts.

Email marketing automation solutions

AI-powered email marketing tools segment audiences, optimise send times and personalise email content. Marketers can create more effective email campaigns and increase engagement with subscribers.

Predictive analytics platforms

These tools utilise AI algorithms to analyse historical data and predict future trends and customer behaviours. Marketers can make data-driven decisions for their digital marketing strategies, improving overall effectiveness.

Chatbots and virtual assistants

AI chatbots and virtual assistants enhance customer engagement by providing 24/7 support, answering queries, and offering product recommendations. They improve user experiences and boost customer satisfaction.

AI marketing tools use machine learning algorithms to make tasks such as content writing easier. They analyse customer data from places where customers dwell such as social media, email and engagement with your customers. This in turn gives interesting insights into customer behaviour and trends.

On the plus side, Morton says that tools like these can boost output at a lower cost and increase customer engagement while giving you accurate insights to drive your marketing plan and reach your goals.

Data from Sitecore tells us that the top three benefits of using AI for marketing are:

• Being able to do faster market research on prospects and customers (70 per cent)
• Create and scale content faster (65 per cent)
• Inspire future campaigns and ideas (63 per cent)

However, there are downsides to these tools. They must be used responsibly, especially when handling sensitive information. Morton points out that small businesses must ensure that they have proper data protection measures in place when using AI marketing tools. “Respecting customer privacy and complying with data protection regulations is crucial for maintaining trust and loyalty,” he added.

Content is also a sticky subject here. Left entirely to AI’s devices, content can come across as cold, bland and clearly not written by a human. “As a digital marketing consultant, I’ve been aware of a couple of instances of clients using AI for social media content and copy, and the output is often not very good. It’s easy to spot when somebody is using AI for content generation and it’s not genuine,” said Morton.

To combat this, you need to teach the AI your tone of voice, but more importantly, ask a human to have a glance over any copy to ensure it doesn’t read like robot drivel. Morton recommends having a person responsible for marketing output and to consider working with a freelancer for £250-£500 a month.

Simon Bacher, founder of the Ling app, also warns of the potential complexity, cost considerations and the risk of over-reliance on technology when using AI platforms.

So, is it time for you to adopt an AI marketing platform? Peter Wood, entrepreneur and chief strategy officer at Spectrum Search, told Small Business that when considering AI marketing tools for businesses, especially small ones, it’s paramount to focus on practicality and scalability. “As someone deeply entrenched in the tech industry and AI innovation, I’ve observed that small businesses often grapple with the allure of cutting-edge tools that promise grand outcomes but lack practical applicability in their specific contexts.”

He recommends starting with AI tools that enhance customer interaction and engagement, pointing out that tools that provide insights into customer behaviour, predict trends and automate responses can be particularly beneficial. That being said, tools must have a proven track record of delivering results for similar-sized companies – this could be in the form of case studies or testimonials, for example. If they’re available, consider starting with a trial period to get an idea of the tool’s effectiveness for your business’ needs.

“Innovation doesn’t necessarily mean adopting the most advanced technology available; it often means utilising the right technology effectively,” said Wood. “For small businesses, this could mean choosing AI tools that integrate seamlessly with their existing systems, are user-friendly, and/or offer tangible benefits in terms of time and cost savings, as well as improved customer engagement.”

We’ve gathered a selection of AI marketing tools that serve various functions, detailing what they’re used for, along with features and cost.

Jasper.ai

https://www.jasper.ai/

What is it for? Writing commercial copy 

Features:

• AI everywhere with browser extension
• AI Google Docs integration
• Output content in your brand’s tone of voice
• Different dashboard views

Cost

Creator: $39 (£31) per month

Teams: $99 (£78) per month

Business: Bespoke

ManyChat

https://manychat.com/

What is it for? Reaching customers on social media

Features:

• Identify interested leads and reengaging without running retargeting ad campaigns
• Auto respond to messages
• AI assistant and plug and play templates to build automations
• Customised marketing chat campaign

Cost

Free: £0

Pro: $15 (£12) per month

Premium: Bespoke

AlliAI

https://www.alliai.com/

What is it for? SEO

Features:

• Bulk OnPage optimisation
• Schema mark-up
• Interlinks
• Live editor

Cost

Consultant: $299 (£236) per month

Agency: $599 (£470) per month

Enterprise: $1,119 (£885) per month

Reply

https://reply.io/

What is it for? Sales

Features:

• B2B contact and customer base
• Build prospect lists
• AI-backed multichannel systems
• Analyse outreach results
• A/B testing

Cost

Free: $0

Starter: $60 (£47) per user, per month

Professional: $90 (£71) per user, per month

Custom: Bespoke

Influencity

https://influencity.com/

What is it for? Influencer marketing

Features:

• Find and analyse influencers
• Curate lists and manage relationships with influencer database
• Manage campaigns
• Access fast and unbiased statistics

Cost

Custom: Bespoke

Basic: $134 (£106) per month

Professional: $278 (£220) per month

Business: $558 (£441) per month

Tableau

https://tableau.com/en-gb/solutions/ai-analytics

What is it for? Analytics and data visualisation

Features:

• Augmented analytics
• Forecasting
• Predictive modelling functions
• R and Python integrations

Cost

Tableau Viewer: £12 per user per month

Tableau Explorer: £34 per user per month

Tableau Creator: £60 per user per month

Rytr

https://rytr.me/

What is it for? Writing emails

Features:

• Blog ideas and writing
• Business idea pitches
• Create calls to action
• Write social media ads
• Keyword extractor

Cost

Free plan: £0

Saver plan: $9 (£7) per month

Unlimited plan: $29 (£23) per month

Looka

https://looka.com/

What is it for? Logo design

Features:

• Logo maker
• 300+ branded templates
• All accessible in one dashboard

Cost

From $20 (one-off) for a basic logo package

Brand kit subscription from $96 (£76) per year

Writesonic

https://writesonic.com/

What is it for? Content creation and optimisation

Features:

• AI article writer
• Paraphrasing tool
• Text summariser
• Story generator
• Landing page generator

Cost

Free: $0
Small Team: $13 (£10) per month
Freelancer: $16 (£12.50) per month

Which AI marketing tool is right for my business?

Unfortunately, only you can know that. Take stock of what your business needs and how tools like the ones above can slot into your existing operations. Good luck!

Benefits of chatbots for your business – Chatbots can make customer service more efficient, cost-effective and achieve better customer satisfaction

7 best email marketing software for UK businesses – Factors to consider include the number of recipients you need to mail out to, design customisation to match the brand, integrations, data migration and ease of use

How to write a marketing plan – This guide offers practical advice on developing and writing a marketing plan using simple English

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