Switching a bank account can be one of the first steps a business can use to take control of their finances. Once a business owner is clear about what they want their bank account to do, they can start to look for it and once they find what they are looking for they can switch to it. From finding the right account with the right bank and the right business manager, to new ways to control revenue and outgoings, to better digital support, all of these things can persuade people to switch.

However, research from the Current Account Switch Service (CASS) and Small Business reveals that 20 per cent of entrepreneurs are using their personal current account for their business banking.

Though it may seem more convenient to bank on your personal current account, you could be putting yourself at a disadvantage. Here, we outline some benefits of switching to the right business bank account.

1: Better functionality

Are you able to carry out all the functions you need in your business account? The one you are using now may be cheaper, but you might not be able to carry out some vital business functions. Does your business account have digital services that allow you to manage cashflow or expenses? Does it link well with money management apps or payment systems? Do you have the right level of access to a business adviser? Are you able to easily deposit cash or do you need support to help your business go cash free?

List the services you need then match them to an account before you plan your switch.

2: Fees & Charges

Those little fees and hidden or recurring charges that some banks’ accounts impose can add up quickly. All though quite some research might be required, if you can find a provider that suits your type of business better in this regard you could save your business I tidy amount of money every month.

3: Greater protection for you and your business

A good business bank account is a means of protecting your identity as the account will be under your business’ name. As the number of transactions you make will likely be higher than on a personal account, you’ll need greater security. Banks tend to have information in place to warn business banking customers of potential scams, as well as security systems that can help you spot scams. If you are worried about fraud, switching to a bank that offers more protection could be a business-saver.

4: A better relationship with your bank

Having a business account may help you build a better relationship with your bank. You may have a business banking manager as part of your account. They can also give you advice to help drive your business forward. You might also want to seek other financial assistance from them at a later stage so it’s a good idea to get acquainted with them early on.

Eight per cent of survey respondents said they have the type of bank account they have due to it being required by their bank. In some cases, your bank won’t let you use your personal account for business transactions, even if you’re a sole trader. If your bank catches on that you’re using your personal account for business, they may close your account – and sever any kind of relationship that you previously had.

You can compare your options on Nerdwallet here.

5: Incentives

Of course, you were expecting this one. Business bank accounts offer perks which could be useful for your operation, such as free accounting software or a card reader. Some give you a free banking period too, say 12 or 18 months.

I’m not sure what type of account I use

Rather worryingly, two per cent of survey respondents weren’t sure what type of account they had. If you’re not sure, check your online banking service – it should tell you, even if it’s purely based on the name of account you have. If that doesn’t confirm it, contact your bank.

It is also worth mentioning that there can be perks to having your personal and business accounts with the same bank. You may be entitled to discounts and other perks if you have both accounts with one provider – you’re depositing more money with them, after all. It does feed into a couple of the reasons mentioned above, like building a stronger relationship, which in turn can help with moves like taking out a loan later down the line.

A simple and stress free way to switch your account

To switch your business account using the Current Account Switch Service between participating banks or building societies, you must have fewer than 50 employees and an annual turnover not exceeding £6.5 million.

First, you need to find a new account, looking for some of the features above. Once you’ve found it you need to go through your payments, cancelling the ones you no longer use so they won’t be switched to your new bank account.

Then you need to get your documentation ready so your new bank can carry out the necessary security checks. Your new bank will tell you what you need, but it might include your trading address, a Companies House registration number, and other documents relating to the business and proof of identity like a passport, driving licence or bank statement. You may want to ask for documentation like statements from your old bank before switching.

Then contact your new bank, open an account, negotiate the right arrangements, such as an overdraft and choose your switch date, allowing for seven working days and making sure you don’t set up new payments during that period. Then you can ask your new bank to start the switch. Thanks to the Switching Guarantee, everything will be protected. Then you can start using your new account and start enjoying the benefits of taking control.

If you want to see all your options easily in one place, you can easily compare business bank accounts with Nerdwallet now.

Further resources

Opening a business bank account – how-to and best accounts

Half of SME owners have never switched business bank account

12 of the best digital banking platforms for small business

The post Benefits of switching to the right business bank account appeared first on Small Business UK.

Fake news and misleading or unreliable claims are creating serious problems for businesses. It is estimated that online misinformation costs the global economy $78 billion (£61 billion) a year. And, according to research carried out in 2022, bad or misleading advice costs small UK companies an average of £9,225 each. At a time where many small businesses are under heavy financial pressure, that’s money that could be better spent on growing a business. It could even tip the balance between a business’s success or failure.

As well as the online maze of misinformation, small businesses also face many other challenges and opportunities. The way consumers buy goods and interact with companies is changing rapidly in the digital age. How the UK does business with other parts of the world has also seen large scale structural changes. And of course, companies now need to contend with doing business in the era of net zero and climate change mitigation.

Against this ever evolving, disruptive backdrop there is a need for reliable, accurate and up-to-date guidance that can help small businesses avoid costly mistakes, stay on the right side of the law, and thrive in their chosen sector.

Business Companion is a free online resource that helps businesses do exactly that. Written by experts in consumer protection law, and backed by the Department for Business and the Chartered Trading Standards Institute (CTSI), Business Companion is regularly updated to reflect changes in legislation, and it’s constantly expanding to cover more business types.

Over the past year as part of its ‘Business in Focus’ series, Business Companion has published guidance on topics ranging from alternative dispute resolution (ADR) to consumer vulnerability, delivery charges, net zero, domestic energy saving, holiday parks, selling online and hazardous materials. Other topics include expert advice on renewable energy and starting an online business.

Written in clear, concise English and designed for busy traders and companies in search of information that can be accessed quickly, Business Companion sets out the facts about things like contracts and cancellations, marketing claims, complaint handling, best practice and much more.

Guidance is provided in a variety of formats, including web pages, downloadable PDFs and video explainers, in addition to other handy resources like checklists and useful links for further reading. Quick guides give the top-line facts about what the law says, while in-depth guides are designed to explore topics in detail, including case studies and more technical explanations of how the legislation applies in specific circumstances.

Avoid the rumours, uncertainty and potential damage caused by unreliable information, and visit Business Companion today to find out how it can help you do better business.

All the guidance can be accessed here.

More on legal advice

8 legal considerations when setting up a business – One of your first legal steps will be to register your business and choose your structure

The post Business Companion: a reliable voice in the misinformation age appeared first on Small Business UK.

Entrepreneurs are facing more challenges than ever before. From the rapidly evolving economic environment, to the increasing need to do more with less, the pressures on small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) can feel overwhelming right now.

You’re probably looking for some solutions you can count on; tools that will make your life a little easier. That’s where Amazon Ads can help.

In 2022, more than 125,000 European small-and-medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) sold more than 1.2 billion products to Amazon customers worldwide. This is equivalent to more than 2,200 sales every minute, according to the 2023 Amazon EU Economic Impact Report. Advertising is helping these smaller brands get noticed; small and medium businesses in Europe saw 120% more glance views, on average, within 20 weeks of launching sponsored ads in their home country.

Successful brands don’t exist in a vacuum. Advertising with Amazon Ads is a great way for brands to help get in front of new customers. Think of them as ads that work whilst you work, eat, sleep and repeat. 

Advertising isn’t just for enterprise businesses

It’s a misconception that only big brands advertise on Amazon. Amazon Ads products are designed for everyone, including small businesses, and have helped these businesses grow their sales. In the UK, small businesses saw 23% of their sales, on average, driven by Amazon Ads.

No matter your budget, sponsored ads are designed to work within it. You can choose your ad products based on your goals, and in general, it’s possible to see results like ad impressions, clicks, or sales with a budget of around €10/£10 a day. We recommend starting with Sponsored Products, which are cost-per-click ads that promote individual product listings.

From here, you can move on to incorporating other products into your advertising mix to help with brand building, or reaching more customers, such as Sponsored Brands and Sponsored Display. Sponsored Brands creative ads appear in relevant Amazon shopping results to help customers discover your brand, and Sponsored Display self-service display ads help you engage shoppers across their shopping journey, on and off Amazon.

With low barriers to entry and a flexible budget, Amazon Ads can be an affordable and effective marketing tool for entrepreneurs looking to grow their sales and expand their customer base.

Amazon Ads also provides valuable insights into your ad performance, allowing you to refine your targeting and messaging to improve return on ad spend (ROAS). 

Get your brand noticed by customers

Amazon Launchpad is a program that supports start-ups and small business owners across various stages of their business journey. For example, Amazon Launchpad helps entrepreneurs with marketing or with distributing their products to millions of Amazon customers around the world. To-date, Amazon Launchpad has helped small business owners launch over 4,000 new products. As part of Launchpad, those who sign up receive Amazon Ads click credits to spend on advertising.

Pier Carlo Montali, the CEO and co-founder of Security Watch, the company that invented the WinLet—an innovative portable female protection device—has seen success using solutions by Amazon Ads. Montali is a previous winner of the prestigious Launchpad Innovation Awards, and has since grown his business into a success story.

“We have been investing in Amazon Ads every day for almost a year,” said Montali. “It’s simple, you see immediate results and if you have a quality product, Amazon Ads can help you to sell large volumes right away. Investing in Amazon Ads allows you to be seen by customers who are ready to buy immediately and not by people who are browsing for information or are simply curious. In my opinion, this is the real added value of Amazon Ads and the reason why I would recommend it.”

Advertising on Amazon helps deliver results. Small and medium businesses in Europe saw 57% more sales, on average, within 20 weeks of launching sponsored ads in their home country.

Let Amazon Ads be a helping hand to your business and get started with advertising now.

Learn how Amazon Ads can help your small business.

The post How Amazon Ads is supporting entrepreneurs appeared first on Small Business UK.

It feels like the hospitality sector has been in crisis for a while. And it’s not all down to the pandemic either: along with rising energy prices and the cost of living, hospitality businesses have rail strikes, cyber security risks and a Brexit-induced labour shortage to contend with.

But even during the hard times, plenty of bars, hotels and restaurants manage to thrive. Whether you’re starting a hospitality business, in a position to expand or are looking for some extra financial support during a difficult period, here’s a list of the main funding options right now, so you can figure out what works best for your business.

Help with energy bills

Like a lot of British households, a large number of businesses need help with their energy bills right now, and that includes firms in the hospitality sector. That’s why the government created the Energy Bill Relief Scheme (EBRS), which was rolled out in October 2022 to help businesses deal with rising energy costs, by offering a cost cap on gas and electricity unit rates. If you haven’t already taken advantage of the scheme, you can read all the details here.

The government has been keen to stress that EBRS was put in place as a temporary measure, designed to be replaced by something else further down the line. In January 2023 the Treasury did just that, announcing the Energy Bills Discount Scheme (EBDS), which involves a discount on energy prices rather than a cost cap. So support is being scaled back to some extent, but the government says the change is partly because wholesale gas prices have fallen since the first scheme was announced.

As with EBRS, energy suppliers will automatically apply reductions to the bills of all eligible organisations as part of the new scheme, so you don’t need to apply to get your discount. Depending on when you’re reading this, it’s also worth noting that EBRS runs to the end of March 2023, with EBDS starting on 1 April 2023 and expected to last for a whole year.

Grants, charities and local funding

Many operators made use of hospitality business grants, the furlough scheme and business rates relief during the height of coronavirus restrictions, but all of these schemes have since been withdrawn. For those seeking out business grants for hospitality today, your best bet is probably a charity or your local council.

If your business is already working to be sustainable, or you’re ready to make your business more green, you might be eligible for an environmental grant. Glasgow City Council is currently offering Green Business Grants, where you can get up to £10,000 to finance projects designed to manage waste, reduce emissions and be more energy-efficient. The West of England Combined Authority has offered a similar scheme too, so it’s worth finding your local council’s website and seeing what’s out there, as new programmes are constantly emerging.

Local foundations are also teaming up with brands to provide grants. Take Foundation for Future London and its Westfield East Bank Creative Futures Fund, a five-year scheme investing £10 million into a number of east London boroughs. The programme has already awarded millions of pounds to a wide range of businesses, including caterers and cookery schools. You can sign up here to find out when year 4 of the scheme is set to open.

Organisations like Hospitality Action, the trade charity for the hospitality industry, offers grants too. But unlike council funding, Hospitality Action is more about supporting individuals who work or have worked in hospitality, whether they’re struggling due to illness, addiction, family problems, mental health issues, financial difficulty, or something else.

Business loans and other lending products

There’s also the option of borrowing money from a bank or lender and paying it back over time. Hospitality business loans are generally for companies that are in a position to grow, but it all depends on your financial history and what you’re looking to achieve. Fortunately, these days there’s a wider variety of providers to choose from, including both high street banks and newer, alternative lenders like Kriya, Fleximize, Close Brothers and more, some of which may be able to provide funding more quickly than high street banks.

There’s lots of reasons why a hospitality business owner might take out a loan, from keg and cask rentals to spreading the cost of a big stock purchase. If you’re looking to invest in a new piece of kitchen equipment, for example, you might consider asset finance, where you can get something big without spending a lot of money up-front, through hiring it or paying the purchase off over time.

As a hospitality business owner, there’s a high chance you’ll turn to a lender when it comes to property too, whether it’s buying somewhere, refurbishing an old space or expanding your existing premises. Maybe you’ve come across the perfect location, but the property needs a lot of work until it’s fit for purpose; perhaps you’re just looking to expand. Either way, there are plenty of specialist lenders out there, who could help you open your next pub, convert an office into a hotel or turn a dilapidated building into a neighbourhood restaurant, as long as you’re creditworthy enough.

Ultimately, there’s far less government support than there used to be, even though times are still tough for many hospitality firms. But there are still places where you can seek out external funding, from local councils to charities to traditional business loan providers.

Next steps

SmallBusiness.co.uk is working in partnership with Finpoint to help you find the best finance deals.

If you’re looking to make sense of your hospitality funding options, complete this quick application to access the UK’s largest panel of business lenders.

Read more

Merlin Griffiths: ‘We are creative, resilient, adaptable – this is hospitality!’

The post What are the funding options for hospitality businesses? appeared first on Small Business UK.

After years of explosive growth, things have changed for the UK tech sector. UK technology investment dropped by more than 20% in 2022, with nearly 80% of all founders saying it’s now harder to raise funds, according to Atomico’s State of European Tech report.

But it’s not all doom and gloom. And there’s still plenty of ways you can get tech company funding, whether you’re just starting up, have been trading for years or need something short-term to deal with a cash flow gap. As always, your options hinge on two key choices: give up a stake in your business or borrow something that you’ll have to pay back.

Small Business Pro will help with the heavy lifting of managing customers, 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.

1. Friends and family funding

Many businesses get started by cobbling together cash any way they can, from life savings to remortgaging a home. Sometimes entrepreneurs get money from people they know, like friends, relatives and others they’ve met along the way. Tech companies are no different: Jeff Bezos convinced his parents to become early investors in Amazon, while Steve Jobs sold his Volkswagen to raise the money for the first Apple computer.

When you’re getting funding to start your tech business, one reason you might turn to friends and family is that banks may be more hesitant to lend to you, especially if you have no financial track-record. With people you know, things are more informal and they may be willing to back something others deem too risky.

How does it work?

It all depends on who you know. Maybe you have an uncle trusting enough to lend to you on an interest-free basis, with relaxed repayment terms. Perhaps you have a wealthy school friend willing to make you a generous one-time gift. Maybe you know someone else up for lending you money, as long as it’s over a specific time period or in exchange for equity.

Either way, friends and family funding isn’t risk-free. Things get complicated if people are expecting a return you can’t deliver, particularly if they aren’t able to cope with that level of financial loss. So make sure you only accept money from people who can afford it, or those you’re willing to give away control to.

2. Government-backed funding

If you’re a tech company seeking funding, it’s worth considering the government’s Start Up Loans scheme. The programme has provided more than £800 million worth of loans for over 90,000 business ideas, covering a range of sectors.

Unlike business loans, the scheme offers unsecured personal loans from £500 to £25,000, with a fixed rate of 6% interest. What’s more, you can repay the loan over a period of up to five years and there’s no application fee or early repayment fee. There’s also scope to apply for a second loan.

How does it work?

First, check if you’re eligible by filling out some key details. After that you’ll need to complete an application form, which focuses on your financial situation and what you’d use the money for. If you pass a credit check, you’ll be asked for a business plan, cash flow forecast and personal survival budget.

After that, a dedicated business adviser will review your documents and help you get ready for assessment, the last stage of the process. If you’re successful, you can get a year of free post-loan mentoring and support too.

3. Equity funding

Equity funding is all about selling shares in exchange for investment in your business. It’s a common approach for entrepreneurs getting funding to start their tech business, who often turn to venture capital firms or angel investors.

If you aren’t familiar with venture capital (VC) firms, they tend to focus on early-stage businesses. VC firms sometimes inject millions of pounds as part of series A funding into the tech companies they have interests in, as well as multiple rounds of funding after that. They often take a minority stake, either 50% ownership or less, which means you’ll potentially give away a lot of control.

Angels do something similar, but usually invest less. They’ll offer advice and input too, but in a more hands-on way. After all, they’re investing their own money and have probably been successful entrepreneurs themselves.

How does it work?

First off, you’ll need to be sure you’re even relevant, so get to grips with your financials, how much you’re after and whether your business is at a stage VCs or angels will even consider. That means early stage, pre-revenue or pre-profit.

You can find angels through directories like the UK Angel Investment Network and the UK Business Angels Association (UKBAA), but it’s worth doing lots of research. With VCs, it’s a similar game: loads of research, including attending events and examining the portfolio companies of the VCs that pique your interest. Most of all, you’ll need a stellar pitch.

4. Invoice finance

Cash flow problems are one of the biggest issues tech companies face. Depending on how you make money, your income can be lumpy, as sales fluctuate and clients take time to pay. Meanwhile your outgoings stay the same, whether it’s rent, payroll or the money you need to pay suppliers.

When it comes to overdue invoices, chasing helps – and you can always call in the debt collectors, if it gets to that. But however you deal with late payments, things tend to drag on, sometimes taking months. With invoice finance, you can unlock up to 95% of the money you’re owed, sometimes within 48 hours.

How does it work?

Let’s say you run an online wholesale business and it’s coming up to Christmas, when you’re expecting lots of big orders. You’ll need to pay for extra stock and maybe even hire more staff, to ensure you can meet demand.

The problem is you’re owed £7,000. If you agree to an invoice finance deal which gets you 90% of that invoice up-front, with total fees and charges at 3%, you could get an advance of £6300. When your customer pays, you’ll get the remaining value of the invoice (£700) minus fees (£210), so you receive £490.

5. Working capital loans

You might take out a working capital loan for similar reasons to invoice finance, in that it can help you fund day-to-day operations. When it comes to tech company funding, working capital finance is particularly suited to seasonal businesses.

With a working capital loan, you could plug a gap and ensure your bills and other expenses still get paid. This type of funding is for the short-term and you’d pay it back within a year, so you wouldn’t use it to invest in equipment or property.

How does it work?

Let’s say you sell software to accountants, who are traditionally extremely busy during self-assessment tax return season. When they’re unreachable, your prospects are far less likely to buy. But you still need money coming in for your other commitments.

With a working capital loan, you could tide your business through that cash flow gap. As with most funding, the amount you can borrow depends on your credit score, how much you’re turning over and how long you’ve been in business, along with your industry and whether you have assets to secure the loan against.

6. Traditional business loans

The term “business loan” is a broad one and it includes some of the options we’ve listed above. Here we’re talking about loans that aren’t tied to your invoices or for working capital, which you might use to expand, by upgrading your offices, buying property or launching a new service line.

You could finance these activities with an unsecured business loan, which can be more straightforward. There’s also secured loans, where you might put down property or equipment as security. With secured finance, you can take advantage of fixed interest rates and early repayment; lenders might look more kindly on your credit score too.

How does it work?

Like other funding, lenders want evidence that you can pay them back, which they can get by reviewing your accounts, for instance. The other classic stuff applies too: some lenders will only consider your business if you’ve been trading for a specific number of years, or if you’re in a creditworthy sector.

Next steps

While the money out there for UK tech companies has been squeezed lately, that doesn’t mean there aren’t good options. A lot of it comes down to your goals and proving that you’ll achieve them. With VCs and angels tightening their belts, debt finance has become increasingly attractive for tech companies seeking funding, but it can be a tricky space to navigate.

SmallBusiness.co.uk is working in partnership with Finpoint to help you find the best finance deals.

If you’re looking for fast funding for your business, complete this quick application to access the UK’s largest panel of business lenders.

Read more

How to choose the right finance option for your SME

The post 6 types of business funding for UK tech companies appeared first on Small Business UK.

If you run a small business, the chances are you’re going to need a loan at some point. Maybe you already have, like a commercial mortgage for your first space, or the money you borrowed from family and friends to get your business off the ground. Perhaps you’ve been able to cover your costs up to now, but you suddenly need some extra cash to replace a piece of equipment or pay for an unexpected bill.

Whatever you need funding for, borrowing can be daunting when you’re new to it. The world of business finance is constantly evolving, as new schemes, providers and lending products emerge. That’s why we’ve put together this guide, to help you understand what small business loans are all about and how to get one.

What is a small business loan?

It may seem obvious, but the main thing that distinguishes business loans from personal loans is that they’re used for commercial activities. If you don’t want to impact cash flow or dig too deep into your cash reserves, the right funding could help you cover a financial gap or buy something big without spending a lot up front.

Just as you’d pay off a house with a mortgage, a business loan can allow you to access something just beyond your reach, by borrowing money that you pay back over time with interest.

What’s the difference between a secured loan and an unsecured loan?

When people talk about assets they’re usually talking about things like stock, machinery, vehicles and commercial property. But if you run one of the UK’s five million small businesses, it’s likely that your company will have fewer assets than a large or mid-sized one. This lack of assets can make it harder to take out a large loan, but there’s still scope to get something more short-term.

Lenders see assets as security, which they can use to ensure they’ll get their money back if you can’t pay back a loan.That’s why loans which aren’t secured against something valuable are called unsecured loans and are riskier for lenders to take on.

Secured loans, on the other hand, tend to be used for borrowing more substantial sums of money, since they give lenders a guarantee that they’ll be able to get back the value of the loan if you default. Secured loans have lower interest rates as a result.

What do small businesses use loans for?

Small business owners use loans for all types of things, from buying property to plugging short-term cash flow gaps. It all depends on your company’s financial situation and what you’re trying to achieve. Here’s a few examples:

1. A seasonal business looking to cover working capital

Let’s say you run a seasonal business, like a ski equipment shop, that performs well during winter but sells a lot less during the summer months. If your financials make a strong enough case for your company’s high sales during peak periods, you could take out a working capital loan to help pay for everyday costs.

This type of finance could take the pressure off wages, rent and utilities, which tend to remain constant even when your business is earning less.

2. A manufacturing firm looking to invest in new equipment

Let’s imagine your business makes aircraft parts and you’ve just signed a contract with a client looking to make a big order. With asset finance, you could ramp up production by either hiring a new piece of machinery or spreading the cost of an item that you eventually own outright.

Either way, by taking out a business loan to fulfil your new client’s order, you’ll also be able to enhance your company’s capacity and earn more money, without a big outlay. The interest on the loan may cost your business money, but it’ll also make your operation more effective and put it in a better position to grow in the long-term.

3. A recruitment agency looking to unlock the cash in its invoices

Let’s say you run a recruitment firm, where a lot of your clients take a long time to pay your invoices. Your business might be performing well on paper, but the outstanding payments your business is owed can make it difficult to cover other costs like VAT, stock purchases and payroll.

With invoice finance, you could unlock cash more quickly, by selling those unpaid invoices to a lender and releasing almost all of the cash they represent, rather than waiting months. Once your client eventually pays what they owe, you can pay back the lender.

How does a small business loan work?

From a lender’s point of view, the most important thing about a business loan is finding proof that you’ll be able to pay it back. If the lender has that assurance – by looking at your financials and the things you own, for example – then they’ll approve your application and eventually deposit the funding you’ve asked for into your account.

After that, it’s your responsibility to repay the loan, often in monthly instalments and with the interest on top. The rate of interest may depend on your business’s financial circumstances and will vary between different lenders, based on things like your business’s creditworthiness and the lender’s appetite for risk more broadly.

How do you apply for a small business loan?

When you’re ready to take out a loan, the first thing you need to do is figure out what type of funding you need. If you’re looking to invest in something more long-term like an asset or a property, then you’re probably in the market for asset finance, a commercial mortgage or a traditional business loan. If you need something more flexible, with a predetermined limit where you can withdraw money as and when you require it, then you might benefit from a revolving credit agreement.

Whatever you need the money for, lenders will want to know how much you’d like to borrow and over how long. Once you apply, they’ll ask to see your accounts too – sometimes up to three years of them – so they can understand how much money you’re making. It’s also worth noting that many lenders only deal with businesses that have been trading for a certain number of years and are turning over a certain amount.

As always, lenders want to establish if you’re creditworthy, so they’ll look at your profits too, to ensure you can afford to repay a loan alongside your existing expenses. They’ll also want to understand the amount of debt you have already and the things you own, which could potentially be used as security. 

Taking out a loan as a small business owner doesn’t have to be difficult. And even though there’s an enormous amount of lenders out there, they each have their own specialties, which can work in your favour.

Next steps

SmallBusiness.co.uk is working in partnership with trusted lenders to help you find the best finance deals.

If you’re looking for fast funding for your business, complete this quick application to access our panel of business lenders.

Read more

What are the funding options for hospitality businesses?

6 types of business funding for UK tech companies

The post A guide to getting a small business loan appeared first on Small Business UK.

If you run a small business, you’re probably eagerly anticipating the busiest shopping period of the year. With a billion active monthly users globally, TikTok offers many opportunities for SMEs to get on someone’s wish list this Christmas.

Indeed, 47 per cent of people on TikTok have already purchased something they like on the platform. According to 2022 TikTok app data, the hashtag #TikTokMadeMeBuyIt got more than 29bn views.

But with holiday shopping well underway, how can an SME make the most of TikTok to increase sales and grow their business? Try TikTok for Business.

What is TikTok for Business?

For SMEs looking to target more customers and drive results, TikTok for Business offers a suite of products that help small businesses grow. Even though it seems late in the season, it’s never too late to begin a campaign with TikTok For Business.

Take thortful, for example – the UK’s first greeting card marketplace. Earlier this year thortful needed to attract new customers and build awareness of its wide array of cards and gifts. The brand tapped into TikTok’s popular trends and used humour to showcase their products. They reached over 1.7m users, with their videos receiving over 4.4m views.

What are the benefits of TikTok for your SME this Christmas?

People all over the UK turn to TikTok to discover trends, recommendations and their next purchase throughout the year. It’s no surprise that Christmas shoppers go to TikTok for gift inspiration – 82 per cent of users say they have discovered an SMB on TikTok before seeing them elsewhere.

TikTok for Business is offering SMEs access to the Holiday Resource Hub, a one-stop shop filled with useful information to help SMEs win the holiday season, including a free playbook with a step-by-step guide to the season including their Christmas checklist.

5-step Christmas checklist:

Before the big day, take these steps to get your marketing plan in order.

#1 Refine creative strategy

Develop a voice on TikTok and determine what you want to show your audience.

It’s a light-hearted platform so it’s ideal for showing off the fun side of your business. Think tips, tricks and comedy shorts – TikTok stats show that three out of five users go to the platform for entertainment so keep that in mind when you’re doing your planning. If you want to keep it more informative, include short information in text overlays around the theme of your video. For example, how a particular child’s toy might be beneficial to their learning with five text overlays explaining why.

Remember, ads that look like native videos do well. Have a play with holiday trends – nothing too polished, though. Users like a casual, authentic image. You could offer fun giveaways or get in on Christmas trends such as decorating the Christmas tree, Christmas wish lists and easy holiday meals.

Turn the sound on too, so that users will feel more engaged!

#2 Find and define your audience

TikTok lets you set your parameters to target new users using Ads Manager. Ads Manager can guide the ad formats you use and target your audience based on age, location, gender, interests and other unique variables. 

What’s more, you can create custom and lookalike audiences (that share commonalities with your current audience) to expand your range.

#3 Set your budget and bidding strategies

Minimum ad spends apply but be clear from the start on how much you want to spend for your ads. If you’re satisfied with your performance, it’s recommended you increase your budget by 20-30 per cent every day.

You set your bidding strategy when you set up your ad group. Find out more about bidding strategies here.

#4 Build your ad format strategy

Over half (52 per cent) of TikTok users that have come across SMB content on TikTok have gone on to make a purchase.

Ads can take many forms on TikTok:

In-Feed Ads:  The standard ad format, embeds a video that plays automatically in the For You feed. This format runs up to a max of 60 seconds.

Spark Ads: A native ad format that allows businesses to boost posts from their own Business Accounts or Creator profiles as In-Feed Ads. Unlike other ad formats, users can interact with Spark Ads, just like organic videos. Users can comment, like and share but also visit the brand’s or the creator’s profile associated with the video. 

Collection Ads: Enable people to seamlessly discover and browse products in a full-screen mobile experience. Collection Ads lead to an Instant Gallery Page where people can explore a curated collection of your products.

Lead Generation: Allows you to create interest in your business and collect information to convert prospects into customers. Lead Generation Ads deliver qualified leads directly to you, saving your business time and money.

E-Commerce Integrations: TikTok integrates with e-commerce merchants allowing you to add TikTok as a sales and advertising channel to your website. The Integrations streamlines the process of creating or linking your TikTok Ads Manager account, syncing your product catalogue and installing the TikTok pixel to enable paid and organic visibility features.

#5 Optimise

Allow your campaign time to adjust before rushing into optimisations. Refreshing your creative can help, every seven days ideally. 

Make incremental changes to your bid and budget when you make adjustments. Don’t change your budget more than 30 per cent from the previous budget setting and don’t change your bid more than 20 per cent from the original setting.

Try and optimise before your Christmas ad campaign begins. Check you’re targeting the right audience, re-jigging your ads based on how users interact with them and test constantly to see what does and what doesn’t work.

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5 tips to make your small business TikTok marketing a success

The post Why your small business should be selling on TikTok this Christmas appeared first on Small Business UK.

To stay afloat, it’s important to have more money coming in than going out – whether that’s bringing in more sales or finding creative ways to cut expenses.

In this article from payments network Rapyd, we’ll cover four top tips on how the right payment processor could help you improve your business finances and avoid getting caught in a cashflow crunch.

Top 4 tips to improve cashflow

Read on for all the tips or jump straight to the most relevant one for your business:

1. Cut fees to keep more from every sale

2. Make it easy for your customers to pay you

3. Consider raising your prices to fight inflation

4. Go global and grow your sales

#1 Cut fees to keep more from every sale

If your business takes card payments, there could be a way to cut costs. Did you know that you don’t have to go with the default payment processor offered by ecommerce platforms like Wix, WooCommerce and Shopify?

Most quality payment processing companies offer plugins that can help you reach more customers and can often lower the transaction fees you pay when people buy from you online – and they are easy to install.

Shop around to find a competitive payment processing rate with low transaction fees. If you’re already working with a provider, don’t be afraid to reach out and renegotiate your rate. In Ireland and the UK, you can save up to 80% on processing fees with Rapyd.

Another important thing to consider is how long it will take you to have access to your funds. You’ll want to make sure the settlement terms work for your business. With Rapyd, you can save money on processing fees and get a free next-day settlement.

#2 Make it easy for customers to pay

To maintain a healthy cashflow you’ll want to make it easy to get paid. Go with a payment processing company that accepts all the ways your customers might want to pay. Today’s customers want to use their preferred local payment methods and they expect options.

Customers want to make contactless payments with their phones and use apps and ewallets. With Rapyd, you can offer hundreds of payment types, including cards, digital wallets, bank transfers and cash to let your customers pay using the methods they trust.

There are other ways to make it easier for customers to pay too. Sending invoices, payment links and automated billing can help speed up the pay up. Rapyd lets you send invoices and easily add a payment link to SMS, WhatsApp, emails and anywhere you can paste a link. In the UK, Rapyd supports the Faster Payments System to facilitate real-time payments for virtually everyone with a bank account. Rapyd also offers automated subscription payments and recurring billing solutions.

#3 Consider raising prices to fight inflation

Is inflation taking a big bite out of your profits? Bite back without upsetting your customers. Right now, everyone is dealing with inflation and looking for ways to save money by cutting expenses. One way to hold onto cash longer is to negotiate your payment terms with suppliers. Having more time to pay allows you to better control your available resources. Managing inventory is vital to maintaining the health of your business as getting caught with too much or too little inventory is a stressor.

Save money by seeking out more affordable supply options, often in other countries.

Raising your prices is another option to consider. It’s not always popular but it’s a guaranteed way to bring in more money. To avoid any backlash, let your customers know well in advance and explain the reasoning behind the price increase. In this economy, it can be as simple as sharing the increased costs of supplies instead of taking on the profit loss burden alone.

#4 Go global to grow sales

Before the pandemic, 58% of small businesses reported having international customers. With online sales skyrocketing, it’s time to evaluate your business strategy to determine if expanding internationally is right for you.

By enabling cross-border commerce you’ll be able to reach millions of new customers. Rapyd can help you accept payments in 100+ countries and payout in 190+ countries. If you’re ready to expand your business internationally, Rapyd can help you keep foreign exchange fees low and create a customised checkout experience in sixteen languages with locally preferred payment methods.

Opening your business to a world of new customers is another clever way to strengthen your cashflow.

Final thoughts

There’s no denying how tough it is to be a small business owner now, so keeping on top of costs is more crucial than ever.

Here’s a summary of our top tips:

1. Remember, the easiest way to keep cash flowing is to increase your sales. Reducing transaction fees and business expenses also help.
2. Keep the money coming in by accepting new and popular payment methods, like sending invoices and payment links.
3. Are your prices in line with recent increases in inflation? Update your prices without alienating your customers.
4. Grow your business by expanding into new markets and even new countries and maintain a healthy cashflow for your business. 

Rapyd has the tools and expertise to help you grow your business and avoid cashflow problems. Learn more and get started at Rapyd.net.

The post Make money move to avoid a cashflow crunch appeared first on Small Business UK.

As a highly developed, market-oriented economy, the UK relies on consumers to spend, with seasonal fluctuations also having a considerable impact on the daily cash requirements of small businesses. Here we’ll discuss methods to improve your cash flow throughout the year to avoid any potential issues and predict when you might need additional funding.

1. Explore business loans

A standard term or business loan is often the first port of call for many SMEs. Businesses decide how much they need, how long they predict they’ll need to pay it back, and are charged a fixed-interest rate for the duration of the loan.

2. Create a cash flow forecast

Most of us are familiar with the yearly cash flow forecast. However, it’s wise to be more granular, by creating a monthly cash flow statement and establishing a monthly budget. Developing a disciplined approach to spending, one where you can pinpoint the ebb and flow of revenue can help you identify and avoid any potential budget gaps.

3. Invoice promptly

If you offer 30–60 day grace periods for your customers to pay their invoices, you’ll need to have a robust collections procedure to ensure this period doesn’t get stretched. You might also consider offering an early settlement discount within 14 days, at perhaps a 1-2 per cent reduction.

4. Ask large creditors for an extension

If you’re experiencing a shortfall in working capital, it might be an option to ask your creditors for extended payment terms. This isn’t a hypocritical act of opportunism; it’s effective management. These creditors could, for example, be utility firms prepared to match payment with your business income.

5. Reduce expenses

It’s good business housekeeping to check your monthly budget and identify any unnecessary spending periodically. Ensuring your outgoings are lower than incomings ensures that your business is workable and running cash flow positive.

6. Increase prices

Many businesses fear putting up prices, assuming that the customer will vanish as soon as they do. However, you might want to compare prices with your competitors to see if you’re cheaper than others. There’s a difference between what represents value for money and what’s affordable.

7. Get a business credit card

A business credit card can be a great way to help ward off any cash flow issues, such as a temporary lack of cash coming into the business, using it to pay for anything from operation costs to new stock or employee expenses.

8. Improve profit margins

You don’t just increase your profit margins by raising prices since the costs your business pays can dramatically affect the overall profit you generate. If you don’t manage your costs well, you’ll end up harming your business.

It’s therefore up to you to ensure you’ve completed a full competitor analysis in your market and negotiate hard with your suppliers and creditors. It’s in their interest to see you succeed, so ask what they can do to help.

9. Get imaginative with your product/service offering

You can avoid cash flow challenges by identifying your quiet times before they happen and implementing countermeasures through clever sales tactics. If, for example, you’re a restaurant suffering slow sales after Christmas, get busy by offering a discount for the third visit before Easter. It’s up to you to get imaginative to think of ways to increase sales through direct communication.

10. Maintain healthy restocking

If you’re a business that sells any products, overstocking could seriously affect cash flow. You might consider investing in inventory management software. It can tell you what’s selling, illustrate your sales pattern and suggest a workable buying pattern, including automatically placing orders.

11. Accept online and card payments

It’s a well-known fact that businesses that don’t take cards or charge a ‘minimum spend’ lose business. We’ve all walked away from shops that don’t accept cards and then struggled to find an ATM on the high street.

Applying for card processing is straightforward, and many lenders are eager to get you on board if your business is healthy and viable. You can start the application process online, and once accepted, you could be eligible for alternative finance options such as a merchant cash advance.

12. Working capital finance

You can consider taking out additional funding to prevent cash flow issues before they happen, such as looking into working capital finance or other short-term business loans.

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.

13. Flexible business overdraft

A business overdraft is a set amount usually added as a facility to a current account to smooth out short-term cash flow issues. If needed, the overdraft limit is there, and you only pay interest on the amount used.

You’re under no obligation to use the overdraft, and you won’t incur any costs if you don’t use it, although you might pay an arrangement fee, and the bank may withdraw it if your credit rating changes or it’s not put to work for some time.

14. Merchant cash advances

A merchant cash advance can be structured as a lump sum payment to a business in exchange for an agreed-upon percentage of future credit or debit card transactions.

15. Invoice finance

Invoice finance enables you to unlock cash from your debtor book, which means you get paid faster for completed work, leaving you to focus on what you do best, running your business.

16. Asset Refinancing finance

Asset refinancing is a method to unlock the tangible assets of the business to drive improvements in working capital and business performance.

Is my business eligible?

From limited companies to start-ups, if your company can meet its financial obligations, then yes. There are many kinds of finance available with a lender to suit every business and every business’s need.

Our award-winning platform, Funding Cloud(™), accurately and quickly matches businesses with the right lender and finance option for their needs. From unsecured business loans to revolving credit facilities and a merchant cash advance, we work with over 120 lenders offering dozens of lending products. Apply for funding in minutes – our record from application to credit approval is just 20 seconds, and cash in the bank within as little as 18 minutes.

Apply today to get the funding you need to trade, plan, and grow with confidence.

Get business finance today

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What are the funding options for hospitality businesses?

The post 16 ways to improve your business cash flow appeared first on Small Business UK.

Moving an idea quickly from conception to execution before the competition has always been critical to staying ahead of the curve – especially in the innovation-led small business landscape.

But delivering at speed is no longer a guarantee of business success. The unpredictable nature of the past few years, plus the current high inflation and slowing growth environment – has highlighted that it is equally important to be able to pivot at pace.

So how can you ensure your culture, teams and tech are as agile as they need to be to meet constantly changing demands? Here are our top tips for harnessing the power of technology to stay nimble and maximise new opportunities – from concept to rollout – when they come along.

Facilitate easy, instinctive conversations

The best ideas come out of flowing, natural conversations, so make sure you’re giving your teams the communications channels that enable them to have these throughout the day. For the price of a single coffee (£3), you can equip each of your team with Teams Essentials and give them access to unlimited chat, Teams meetings and video calls – all of which offer more instantaneous communication for creative decision-making than stop-start email ping pong.

Enable hybrid collaboration

There’s an energy and creativity that comes from seeing your teammates in person and bouncing ideas around together. But now, more often than not, work colleagues can be sitting in multiple locations at any one time.

Ensure your teams can easily come together whenever the need for creativity strikes. With Teams meetings your team can all see each other, work on docs together, share instant virtual reactions to ideas and even create breakout rooms to hold mini brainstorms within a wider meeting.

Keep up the pace

Once you’ve got an idea you’re happy with, make sure you can roll it out as quickly as possible – before your competition does. Connecting your teams with shared files that are always available will help keep ideas and progress flowing.

With Microsoft 365 for Business, you can get 1 TB (terabyte) of cloud storage, enabling shared live docs to be accessed across all devices. Combined with Teams, it makes it easy for your team to work together in real time or in their own time to sustain project momentum.  

Facilitate each of your team to find their ‘groove’

As any Olympic team knows, peak team agility is reached when you enable individuals to work in their own optimum way. Some of your team might be morning people; others might be evening people. But that doesn’t have to slow the pace.

With live docs always available through Teams, your team can work synchronously or asynchronously on projects to collectively drive a project forward. They can even share recordings and transcripts of Teams meetings so that everyone is fully up to date on a project’s status even if they’re unable to attend.

Every second counts

When you’re working flat out on a project, every second really does count. By choosing a tech solution that brings everything together in one place you can cut down on time-intensive app and platform swapping.

It might seem like a minimal consideration, but think how long it takes to come out of one account to access another and then multiply that out over several times a day. Over the course of a year, platform swapping can amount to days’ worth of lost creative time. But on the flip side, if you make that time up by using a single seamless solution, it could be what gives you that all-important competitive edge.

Collaborate with confidence

There’s no point in doing innovative work on a sector-leading project if your system is in danger of being hacked and your ideas stolen. Prevent the risk of a security breach from phishing or ransomware which can derail progress by protecting yourself with robust security that works across your systems.

Microsoft Defender offers sector leading ‘press and play’ security, with 24/7 human and AI analysis of trillions of signals and automatic checking of URLs, files and attachments in real time, to disable threats before they take effect.

Choose a platform that scales with you

When you’re a business that is growing fast it’s key to choose a platform that can flex to meet your changing needs so you can maximise opportunities as they present themselves.

Clifton Coffee Roasters are a case in point. Their in-person coffee masterclasses were once a cornerstone of their business but dried up overnight during lockdown. Fast-forward a couple of years and what could have broken their business has made them thanks to their ability to pivot and thrive.

Today, they have supplemented their in-person masterclasses with Teams-based masterclasses that reach geographically far wider, larger audiences, thanks to the ability to host everything from one-to-one meetings to interactive webinars using Teams.

In fact, using Teams, Clifton Coffee Roasters have been able to reach 20 to 30 times more customers than they could in person, which has in turn given them a strong enough customer base to launch a thriving coffee subscription business – unimaginable just two years ago. Clear evidence of the positive gains you reap from being agile.

Be nimble, but stay true to your roots

While being able to change course to respond to new needs and challenges is important, staying true to your core mission is equally vital.

Priority Bicycles in New York offer a great example of how to adapt authentically. When restrictions prevented them from offering their famous in-shop expertise, they pivoted to offer hugely popular bookable one-to-one slots with their bike experts via Teams.

This approach enabled them to reach new global audiences and to expand into offering virtual cycle repair and support services, all while staying true to their ethos of creating close customer relationships by offering valued expertise.

Teams Essentials also supports the kind of customer collaboration Tiffany mentions, thanks to private group chats and full integration with Gmail, as well as other third-party email and calendar solutions. This makes client diary planning and scheduling fast, seamless and easy.  

There is no doubt that the years ahead hold many challenges. But every challenge comes with a new opportunity if you’re in a position to respond with creativity and agility. So why not start looking at how you can embrace agility across your business to turbo change your future?

If you’d like to know more about how technology can help you improve agility, communications, collaboration and creativity in a modern small business environment visit aka.MS/HybridSMB for more help and guidance.  

Read more

Planning for your first year in business

The post Agility – the new rocket fuel for today’s SMBs appeared first on Small Business UK.

It’s perhaps the ultimate paradox of running a small business today. Awareness of the value of culture and social connection to company life and business success has never been higher. Yet, in the new era of flexible working, nurturing a common culture can prove tricky. Building a shared understanding of what your organisation stands for and ‘how things are done around here’ is tougher than ever, because ‘around here’ can now be anywhere. 

So how can you create that all-important unique feel that sets your company apart and that provides its glue? That helps you attract and retain diverse talent, aligns your teams and keeps everyone invested in driving your business forward?

Building a strong culture is a complex and organic process, but technology can help. As Microsoft announces the launch of Teams Essentials for UK small businesses, we explore six ways you can use the platform to help build strong cultural foundations in the flexible workplace.

1. Make communication natural  

Put a kettle in any office and it becomes an instant draw for connection and collaboration. That’s because it stimulates natural conversation, which is when we’re at our most relaxed and creative. Things get done over coffee.

So help your teams emulate that productive communications experience wherever they are. For the price of a single coffee (£3) you can get a month’s subscription to Teams Essentials for each of your team giving them unlimited chat, Teams meetings and video calls.

While email tennis can be impersonal, chat and short Teams meetings offer warmer, more natural communications experiences and enable collaborative decision-making that everyone feels involved in – vital in any strong culture.

2. Design seamless experiences

Martine Haas, director of the Lauder Institute for Management and International Studies was recently quoted in Harvard Business Review as saying: “Hybrid working risks creating a ‘dominant class’ of those who feel like they’re central to the organisation and strongly committed to it and an ‘underclass’ of those who feel peripheral and disconnected.” (Harvard Business Review, Feb 15 2022).

Two-tier working experiences are divisive. So creating seamless experiences in which everyone feels equally included has to be a priority in establishing a strong company culture.

When setting up meetings, ensure everyone’s experience is equally engaging whether they’re in the office, at their kitchen table or in a café. Using Teams, everyone can participate via video or instant chat and give virtual reactions to increase involvement without interrupting flow. Breakout rooms can facilitate smaller group discussions and create an even greater sense of social connection and inclusion.

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.

3. Prioritise inclusivity

When creating seamless experiences across different locations, try to also ensure you’re creating accessible experiences that make your culture an inclusive one. Teams Essentials makes this easier than you might think. For instance when running a live event you can select the Captions option to translate content into up to six languages and you can provide transcripts and recordings of meetings for those who want to digest information at their own pace.

Before sharing a Word doc, PowerPoint or email, you can also click on the Accessibility Checker button (that drops down from the Review tab), to take recommended actions and make your content more accessible to all. Discover more accessibility tips on the Microsoft website.

Ben Whitter, founder and CEO of HEX, a global thought-leader in human and employee experience, believes that technology is imperative to create a truly inclusive workspace:

“Creating spaces and places, whether digital or in-person, that enable our best work is a primary concern of all businesses now.

From our research at HEX, we’ve found that it is indeed possible to create a company where people feel like they belong, and increasingly, technology is working seamlessly in the background and the foreground to bring that connection to life alongside leaders who role model what a brand and business represents in the world.”

4. Communicate what great culture means to you 

Think about the world’s strongest brands and most have passionate leaders who talk freely about their company’s values. When leaders take the time to articulate the culture they are looking to build and emulate the behaviours they want to see, they create valuable clarity – a common goal to strive for and a common understanding of how to get there.

Running regular Teams training and team building sessions can help establish a strong culture. By using Cameo in PowerPoint you can insert your video feed directly into your presentation to communicate your vision with more expression as you present. And with shared files always available through Teams Essentials, you and your team can continue to exchange ideas on how to build your culture together.

5. Build a positive culture by encouraging healthy habits   

Hybrid working, when executed poorly, could risk being associated with an ‘always-on’ approach that over time creates resentment and erodes company culture. But it needn’t be that way.

Prioritise wellbeing by using technology to positively reinforce work-life balance and create the type of caring culture that is highly prized today.

Encourage healthy working habits by scheduling in ‘no meeting’ slots in Outlook so people can enjoy valued focus time. You can also use Outlook to set shorter default meeting times to encourage breaks.

And use the flexibility that technology enables to help people prioritise what matters to them. Working together synchronously might be important when you’re nearing a deadline, but at other times – with your files always live and available on Teams – you can work asynchronously and still be productive. By enabling the runner in your team to get out in the morning before the heat of the day, or a parent to do their work late so they can make the most of play time, you show people you care about their whole selves – not just their work selves. And that counts for everything in creating a culture people feel aligned to.

Ben Whitter thinks the road to improvement should be taken step by step:

 “A strong company culture is delivered one experience at a time. From the big moments to the smaller ones, culture forms over the long-term and serves as a powerful unifying force for the entire business. It propels companies forward and accelerates their progress.

It’s why we often see small businesses having major impact – it’s no accident, they have managed to co-create a company that people are proud of through consistent and human-centred actions.”

6. Prioritise connection

Remote working can feel…remote. So finally, prioritise connection in your organisation. Although we’re all about Teams, don’t just use Teams for meetings! Look for other potential touchpoints – work anniversaries, project milestones, feel-good Fridays – when you can come together and celebrate what you’ve collectively achieved so that everyone feels seen, heard, valued and connected to your mission – and to each other.

David Cummings, author of Think Outside the Inbox, calls corporate culture: “the only sustainable competitive advantage that is completely within the control of the entrepreneur.”  So why not grab that control today and start reaping the rewards, for your people and for your bottom line?

If you’d like to know more about how technology can help you enhance your communications, culture and security visit aka.MS/HybridSMB for more help and advice. 

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Tooling up for hybrid

The post Six ways to boost your small company’s culture with technology appeared first on Small Business UK.

Having robust defences in place to protect your business and everything you have worked for, has never been more important or more challenging.

In the past year alone there has been a 300 per cent increase in ransomware attacks, with ONS research showing that two thirds of medium-sized businesses have been subject to at least one cyber attack in the past 12 months, with the average total financial impact of a data breach for SMBs adding up to $105,000 per company in 2021.

This increased threat level has coincided with new ways of working, exposing businesses to added risks. Now, so many (previously office-based) employees are working from multiple locations across a range of work and personal devices, the size of the potential attack space, and resulting vulnerabilities – have increased.

So how can you adequately protect your business from these risks? And do so without sacrificing the quality of the working experience for your teams – or diverting too much valuable time and energy away from growing the business?

Whether you’re an owner-manager or the IT decision-maker in your business, following these five simple steps can take you from a state of security paralysis or alert fatigue to a more comfortable position of proactive security management. Which gives you greater peace of mind and more time to focus on the decisions that matter most to you.

Step one: Seal the gaps

New flexible working patterns can bring real advantages. But having employees working across multiple geographical locations, using multiple connections, also exposes gaps in your security. And there’s nothing hackers and attackers love more than gaps!

Each device used by staff to access your systems is an endpoint – effectively a gate into your world. When an endpoint is left unprotected, it leaves that gate unlocked and open to anyone.

Which makes padlocking your gates or endpoints a real priority. By using an integrated security platform like Microsoft Defender for Business designed to bring enterprise-grade security to companies with up to 300 people – you can secure your endpoints across all devices, in all environments. This leaves people free to get on with their work from anywhere, by stopping attacks before they happen.

Step two: Get an outside expert view

Security risks today are more sophisticated than ever and they’re constantly evolving, making it even more difficult to stay ahead of the game. But you don’t have to do this alone, especially when you have enough on your plate already. So, call in an outside expert for a security assessment, just like you’d call in a building surveyor to check out your building’s foundations.

With Microsoft Secure Score – in the Microsoft 365 Defender portal – you can gain immediate actionable advice on how you can ramp up security across all your devices, apps and identity checks. This helps you prioritise your quickest security wins and gives you a clear checklist of actions to take that will shore up your business’ defences long-term.

Step three: Call in back-up

Even once you’ve started protecting your devices and found the best ways to ramp up your security, you’re never going to be a totally attack-free zone. But you can’t personally stay on alert 24/7 when you’re busy looking after customers, spotting new opportunities and keeping your teams motivated. So, call in back-up, just like the emergency services do.

With a cloud-connected, AI-powered service like Microsoft Defender for Business, your systems can be monitored automatically 24/7, giving you the confidence that you’ll be alerted in real time to any serious or trending threats.

Intelligent, automated investigation, response and resolution of threats also removes the hassle of you being alerted to every single low-priority security risk, freeing you up to grow your business and protect it from more sophisticated threats.

Step four: Move from reactive to proactive

As we all know from looking after our own homes, having an alarm in place to alert you any break-in attempts is essential, but if you can prevent those attacks from occurring in the first place, it’s even better.

At home you might double lock the doors, close the windows and leave a low energy light on. With your IT systems you can do something similar by ensuring you have a system in place that will constantly check all incoming data on your behalf. With Defender for Business, you get proactive protection built-in, with 24/7 human and AI analysis of trillions of signals. Plus, automatic detection of all URLs, incoming files and attachments to disable threats before they have the chance to make an impact.

Step five: Futureproof your security

If you’re looking to scale up in the future, having to onboard multiple new personnel and teams who will be working flexibly across hybrid environments could be time-consuming, or even compromise the security you’ve worked hard to build up, which is why choosing protection that can grow with you is so important.

Using a tool like Defender for Business, with simplified, wizard-driven set up and activated out-of-the box security policies – can significantly reduce the time it takes to configure and manage protection for each device, While also ensuring your malware detection and prevention software is kept totally up to date. You can also rest easy knowing that no matter how fast your organisation grows, all your devices can be protected in minutes rather than days, no matter where they are being used.

We’ve all made a rapid shift to a more flexible – sometimes more challenging – but ultimately more rewarding way of working. Now we must make sure small businesses are moving just as quickly to a more secure way of working. Because only by doing this can we continue to offer greater working freedoms – take full advantage of the switch to the cloud, while mitigating the threat of rising cyber crime – and protect everything we’ve worked so hard to build.

Professor Sally Eaves, CEO of Tomorrow’s Tech Today and chair of Global Cyber Trust, Global Foundation of Cyber Studies, reflects on the current security landscape, barriers and opportunities that lie ahead for business of all sizes:

“It is clear that enabling ‘Security At Any Size’ is a modern day business imperative to protect organisations from SMB to Enterprise alongside their consumers and ecosystem partners from the ongoing escalation in cybersecurity threats. Vectors of risk include the rise of a global cybercrime economy and related services, especially ransomware where the starting price of an attack kit is now a mere $66 – and so significantly lowering cost barriers of entry.

“Additional challenges include the increasing scale and volume of attacks from Nation-State Actors, the exponentially larger attack landscape created by OT and IOT Security Convergence and our changing working habits as we move to more hybrid and distributed models, with new behaviours, such as the rise of Bring Your Own Device (BOYD). Disinformation is also emerging as a growing threat which can inject persuasion and psychological manipulation into cyber attack campaigns, fueled by advances in AI, ML and graphics to create deepfakes and fabricate synthetic media. 

“In combination, this creates complexity and a perfect storm for cyber disruption. With the resiliency of a business deeply tied to its cyber resilience, a move to always on, proactive security is imperative, especially for SMBs who are typically more prone to attack, but yet have less resource to deal with them. Indeed whilst SMBs offer significant growth and employment value to the global economy they also afford substantial data and ransom value to cyber bad actors, in particular as a route of entry into larger supply chains.

“With key barriers to better SMB protection including lack of investment capacity and resources alongside an under-developed shared responsibility security culture and an overall lack of awareness of the technology, training and support that ‘is actually within reach’, protection such as Microsoft Defender for Business could not be more timely. This exemplifies the democratisation of enterprise level security to organisations of any size, helps move beyond reactive to proactive threat intelligence and supports the integration of people, processes, networks, systems, culture, education and technology to consistently improve your cybersecurity posture.”

Microsoft Defender for Business offers enterprise-grade security to SMBs and is a key part of our commitment to ‘security for all’. It’s now available as a cost-effective standalone security solution or as part of Microsoft 365 Business Premium.

If you’d like to find out more about the ways in which Microsoft Defender for Business can help improve your security and productivity in today’s flexible work environments visit aka.MS/SecureSMB for more videos, case studies, information and guidance.

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Futureproofing your business for hybrid

The post Five ways to boost SMB cyber defence so you can focus on growth appeared first on Small Business UK.

Small business owners are busy. You cannot afford to waste your time on tasks that generate low ROI for your business. Technology has now advanced to a stage where you can automate several tasks. Best of all, small businesses can now leverage the platforms that once solely applied to enterprises.

You must digitally transform your small business, and the first step is to use technological solutions in important business functions. Here are four areas where technology will save you time and help you focus your energy on tasks that boost profits.

Contract management

How often have you sent PDFs of contracts repeatedly over email to your suppliers and customers? How often have you lost track of these important documents? The typical small business owner stores digital copies of contracts on their computer and struggles to retrieve important information.

Automating several aspects of contract management has its advantages. You can sign contracts faster, manage your contract repository easily and retrieve important contact information when you need it. If a full-blown solution doesn’t appeal to you, use a signature maker to digitally store your signature. You can insert this signature in all of your contracts quickly and securely.

A robust contract management platform will help you organise your contracts across several attributes. Thanks to templated contracts, you can organise documents according to deal size, payout terms and profitability. These metrics will help you pursue better clients and let go of ones that do not serve your goals anymore.

Financial projection

Financial projection platforms used to apply only to enterprises due to their complexity. However, modern platforms scale to businesses of all sizes, and you must leverage the power of financial analytics in your business.

For instance, a good financial management platform will help you project cashflow and working capital levels. You can model different business scenarios, figure out when you need funding and negotiate better prices with your suppliers as a result. There are different degrees to which you can use a financial projection platform.

The most sophisticated ones centralise your expense management and financial information onto a single dashboard. If these features are overkill, you can always opt for lower levels of automation, such as automating invoice creation and delivery. You can create payment collection workflows that deliver reminders to customers before due dates.

Some platforms even alert you to potential supplier discounts if you pay early. Thus, automation might seem expensive at first, but you’ll save money in the long run.

Remote HR

Remote work is here to stay, and you must account for it in your business. Many small business owners think small and hire just local candidates. If you’re living in an area that lacks people with the skills you need, this approach can leave you in a tough spot.

Instead, cast your net as wide as possible and embrace remote work. Naturally, not every position will lend itself well to remote work but look as widely as possible when recruiting for roles that are remote-friendly. For instance, bookkeeping services can be executed remotely, as can marketing functions.

To power these roles, you need an HR platform that supports remote employees. A cloud-based platform will simplify onboarding and payroll management. These systems will also handle compliance and tax issues that make your life much easier.

Again, these platforms look complex on the outside, but they pay for themselves in the long run. Ultimately, they help you recruit the best candidate possible, irrespective of their location.

Security

Every business is online these days, and cybersecurity is a business pillar, not an add-on. Your systems store a ton of sensitive supplier, financial and customer data. A data breach caused by a malicious attack will put you in violation of several data privacy laws. Not only could you face damage, but your brand image will also suffer.

Cybersecurity platforms scale to almost every business these days. While the industry’s jargon and technology might seem intimidating, most platforms do a great job of onboarding customers and helping them automate basic tasks.

The good news is that as a small business owner, you don’t need highly sophisticated resources. A cloud-based platform will help you automate routine checks and deliver security alerts when there’s a problem. You can lean on the security services the platform offers and correct any issue that exists.

Often, these platforms include a systems audit as a part of their offering. You can have an expert look at your systems and validate them for security. The result is a robust security posture that keeps your data safe and your business protected always.

Digital is the way forward

Small business owners must embrace technology to remain competitive in the market. Thanks to technology scaling to offer solutions to every business, it has never been easier to leverage automation to simplify common business tasks and boost profits.

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How small businesses are ahead on automation

The post 4 small business functions that must be automated for greater profits appeared first on Small Business UK.

Life is not getting any easier for the UK’s small businesses.

You’re dealing with an ultra-competitive hiring environment, rapid, persistent inflation – and still going flat out to bring in new business and provide a top-class customer experience. On top of this you’re still untangling how best to make flexible, remote work – well, work – while leading a tight-knit group of people who have fundamentally changed how they define the role of work in their lives.

Tough as it may be though, companies across the UK are managing to find the opportunity in the difficulty.

According to Microsoft’s latest Work Trend Index, 84 per cent of UK staff said they are as productive or even more productive compared to a year ago. Also, less than half (43 per cent) of business leaders in the UK said productivity had been negatively impacted since the move to remote or hybrid working.

The 2022 Index also revealed that, because most UK organisations aren’t taking a productivity hit due to remote work, they are giving employees more autonomy about whether they should commute in or work from home. Less than half (44 per cent) of business leaders in the UK say their company is planning to require employees to work in-person, full-time within the next year.

Understanding people’s new ‘worth-it equation’

Understanding the drivers and operational nuances of this new way of working can be very valuable for small business leaders, who often have to spend more time motivating and coaching the teams they work with so closely. For example, people’s ‘worth-it’ equation has changed, in terms of what people want from work – and what they’re willing to offer in return.

This is simply because people’s priorities, identities, and worldview has been irrevocably altered by the experience of the last couple of years – health, family, time, and purpose have become more important and the power dynamic has shifted towards staff.  

The ‘worth-it’ equation applies to what people are willing to come into the office for. If someone is going to commute in for say, 60 minutes each way – given it means leaving home earlier and getting back later, possibly having to arrange childcare – there needs to be a purpose for doing so.

‘This meeting could have been an email’ really hits different in 2022.    

Which is why people now want to be able to decide for themselves, based on what they must do each day, whether they will go to the office or work remotely, and take a flexible approach to getting the job done.

What this all means for genuinely seamless collaboration

When people are empowered to make these daily decisions – which they very much want to be – it sharpens the definition of what sort of flexibility small businesses really need. It’s not just about giving people the choice to work from home or somewhere else, it’s about accepting that, on any given day, some will be in the office, and some won’t, and they will still need to be able to work together effectively at all times. This realisation has become increasingly clear as we’ve been closely studying how work is changing, through our research, the daily conversations we have with our customers, and indeed the data and usage patterns we see across the Microsoft 365 platform and suite of apps.

As a result, what we’re hearing is that teleconferencing point solutions, together with different instant messaging apps, are not cutting it – they lack features, they don’t connect well with Office or your emails, and they’re too time consuming to manage and use. Plus, the costs of using multiple solutions soon adds up.

Modern SMBs who want to thrive through the seamless, fluid collaboration this new era of work requires, need digital-first, integrated tools that serve a clear purpose – helping people connect anytime, anywhere, and on any device.

That’s why we have recently launched Teams Essentials – to enable that environment of seamless collaboration small businesses need. It’s the first standalone version of teams and designed with small businesses in mind, costing just £3 per user, per month – making it the most affordable all-in-one solution on the market today.

Yet it’s still so well integrated and feature-rich, that’s it’s useful and connected enough to transform the way your SMB communicates, with clients, partners, prospects – and each other.

For example, with powerful, instant meetings you can meet, chat and share video simply from any device which helps more people to be feel seen, heard and included in the conversation – 83 per cent of Microsoft Teams users agree that Teams helped their organisation improve customer experiences.

Bristol Dental Specialists have been using Teams for everything from virtual consultations to collaboration with colleagues and have found it to be a tool that helps them deliver faster, friendlier and more cost-effective patient care.

By being able to connect your team – with shared documents and files always available – you can create, share, and exchange ideas whenever you want, and keep things moving forward together – information workers using Microsoft Teams save an average of four hours per week through improved collaboration and information sharing.

Plus, having all the meetings, chat, calls and collaboration functionality all in one place, helps your staff work in a more focused and efficient manner – with Teams reducing app switching, and saving users an average of 15-25 minutes every day.

How to encourage seamless collaboration within your SMB

You can see how having the right tools makes a big difference when trying to help people in different places, at different times, work together smoothly – but technology alone is not enough, it’s also about culture – and that comes directly from you as someone who is running an SMB.

As the saying goes, “Culture is just the behaviour of leadership”. So how can you create and establish an environment that empowers people to work independently, but still engage with others and collaborate effectively?

Much of it comes down to being very clear about what the expectations and permissions of the business are – and articulating that your organisation is one that consciously seeks to give people the space and flexibility to do their best work. Telling people that they have the freedom to set their own schedule – where viable and reasonable of course – as long as they get the job done, usually increases employee trust and engagement.

Allowing people to block out short periods of time where they can turn off notifications and ignore distractions is another way to encourage clearer thinking and more focused work. Similarly, making clear when you do or don’t expect people to give or receive instant responses gives people a framework to operate by, letting people reply when they can. Staff can also minimise interruptions by using @ mentions in docs, channels, chat and email in order to call someone’s attention specifically.

Ultimately, encouraging staff to allow a little room for each other’s different rhythms and habits will go a long way, as will people clearly communicating their own preferred hours and ways of working.   

When it comes to giving people a purpose for coming in, you might want to take a tip from the Swedish, who have a tradition called FIKA which just means ‘a coffee and cake break’. But beyond this, it’s more of a state of mind – to make time in your day to reconnect with people and share something together. These more meaningful touchpoints help people relax, refocus and make everyone feel more like part of a team.

With these kinds of behaviours, you can make your flexible working culture feel less remote, less alienating and more empowering, because it allows for both virtual and in-person fun and productivity.

If you’d like to know more about how technology can help you improve communications, collaboration, and security in a modern small business environment – please visit https://aka.ms/HybridSMB for more help and guidance.

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Tooling up for hybrid

The post It’s time the UK’s small businesses got the seamless communications and collaboration tools they need appeared first on Small Business UK.