Growth Businesses Seeking & Finance – Our Top 10 Business advice Tips
Here at Hunter Gee Holroyd we offer professional business advice for our clients, from meeting accounting and tax obligations to setting up software and management information systems.
What are the main areas for growth businesses to focus on when seeking finance?
Small and medium sized businesses account for over 99% of UK businesses and employ almost 60% of the private sector workforce.
Many of these businesses require access to external finance to grow, create jobs and invest. The finance market can appear daunting, but there are some easy steps that any business can take to improve its chances of gaining funding.
10 Business Advice Tips
1.Prepare a Business Plan
Our first piece of business advice would be to prepare a business plan. A robust business plan helps potential investors understand the vision and goals of the business.
2.Do your Research
Our second piece of business advice is do your research! The Funding Landscape is continually changing. Hunter Gee Holroyd will be able to advise on how appropriate and attainable the various forms of business finance may be.
3.Utilise Tax Relief
When seeking investment, potential investors should be made aware of three HMRC tax relief schemes – the Enterprise Investment Scheme, Seed Enterprise Investment Scheme and Venture Capital Trust Scheme.
4. Invest in Management
Businesses with a full management team and advisory board in place will increase investor confidence and become more attractive investment propositions.
5. Manage your Cash
Management of business cash is an essential piece of business advice, especially in start-up business advice and growth business advice terms. Before seeking external capital, a weekly cashflow forecast is essential, as is an understanding of the volume of cash and working capital required to grow.
6. Use External Advice
In the early stages a business needs to ensure that it is ‘investment ready’. Sources of advice include trade associations such as the ICAEW Business Advice Service.
7. Set Realistic Targets
Ensure your business sets realistic KPI and milestone targets. Doing so will help you implement your business plan as you grow and help investors monitor the progress of their finance.
8. Work with Investors
In some investment circumstances, such as receiving equity finance, growth businesses should be aware that investors may wish to input into the strategic direction of the business.
9. Know your Market
A review of the potential upturns and downturns in your respective market needs to be carried out and their impact assessed, to prepare your business for any unforeseen market developments.
10. Be Flexible
Our final piece of business advice would be to be flexible. Your business plan may have been produced when the business was simply an idea. Circumstances change, so ensure you make regular assessments of where your business is and any new challenges you may face.
Contact us for Business Advice
We are a friendly Yorkshire based Chartered Accountants offering accountancy and business advice to owner managed and family owned businesses.
We provide plain speaking business advice to help business start, ups, businesses looking to grow, and many small to medium businesses, contact us to find out how we can help!
