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Hot Business News Today

Can businesses save money on CBILS repayment costs by refinancing for a RLS loan?

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By Funding Options on Small Business – Advice and Ideas for UK Small Businesses and SMEs

On August 4 2021 an article published in the Financial Times reported that as much as £5bn worth of government-backed Covid loans could go unpaid, as business continue to face disruption following the lockdown.

The Coronavirus Business Interruption Loan Scheme (CBILS) provided a lifeline for UK businesses across different sectors of the economy. By the time it ended in March, £23.28bn had been provided through 98,344 facilities.

The government covered the initial 12 months of interest payments for CBILS, and this helped take the pressure off businesses – for the short term, at least.

But the time has come for many businesses to start their repayments.

Understandably, some business owners are concerned about having enough cash flow to meet the repayments and others are looking for ways to reduce costs.

If your business took out a CBILS facility or another type of loan to get through the impact of Covid, you might be able to reduce your repayment costs by refinancing to the Recovery Loan Scheme (RLS).

Refinancing debt to the Recovery Loan Scheme – how it works

Due to the 12-month interest/payment free period, your CBILS repayment profile is shortened. Essentially,

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Hot Business News Today

Can businesses save money on CBILS repayment costs by refinancing for a RLS loan?

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By Funding Options on Small Business – Advice and Ideas for UK Small Businesses and SMEs

On August 4 2021 an article published in the Financial Times reported that as much as £5bn worth of government-backed Covid loans could go unpaid, as business continue to face disruption following the lockdown.

The Coronavirus Business Interruption Loan Scheme (CBILS) provided a lifeline for UK businesses across different sectors of the economy. By the time it ended in March, £23.28bn had been provided through 98,344 facilities.

The government covered the initial 12 months of interest payments for CBILS, and this helped take the pressure off businesses – for the short term, at least.

But the time has come for many businesses to start their repayments.

Understandably, some business owners are concerned about having enough cash flow to meet the repayments and others are looking for ways to reduce costs.

If your business took out a CBILS facility or another type of loan to get through the impact of Covid, you might be able to reduce your repayment costs by refinancing to the Recovery Loan Scheme (RLS).

Refinancing debt to the Recovery Loan Scheme – how it works

Due to the 12-month interest/payment free period, your CBILS repayment profile is shortened. Essentially,

Read more...

Hot Business News Today

Embrace your unconventional superpowers

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By The Inside Tracc on Small Business – Advice and Ideas for UK Small Businesses and SMEs

Brij Thankey started out in the corporate world, “a numbers guy” as he puts it, but he grew weary of conventional thinking and jumped ship to create a different kind of business.

A decade on, that business – Precision FM – is a national leader in facilities management across the UK and Ireland, and CEO Publication has recognised Brij among the UK’s Top 20 Dynamic CEOs.

One of Brij’s guiding principles is that honesty and transparency are what connect with people, and as you’ll see he’s still more than happy to give voice to ideas that go against the grain.

For starters, there’s the notion that big businesses can learn a lot from the way that small businesses operate. When he was starting out at Precision FM, Brij believed he could base the new business on the assumptions he’d acquired in his corporate career, but he soon came to realise he’d need to rethink things from the bottom up.  

Above all, he says, big businesses get too obsessed about the bottom line. They need to recognise that their greatest assets are their people, and that they’ll get

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Hot Business News Today

How to build your business

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By The Inside Tracc on Small Business – Advice and Ideas for UK Small Businesses and SMEs

In 1988 Andrew Walsh founded the AW Repair Group. Starting out on a shoestring, with a staff of just two, the business has grown to become one of the leaders in the UK’s bodyshop industry, with eleven branches across the East Midlands and a workforce of more than two hundred. In recent years, the Group has been selected among the London Stock Exchange’s Top 1000 Companies to Inspire Britain, and Andrew himself has just been named among the industry’s top influencers.

Among the factors behind the Group’s success have been its ability to identify and anticipate trends in the automotive industry, and its willingness to invest in people and technology to keep it ahead of the field. But there’s obviously a lot more to it than that, and over the course of this series of this Masterclass series Andrew will share some of the experience he’s picked up along the way.

As we’ll see in this first episode, he’s a great believer in the power of the brand. Right from the start, he feels, a business needs to think hard about the image it wants to

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Hot Business News Today

How to grow your team

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By The Inside Tracc on Small Business – Advice and Ideas for UK Small Businesses and SMEs

Of course it’s great when your business begins to grow, but growth can generate a fair few challenges too. In this Masterclass Andrew Walsh, founder and CEO of AW Repair Group, will look at some of the issues entrepreneurs face as they start to scale up.

There’s one particular danger that they need to look out for: the temptation to spend too much time working in the business rather than on it. For Andrew, the image that springs to mind is of a captain who’s down below in the engine room when they should be upstairs on deck with their hands on the wheel. If all their attention is on shovelling fuel they won’t notice when the ship starts heading towards the rocks.

So as their business gets bigger, entrepreneurs need to accept that they can’t do everything – or at least that they can’t do everything well. They need to build a team and they need to learn to delegate.

Andrew reflects on the qualities to look for in a new recruit and on the strategies you need to keep people fully motivated and playing to

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Hot Business News Today

Adopting a small business mindset is key

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By The Inside Tracc on Small Business – Advice and Ideas for UK Small Businesses and SMEs

When Precision FM was still in its infancy, founder Brij Thankey began to realise that he couldn’t transfer the ideas he’d picked up in his corporate career straight into his fledgling start-up.

In his earlier life, there were too many instances where desktop modelling on a spreadsheet to see how much money the business could save by ‘getting the machete out’ was the order of the day. But he now saw that he needed to think less about the business’ numbers and more about its people. Get the people side of it right, by recruiting good people and building strong teams, and the numbers would follow.

When it comes to recruiting, Brij’s motto is to look out for the undiscovered gems. He came to realise that when someone did well in an interview, all that told you was that they were good at doing interviews. It was all too easy to reject people at first sight, just because they performed poorly in an unnatural situation that bore no relation to the job they were being interviewed for. Give them a chance, look a little deeper, and

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Hot Business News Today

Embrace your unconventional superpowers

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By The Inside Tracc on Small Business – Advice and Ideas for UK Small Businesses and SMEs

Brij Thankey started out in the corporate world, “a numbers guy” as he puts it, but he grew weary of conventional thinking and jumped ship to create a different kind of business.

A decade on, that business – Precision FM – is a national leader in facilities management across the UK and Ireland, and CEO Publication has recognised Brij among the UK’s Top 20 Dynamic CEOs.

One of Brij’s guiding principles is that honesty and transparency are what connect with people, and as you’ll see he’s still more than happy to give voice to ideas that go against the grain.

For starters, there’s the notion that big businesses can learn a lot from the way that small businesses operate. When he was starting out at Precision FM, Brij believed he could base the new business on the assumptions he’d acquired in his corporate career, but he soon came to realise he’d need to rethink things from the bottom up.  

Above all, he says, big businesses get too obsessed about the bottom line. They need to recognise that their greatest assets are their people, and that they’ll get

Read more...

Hot Business News Today

Business insurance everything you need to know

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Originally written by Edward Murray on Small Business
Small businesses are the heartbeat of the UK economy. They are built on innovation, passion and commitment. They support millions of business owners and employees and for many they are more than a job, they are a way of life. Business insurance is an important safeguard for small businesses, their owners, their employees, and all those with whom they come into contact.
Here we look at some of the key insurances to consider and the protection they provide.
Business insurance required by law
As an employer you are responsible for the health and safety of your employees when they are at work. If an employee suffers an accident, injury or illness as a result of working for your business, then you could be liable.
Employers’ liability insurance is there to help cover the cost of defending and settling claims from past and present employees who believe you failed in your duty of care to look after them.
If your business is located in the UK and has at least one employee, then it is likely employers’ liability insurance is a legal requirement, although there a limited number of exceptions.
If you are not exempt, the law says you must

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What is public liability insurance, and does it cover Covid-19 claims?

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Originally written by Edward Murray on Small Business
At some stage in their day-to-day activities, most businesses come into contact with members of the public in one way or another. Companies have a duty to ensure these interactions are safe and well-managed. Where they lead to accidental injury, death, disease, illness or property damage, public liability insurance can help pay for the resulting legal costs and compensation.
Who needs public liability insurance?
Any business that comes into contact with people who are not employees has a potential need for public liability insurance.
Perhaps you are a retailer and so people come in and out of your shop all day long. Do you have commercial premises that customers and/or suppliers visit? Maybe you work from home and have clients coming to the house for meetings? Are you an event organiser bringing lots of members of the public together?
You also have to think about where you and your employees go during the working day. Are you out and about on business, mixing with other people? Are you visiting other companies’ offices or delivering goods to people’s homes?
If your business, or any of its employees, come into contact with third parties whilst carrying out their business duties,

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Hot Business News Today

What is professional indemnity insurance?

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Originally written by Edward Murray on Small Business
What is professional indemnity insurance?
Every business wants happy clients. Do a good job for them and you will get repeat business, generate referrals and build a great reputation. But sometimes things do not go to plan.
If you give professional advice, you may face claims from clients if they think it was not up to scratch and has had a negative impact on their finances and their brand. Professional indemnity insurance can help meet the costs of defending and settling these claims.
Who needs professional indemnity insurance?
Professional indemnity insurance is not a legal requirement, but many professional bodies and/or sector regulators stipulate that practitioners must have cover in place.
For example, the Solicitors Regulation Authority sets out minimum insurance requirements, while accountancy bodies such as the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales also requires members to have cover.
But the need for professional indemnity is wider than the traditional professions. It could extend to virtually every person or business giving advice to clients.
This includes life coaches, tutors and health practitioners, as well as web developers, graphic designers and management consultants. It also includes people who work as freelancers or sole traders.
The Chartered Insurance Institute sums

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