Government initiatives create new opportunities for Accountants

The government has announced that it is to strengthen its plans to push the growth of small business with a raft of new initiatives designed to help create up to 40,000 new businesses by 2013.

The initiatives include:

  • A Business Start-up Hub, including access to online company registration
  • Notification of public procurement opportunities through a "Contracts Finder"
  • A business tax 'dashboard' enabling businesses to get set up for tax and keep up with their tax position
  • Better, clearer information on Government regulation
  • New training services and online tools for business to use on the move from their own computer or handheld
  • A national contact centre to help businesses who cannot find the information they need on the web or who are not connected to the internet
  • A network of at least 40,000 experienced business mentors offering practical advice to existing businesses and people who want to start a business
  • Business Coaching for Growth, backing high growth SMEs to enable them to realise their potential.

There will also be an expansion in the scope of its planned New Enterprise Allowance (NEA), The Allowance, which will help unemployed people set up their own businesses, will be launched later this month in Merseyside and then rolled out nationwide in the Autumn.

"These initiatives create a marvellous opportunity for accountants." says Martin Pollins Managing Director of Bizezia Limited, the UK's leading provider of web apps for professionals serving the SME market. "These businesses will need accountancy services, business plans and mentoring - exactly what accountants do well".

Many of the resources needed to plan a new business can be made available for download on accountants websites via the Bizezia online business library and calculators.

Martin continued: "the NEA will be available to twice as many people as was originally planned. For people who have been unemployed, it will provide financial support for their early months of self-employment, access to a start-up loan, and the guidance of an expert business mentor to help guide them through the early months of their business. In order to claim the allowance they will need to develop a business plan, and secure the agreement of their mentor that it is viable".

"I have only one message for accountants" says Martin - "Don't sit there and do nothing."

STOP PRESS: The Forum for Private Business says there have been reports that the Prime Minister is set to unveil an Employers' Charter' aimed at boosting SME job creation. Widely seen as central to creating a private-sector led economic recovery based on a resurgent small business sector, this offers more opportunities for accountants who can offer the right resources.

Notes

  • The aim of the New Enterprise Allowance is to focus on business ideas with the potential for expansion, and, as such, will contribute more widely to private sector growth as well as to reducing unemployment.
  • Recruiting quality mentors will be key to the success of NEA. The Government is in discussions with a wide range of business groups to build a network of mentors who can help both new and existing small business to grow. Further details of the network will be announced shortly.
  • By September 2011, the Department for Trade, Business & Innovation (BIS) will begin to host content developed by private sector suppliers making better use of the support they offer and lowering the cost to government of developing new services. BIS will also launch the National Call Centre.
  • There is help out there for firms who don't have a huge in-house budget or time to create website content themselves. They can use a website content provider like Bizezia.
  • Bizezia provide high quality, unique website marketing apps and practice management tools. Bizezia's products are designed to make business easier, encourage people to to visit your website and to keep them coming back.
  • Bizezia's EziaNews is an ideal example of how to keep your website current and informative. It's a daily round-up of business news that can be placed on to your website with no effort on your part and gives your clients, prospects and staff instant access to the latest business news.
  • Bizezia can trace its roots back to 1986, at a time when accountants were beginning to develop innovative marketing strategies for the first time. Then, with the launch of the Internet, Martin Pollins, founder of Bizezia, saw a new business opportunity to provide marketing and administrative products specifically for professionals serving SMEs, which would be available on their own websites with the aim of attracting potential clients and improving the level of service to existing clients.
  • Martin Pollins, chairman and founder of Bizezia, is a Chartered Accountant with wide experience in corporate finance and business management. He ran his own accountancy firm in Sussex and was the first accountancy firm in the UK to advertise on television. Martin went on to create and launch the CharterGroup Partnership (the UK's first accountancy network) and then LawGroup UK, one of the largest networks of lawyers in the country. He also served on the ICAEW Council for several years.
  • Operations director, Iman Rouane, is an honours journalism graduate, who has worked on a number of magazines, including Marie Claire and BBC Eve and was also a freelance newsreader for several radio stations across the south east. She joined Bizezia in 2005.