Accountants, Government Grants Assist in the Delivery of Business Advisory Services for your Clients
Hello, I’m Peter Towers, Managing Director of ESS BIZTOOLS and ESS BASIP. Welcome to Accountants Minute.
Accountants; government grants assist in the delivery of business advisory services for your clients.
There are hundreds of grants, incentives and special loans payable each year by the Federal, State and
Territory governments. The vast majority of these grants are targeted at, what I assume is, your key client group – small/medium enterprises.
Many of these grants relate to the delivery of business advisory services to your clients so, as far as I’m concerned, they are closely inter-related.
Grants can help your clients undertake projects that, in normal circumstances, they may have been reluctant to do, but if the government is paying 50% of the cost, they would probably look at it a little differently.
Activities such as:
- Preparation of Business Plans
- Budgets & Cashflow Forecasts
- Strategic Planning
- Corporate Governance Mentoring
- Job Costing Systems & Improving Systems throughout the Business
- Overview of Accounting Systems
- Director Training for Small/Medium Enterprises Operations
- Human Resources Management Updating
- Lean Management
- Research & Development
Small/medium enterprises have a realistic expectation that their trusted adviser, their accountant, will be proactive in alerting small/medium enterprises to grants. Small/medium enterprises have told me that they get very upset when they find out that one of their competitors has been awarded a government grant and they knew nothing about it. They say to me “surely that’s our accountant’s responsibility to keep us informed of grants”.
So where do you start. I think in the first instance it’s a good idea to identify the grants and, in some cases, there can be up to twenty grants apply to a particular industry. Sure, there are specifications on:
- type of entity
- number of years in business
- turnover
- number of employees
- location
but generally, grants are targeted at industries.
Utilising a system like ESS BIZGRANTS will assist in the identification of grants which suit a particular industry. Once you’re armed with that information, so you know the main grants that apply, you could then send a newsletter to your clients to inform them; the ones that you know are in that particular industry, or why not invite them to a seminar, or if you have clients scattered all over Australia, a webinar and inform them of what is available.
Some of the popular grants that are available for various businesses are:
- Business Growth Grant – which is a grant of up to $20,000, on a 50% basis, which will fund virtually anything which will contribute to the improvement in the business’ performance.
- METS Grant – the mining, mining equipment, technology industries, all to do with mining. That grant is
targeted at a group of businesses that come together for a particular project. Grants are available from $100,000 to $3M, on a 50% basis. The work must be undertaken over a two-year period.
- Accelerating Commercialisation – this is a grant of up to $1M, on a 50% basis, for virtually any type of business with a turnover of up to $20M.
- Export Market Development Grant – available to any business that is exporting goods or services out of Australia. Also includes the Australian Tourist Industry which is targeting overseas visitors. As long as the business’ total turnover, Australian and export, is under $50M per annum, that business entity, irrespective of whether it’s a company, a trust, a sole trader or a partnership, can apply for a grant which will
reimburse their export market development expenditure of up to $150,000 and that is generally on a 50/50 basis. There are some limits within the various categories and there are thirteen major categories under the Export Market Development Grant. As long as your client has spent $15,000 on export market activities, they are eligible to claim that grant. Grant applications close on the 30th November 2017.
- There are various employment grants.
- There’s apprenticeship grants
- There is Research and Development Tax Rebate which, for companies with turnovers under $20M is 43.5% of the eligible R & D expenditure. Please remember R & D expenditure covers wages of the team that have been involved in a particular project, plus wages oncosts. All you need to do is to be able to keep appropriate records as to the time that people have worked on a particular project. The minimum expenditure for a research and development claim is $20,000, but the business can undertake as many research projects it wishes, it’s not $20,000 for one project, it’s a group claim. The entity that makes the claim must be a company.
That is an overview of the grants that will assist in the delivery of business advisory services. To assist you in this process, ESS BIZTOOLS has the tools to assist you in the delivery of every business advisory service activity that I’ve spoken to you about today and ESS BIZGRANTS will assist in the identification of the grants that suit a particular client or industry.
Because it’s the start of a new financial year, we have a great incentive for you to make a subscription this week to ESS BIZTOOLS and ESS BIZGRANTS a 25% discount on the subscription fee for a full twelve months, 24/7 access for an office of only $2,227.50 (incl GST).
To subscribe, please go to our website – www.essbiztools.com.au – and click on to Subscriptions.
To give you an overview of what all this means to your firm, why not invite your entire team to a special webinar on Wednesday 17th July 2017 at 12.30pm (AEST). Encourage them to bring their lunch and sit and get an overview of this very important area of how government grants can assist your clients to undertake a wider range of work and for you to be delivering a wider range of commercial services; your team will like being involved in activities like, business plans, corporate governance reviews and lean management and your clients will be very appreciative because they’ll be getting fantastic services for only 50% of the normal cost.
The special webinar – “Identifying Grants Helps Clients and Accountants”. To register for the webinar, please (Click here).
Have a wonderful day.
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