Weekly Digest – 8 April 2020

We hope your week hasn’t been too stressful. Please remember we’re all in this together and don’t hesitate to get in touch if we can help.

Government Help

The UK government has announced a number of measures to counter the disruption you’re facing due to COVID-19.

  • a Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme
  • deferring VAT and Self-Assessment payments
  • a Self-employment Income Support Scheme
  • a Statutory Sick Pay relief package for small and medium sized businesses (SMEs)
  • a 12-month business rates holiday for all retail, hospitality, leisure and nursery businesses in England
  • small business grant funding of £10,000 for all business in receipt of small business rate relief or rural rate relief
  • grant funding of £25,000 for retail, hospitality and leisure businesses with property with a rateable value between £15,000 and £51,000
  • the Coronavirus Business Interruption Loan Scheme offering loans of up to £5 million for SMEs through the British Business Bank
  • new lending facility from the Bank of England to help support liquidity among larger firms, helping them bridge coronavirus disruption to their cash flows through loans
  • the HMRC Time To Pay Scheme

There’s an FAQs section on the government’s business support website but please contact us if you’d like help with any of the above.

Time for some good news

It’s been heartening to see business owners helping other business owners in the last two weeks.

We found this list of tech startups that are rallying to those in need. Have you seen any local businesses doing similar?

Zoom security

Are you using Zoom for conference calls or online meetings? You should read this notification from Zoom about security settings, and consider requiring a password from participants. Without a password, anyone with the meeting ID can join. Because of this loophole, many meetings have been “Zoom bombed” by uninvited participants who post inappropriate images or disrupt meetings with annoying sounds.

Here to help

We sincerely hope that you and your family are well and remain well. If you have any questions or concerns, don’t hesitate to reach out to us. We are all in this together!