Business grants are a popular way for companies to fund projects that will benefit them in the long run: innovation and product development are being actively encouraged through government grant programs, as are efforts to reduce carbon and other greenhouse gas emissions, AI, solutions for an ageing society and the future of mobility.
Great news for businesses, then, but what about for you as an accountant?
First, let’s look at the headlines - what grants do and how you can benefit from your client applying for one. Clearly a client who is successfully growing their business is a good client for you to have and grants are one way of helping a business to grow. Further, grant applications that are supported by an adviser are more likely to succeed than those which are not, so you should find that you are able to charge a fee for your work on this.
If you leave your involvement with grants there, you are leaving value on the table for yourself as an adviser. Here are ways to go above and beyond for your clients and maximise the benefit to your own business:
Discovery
Many clients do not even know that they are eligible for a grant or where to start looking for one. By having an awareness of what your client needs and keeping an eye on the grant opportunities, you will be able to make suggestions that could be game changing for your client.
Discovery is a great way of building a stronger relationship with your clients which can help with retention and referrals. Offering funding advice - particularly around grants - is a big USP for an advisor and when clients are making a decision about who to work with,. Could be a deciding factor. It’s hard to see the downside of an adviser who is in the habit of proactively telling finding grants and helping them make a successful application.
To make this process easier, Swoop has a dedicated grant finder tool which is updated daily and a grants team that can help you to identify what is available, check criteria and source support from specialist grant writers who can boost your clients’ chances of success further.
Additional funding
While grants will mean businesses have extra funds to play with, grants are often paid out after work has been carried out. Effectively, they are refunds rather than up-front payments. It is often the case that grant funding must be matched by funding from another source. Both of these facts can play to your advantage as an adviser.
This means that unless a business already has the capital in the bank, they will need some form of additional funding to carry out the work for which they have obtained a grant. While a percentage of this will be paid back on completion, you may require a loan product for the rest.
Identifying funding can be an issue for some clients and again, there is an opportunity here for advisers to identify working capital support products that are right for their clients’ circumstances, make recommendations and get the capital in their clients’ accounts.
Such products include:
- Grant advance funding, which pays a percentage of the value of the grant up front to the client
- VAT finance which can smooth out the peaks and troughs of VAT allowing your client to keep hold of capital for longer periods
- Asset finance which can boost your client’s spending power if the purchase of new equipment is part of their plan
- Invoice finance to support the cash flow of the business throughout the project
Again, the Swoop platform gives advisers access to the whole market for their clients, makes applications faster and easier and gives the opportunity to earn commission on products.
Conclusion
Grant funding offers advisers the opportunity to help their clients grow their business; strengthen the relationship they have with those clients; and earn commission on the financial products that their client needs to complete the work for which funding has been awarded.
As accountants and advisers come under pressure to demonstrate that they have value to their clients, finding, recommending and supporting clients through the grants process is a powerful way of answering the client’s question: “What do I get from this relationship?”
About Swoop
Swoop for Advisors is a business funding and savings platform enabling Advisors to access the right funding solutions for their clients across loans, equity and grants, and to identify and easily make savings - all in one fell swoop.
Swoop works with over 1,000 funding providers from mainstream banks, alternative lenders, venture capital funds, angel investors and grant agencies, meaning that whatever your funding requirement, we’re able to offer a solution.
Find out more at www.swoopfunding.com