Brokers are being given the opportunity to access education on how they can manage their own businesses, and help pass those learnings on to the SMEs that they are helping to access funding.
Lend.com.au have been running a series of educational webinars in conjunction with SME accounting firm Box Advisory Services that are designed to help brokers to level up their service proposition to clients, as well as helping themselves to get ahead.
Donelle Brooks, Head of Third Party at Lend.com.au. explained how their sessions are helping brokers to become experts as managers of their own SMEs as well as assisting their clients.
“July’s webinar was really focused on brokers and how they operate themselves as a small business,” she said. “We wanted them to optimise their own businesses by assessing the fundamentals of business structures and putting into place best practice measures, particularly with the new financial year ahead.”
“This series has been very focused on the broker themselves, which changes up what they do when they are in contact with their clients. This one has been about assisting them to get their businesses ready, with the right structure.”
While brokers are often the SMEs themselves, the same principles apply to those that they assist.
“That’s the principle of the session,” said Brooks. “We want to reiterate to brokers how they can optimise to take advantage of the tax breaks and government grants and small business concessions. If you don’t have the right structure, then you don’t have access to those things.”
“It’s often that business structure is seen as a benign admin function, but really, it’s quite fundamental to make sure that everything is in its best position.”
When SMEs have good accounting, it can help them to get loans approved more swiftly.
“Getting access to funding often requires up to date financials, and there’s often a fundamental requirement of that information, especially to access bigger funds,” she explained.
“A lot of the fintech space is purely based on bank statements for smaller loan amounts, but when you’re looking to take advtantage of big opportunities, it’s really important to understand your receivables and payables and to have a good structure to be able to get the information quickly.”
“Quite often, we find that we are trying to put that information together after the fact, which can delay the process. By having a good relationship with your accountant, you have that in place and are ready to access funding that can solve a problem or give you the chance to take advantage of an opportunity.”
