Proper financial planning is the foundation of a successful business. If you are a small business owner or think of launching a startup, you should first dedicate some time to creating a cash-flow system, which will sustain your future endeavors. In this article, we will talk about how financial planning will influence the stability of your company and how you should prepare for the potential expenses that will come along the way.

Why are cash-flow systems so crucial for the success of startups?

If you are operating a small business, the chances are that you are taking money out of your pocket to finance your idea. Even if you have found an investor, the funds that you have provided on your startup timeline will not last for an eternity. This is why the only way to scale your company effectively is to create a working cash-flow system, which will take care of the manufacturing, delivery, and human resource expenses each month. So, without further ado, let’s take a look at how you should manage your financial planning.

Creating liquidity and redirecting your income

When conducting expert financial planning, your first entrepreneur test is finding an effective stream of income, which will cover most of your (if not all) periodic expenses. To do that, you must evaluate the profit you should make to keep the company going. You can do that through the following steps:

Calculate manufacturing and delivery expenses

Depending on the type of business you have started, you will have certain expenses that will go towards creating a product or a service. The manufacturing costs include all the money that will be invested into this process.

If you are producing a physical item, begin with estimating the costs of the raw materials needed. Account for the required machinery and facilities that you will use along the way. After that, summarize these expenses and write down your estimation.

If you are offering services to your clients, try to think about all the payments that will go towards creating this service or providing it to the end-users. These usually include the expert work invested into utilities and the expenses that will go for logistics.  

Evaluate marketing costs

Every successful business is heavily dependent on quality marketing. To sustain an effective cash-flow system, you should carefully think about the different types of marketing that you will indulge in to promote your product/service. The marketing costs include paying for advertisement, conducting promotion campaigns, and providing free samples of your product to users. Estimate the money that the company will channel for marketing and write it down.

Plan for taxes

Planning for taxes depends on what type of product you are offering to your clients and under what regulation it falls. If you are offering services, taxes will be calculated as a percentage of each sale. Most of the taxes will still be conducted on a singular basis for physical items, except for those needing government-issued licenses for selling. Depending on which country the business is operating in, different tax rates will be charged on each transaction. You can check those either on the website of the specific government financial institution or in their local offices.

Estimate the number of sales you will do for a set period of time (preferably monthly)

After you have calculated the manufacturing and marketing costs, it is now time to look at the potential sales you will make each month. These will be the foundation of your cash-flow system and business plan builder, so you should try to objectively estimate the number of individual deals you will make regularly. One of the best ways to do that is to conduct a test offering for several days. After that, calculate the average amount of sales per week and estimate the gross number of offerings that will come for the first month of operation.

Then, subtract the marketing and manufacturing costs from the total amount of money that you assume to make from sales during the first month and write down the sum that is left. This will be the funding that you will have available for further investment in the company and paying out additional expenses.  

Account for employee’s salaries and outsource costs

If your business strategy includes hiring employees or outsourcing some of the work, then you should also include these expenses in your financial planning. To do this, it is highly advisable that you use a sheet on which you write down each individual payment. This way, you can objectively evaluate the total amount of funds you need to dedicate to experts each month. After you do that, subtract this amount from the net monetary assets left at your disposal.

Find/Readjust a competitive price for your products/services

If you have diligently followed the steps above, you already have an estimated evaluation of the financial planning of your company. If your expenses happen to be more than your gross income, then your startup will be ‘burning’ money each month. In such a case, you have two options before you.

The first is to adjust the price of your product/service to turn your cash-flow system positive. This means increasing the cost of your offerings to the point where you won’t need any additional funding to keep the company operating (and scaling).

The other option is to find outside funding, covering the cost of your main processes until your business strategy starts paying off. In this case, you must first decide how you should find further investment and decide which amount will be sufficient to sustain your activities.

Finding additional streams of income will also help you continue expanding your reach and value, so think about other ways in which you can monetize the product/services of your company. This can give you stability and allow you to scale your project further.

Financial planning emergency savings

If your cash-flow system is actually providing you with sufficient resources to continue your work without having to worry about funding, then you should think about adding some safety measures for your company. One such method is establishing an emergency fund.

Setting up an emergency fund is essentially preparing the company for a potential crisis, in which you might require immediate liquid backup to keep the operations intact. This way, you can be sure that unpredictable external factors will not disrupt the core processes of your business and lead it to bankruptcy. Try to set aside a proportion of your net income each month into a specific bank account, which you will use only in case of emergency. Preferably, you should have enough funds at your disposal to keep the company going for about 3-6 months.

Conclusion – How financial planning can help you achieve success

Financial planning is a complex process, which includes managing all the internal processes inside your startup to keep the expenses to a minimum and assures a steady flow of funds each month. If you follow the steps that we have suggested above, you will gradually learn how to manage your finances properly. Ultimately, you will understand how to create a reliable funding structure, which will help you scale your business to new lengths and achieve long-lasting success.

How should you start your company after the pandemic is over?

Starting a company is never an easy task. Being able to begin a business venture successfully is heavily dependent on the circumstances of the market and the value you provide to customers. The pandemic has brought forward some very conflicting changes to the global economy. A lot of new development opportunities will be open for exploration after the end of social isolation. To help you realize your idea into a functional business strategy, we have showcased some of the most prominent advantages of starting a small business in the near future.

New industries to explore

The effects of the pandemic have impacted almost every existing industry on the market. While some physical products/services have become widely unavailable to the public, others have increased in both value and demand. Going back to the founding principles of business, if a niche has experienced rapid growth in use cases and demand, it is only natural that its development will continue in the next few years.

If you desire to provide some kind of value to your community, but you don’t have a particular idea shaped into your mind, you should probably focus on what is essential for the people at present. For example, during the pandemic, most people were denied the ability to interact effectively with each other and enjoy social activities. Consequently, after the crisis has ended, there will be a high demand for services in the entertainment industry.

The pandemic has also forced many small and medium businesses to go digital, which has opened up space for new expert firms to fill in the needs for online services of any kind. Starting a small business, which could adapt itself to the needs of corporations or regular customers will help you achieve high profitability and find solid ground for future growth.

A more accessible user base

Due to the unfortunate circumstances of the COVID-19 crisis, a lot of people have found new ways to fulfill their market needs. The lack of accessibility to standard products and services has made users more aware of the companies and brands that could provide them with value. And while startups may face harsher competition due to government-imposed restrictions, they can quickly raise a reliable user base if their product meets the consumer’s demands. This means that you will have more time to focus on your manufacturing (or service creation) quality and worry less about people not finding out about you.

Market gaps that could be exploited to your advantage

The rapid market shifts that will have occurred until the end of the pandemic will predispose the economy to leave new gaps in production and delivery. Suppose you manage to set a good startup timeline. In that case, you can not only find a profitable new niche that will let you expand significantly but also face little to no competition in your desired industry. Achieving success can depend heavily on what product you decide to offer and when you offer it to the consumers. After the crisis is averted, small businesses will have the unique opportunity to spread out throughout the community and create a definitive long-lasting impact. 

What to look out for after the pandemic

While the end of the pandemic will allow you to make use of various new market opportunities, the financial threats that your company will face could prove to be lethal (if not adequately taken into consideration.) As most of you already know, after almost two years of constant market depreciation, there will be some inevitable consequences to the global economy.

Unemployment and lower salaries will force customers to limit their spending, focusing more on essential products and less on luxury items. The decline in purchase power will also be detrimental for companies that do not meet the requirements of their clients. Moreover, waiting for the recession to hit to expand your services will almost certainly result in significant losses, and ultimately, in an unsuccessful endeavor.

If you plan on starting a small company after the crisis, you must first carefully build your business plan according to the upcoming market shifts. This way, you could prevent losing valuable customers and find the right time to expand into new industries and products.

While for some entrepreneurs, the insecurity of the shifting economy could seem scary and unpredictable, small companies that are sensibly governed will always manage to stay afloat and continue their growth. If you are unsure of whether you will be able to resist the perpetual change in customer demand and the fluctuating market, you should remember to remind yourself of the basics of business and be objective in your decision-making. Chaos could be synonymous with success if you know how to properly take advantage of it and use it to achieve your business goals.

Starting a company may seem to be a challenge of life for a person at the beginning of an entrepreneur’s journey. Also, the nature of people is such a thing that every person thinks that their challenges are the most outstanding ones.
Though, every experienced entrepreneur would agree with the statement that launching something isn’t that tough to do. Coming up with an idea for a startup is tricky and one should have the spirit and mood to do this. But, after all, an idea can’t be milked out of any person per request.
On the contrary, what is really a challenge is to support the company operational and scale it multiple times is the real challenge. In most cases, a consistent ramp in key metrics is possible with the certain external funds raised. Luckily, there are options of fundraising and funding in Ireland for different purposes and requirements. So, there is always room for almost every promising idea or professional to get proper treatment and funding.

Initial Funding and Support

The first where every beginning entrepreneur would head is one of the organizations or programs from this category. Some of the options are partially or totally supported by the government or NGOs, though, all of them aim at sort of a “hardcore startups”. To be eligible for these options, one should be an early stage startup, with some sort of innovative solution or has to solve some sort of critical issue for the country – for instance, solve or facilitate the COVID-19 outcomes.

Local Enterprise Offices

The first and quite common option of fundraising are grant applications to the Local Enterprise Office (LEO) . There are 2 main types of grants available for local entrepreneurs from their counties – Prime Grant and Feasibility Grant.
Prime Grant is the main tool to found the new startups in the area. It is available to all micro-enterprises within the first 18 months of their operation. To be eligible for the grant, you need to fit the following criteria:

• Be located and operating in the county of LEO;
• Employ not more than 10 employees;
• Be manufacturing, or domestically traded service business with the prospects of getting traded internationally;
• Be a business which will fit the Enterprise Ireland portfolio upon growth
• Have a need in funding in order to develop and scale the business.

Generally, the requirements aren’t tough, even more, they are more than acceptable. Essentially, Local Enterprise Office is interested in projects, which would develop manufacturing in the area, or will be service companies of certain size.

Another popular type of grant is a Feasibility Study Grant, which is given to the local enterprises seeking funds for different types of research and development expenses. This grant is created to assist different businesses in their efforts of conducting industry research and studies in order to optimize their business and costs, as well as identify the best and most promising niches to occupy.
The types of research and analysis headings, which are eligible for the grant is as follows:

• Market Research;
• Salary or labor research;
• Prototyping, Innovations, or Technical development;
• Consultancy costs;
• Miscellaneous costs.

Both grants are obtainable for almost any early stage company and serve the purpose of giving sort of a small “head start” for the local enterprises.

Enterprise Ireland

Enterprise Ireland is the national organization to support the Irish companies on all stages of their development. As it was mentioned before, Enterprise Ireland is sort of a next step for a successful company in its path to success and scaling. In fact, one of the requirements of a Prime grant from the Local Enterprise Office was to be eligible for Enterprise Ireland’s portfolio.
The journey of a successfully growing startup should be shifting from LEO’s Prime grant to Enterprise Ireland’s grants, which include the following options:

• Online retails scheme fund;
• COVID-19 products scheme;
• Powering the Regions – Enterprise Centre Scheme;
• Brexit – Ready for Customs grant;
• Lean Business Continuity Voucher;
• Business Financial Planning grant;
• Sustaining Enterprise Fund;
• Sustaining Enterprise Fund – Small Enterprise.

Similarly to the case of LEO grants, these options are designed in a way to reflect the current needs and challenges of the country and priorities of development. For instance, there are separate grants for COVID-19 products and solutions because it is obviously the biggest challenge for the whole world in 2020.

Revenue.ie

Revenue.ie is an Irish tax and customs authority website. They have a few options to support the Small and medium enterprises with funding. The most wide-spread and popular one is the Relief for Investment in Corporate Trades, which is available for the trading companies.
These funds are invested by individuals in return of the equity share provided to the investor. Apart from the mentioned relief, the organization offers a number of other startup support initiatives, like decreasing the tax pressure schemes, and research and development support.

Údarás na Gaeltachta

This organization is a non-profitable party, which aims at preserving, developing, and
popularizing Irish native language. They are doing this by a wide set of activities, including,
community development, business support, regular event organization etc. Also, in terms of
funding, these guys have some really broad opportunities including:

• Feasibility study grants;
• Research and Development grants;
• Online trading scheme;
• Capital grant;
• Employment grant, and other options.

All of the opportunities are available, yet there may be some particular limitations applied to some of the applicants because of the nature of organization and their honorable mission.

LEADER program by National Rural Network

Essentially, this program is an option only for those, whose projects are targeted on
development and sustainability of rural areas. There are three main categories of projects and
products, addressing different problems of the rural areas:

• Economic development, Enterprise Development, and Job creation;
• Social Inclusion;
• Rural Environment.

The criterias of identification of the company’s main goal and suitability are strict enough, which makes it an outstanding opportunity for those, who really care about rural development.
The grants’ funding varies from €30,000 to €500,000 or various types of projects. The funding rate also varies from up to 50% for private projects to 100% for some of the community projects.

HORIZON Grants

HORIZON is a program by European Commission to support quite a wide range of
industries and projects. To be eligible for the grant, your project or company should fit one of the
areas , which are now supported by the Commission. Also, the project, in most cases, should
find three partners for this project with the necessary facilities or experience. The evaluation
process also takes five months, which makes this option sort of a tough call for the majority of
the startups.

IntertradeIreland

Another option of fundraising for Irish companies during the first few years of operations is InterTradeIreland’s support and funding. Being in charge of developing the trade and business on the island, the organization offers 3 types of funding support to Irish companies.

Acumen program is a sales and marketing support program, which aims to help businesses target new cross-border markets effectively as well as identify new potential customers. Fusion, which is the second program, helps businesses to find and onboard talents, specialists with necessary skill sets and experience who will enable the growth of the company.

Finally, Elevate is a program to provide consultancy and help building a cross-border sales
development plan and realization of the planned activities. Any of the options are actually
available for a wide range of companies as the requirements aren’t that strict.

Angel Networks

One of the many starting points for the long journey of some of the startups. For Irish startups, the majority of angel networks are located in the Western region, and they would be more than happy to review and invest in some of the promising projects.

HBAN

HBAN, referring to Halo Business Angels Network, is a network situated in Northern Ireland, and accomplishes 15 different angelg groups, with 5 regional networks and 10 syndicates. All of the groups are aimed at projects of different industries and have different application requirements.
In general, Hall Business Angels Network is responsible for more than 500 companies investments with a total of €112 million invested.

Venture Capital and Investment Funds

Support of early-stage projects is thought to be the most rewarding method of investment. Also, it is widely supported by Irish and European authorities. Though, if we’re talking about further growth of the company and scaling it to the point of becoming an enterprise, venture capital and investments become the more often and preferred option. In Ireland there are quite a few opportunities of attracting VC funds to the projects.

Western Development Commission

Has a reputation of a private entity supporting the development of the Western region of Ireland. There are two main models of funding in WDC. The first are enterprise loans with special terms and decreased interest. The second option is venture funding, purchasing the company’s equity. The WDC is quite a large fund with a portfolio of €72 million and more than 5,000 jobs created.

Investments to certain sectors

FREED

Funding Resources for Innovation in Energy Enterprise Development is a European organisation, which attracts private and public funding as well as provide support options itself for the projects, community and businesses aimed at development of Energy Resources Innovations.

Western Development Commission – Creative Industry and
Sustainability Initiatives

Western Development Commission is a private organisation mentioned in the previous section about venture capital. Though, apart from investing into prosperous projects, they are also supporting creative industry participants by giving loans with a very rare case of funding their private rounds (mainly when they qualify for equity investments for general companies). The same workflow is applicable to projects and companies aimed at sustainability solutions development.

Banks and Credit Funds

Allied Irish Bank

First option of raising some funds on your company’s development is to apply for a SME loan at Allied Irish Bank. The amount of money, which you can raise with this option is no more than €60,000. The description of this loan product from a AIB states that it is available for all companies who are in need of additional funding to stay operational and active as a company.

Bank of Ireland

Similarly to AIB, Bank of Ireland has a special product called “Startup Account” which includes special rates and requirements for the majority of services, necessary for startup-accounts. Obviously, it includes business loans, having options of funding up to €100,000. Additionally, startups can request asset finance assistance, with the options of Hire Purchase, Leasing, and Insurance Premium finance. The hard cap for this sort of funds attraction is €150,000 in the form of equipment, vehicles or other facilities.

Ulster Bank

This bank also offers a separate option o a startup account with a package of services. Though, there is no emphasized opportunity of getting business loans for startups, while applicants can choose an option of getting a corporate credit card with certain limits.

Microfinance Ireland

Is an organization, which sole purpose is to provide loan opportunities to Irish startups. The loan size is up to €25,000. This option is quite easily obtainable for almost any startup, though it is reflected in interest rates.

Another option of getting some additional funding for your company in all the above-mentioned banks, is the loan scheme of European Investment Bank. This scheme is designed in cooperation with the mentioned banks and some other Irish organizations dealing with business growth and prosperity.
Basically, almost any company which would follow the requirements has an opportunity of requesting the mentioned loan scheme. To be precise, right now European Investment Bank is looking for companies which will bring new jobs in small businesses, innovations, along with the climate and infrastructure projects. The strict exclusions for the applicants are the so-called grey and black niches, like illegal activities, pornography, casinos, weapon sales, etc.

Wrapping Up

As one may see, there is a number of options available for Irish companies at an early stage. Even more, some of the prospects could lead to a bigger scale and participation in Enterprise Ireland’s programs and grants. Obviously, your project has to be perfect and super charming to impress decision makers in any of the options mentioned. Though, every fundraising opportunity, especially a grant-type one, has very clear and precise requirements of application. This means that if your goal is to go with grant funding opportunities with your
company – you can get yourself prepared in advance before application.

When some crazy guy starts the company, very often they are motivated by 90% of initiative and desire to change the world, and 10% of strife to make money. That is why very often startups and ideas die on paper or during the half year of operations. Luckily, Ireland has a broad number of programs to support the launch of new companies in different ways – almost every business idea would be able to find an option for their needs.

Grants

Local Enterprise Offices

The first and quite common option of fundraising are grant applications to the Local Enterprise Office (LEO). There are 2 main types of grants available for local entrepreneurs from their counties – Prime Grant and Feasibility Grant.
Prime Grant is the main tool to found the new startups in the area. It is available to all micro-enterprises within the first 18 months of their operation. To be eligible for the grant, you need to fit the following criteria:

• Be located and operating in the county of LEO;
• Employ not more than 10 employees;
• Be manufacturing, or domestically traded service business with the prospects of getting traded internationally;
• Be a business which will fit the Enterprise Ireland portfolio upon growth
• Have a need in funding in order to develop and scale the business.

Generally, the requirements aren’t tough, even more, they are more than acceptable. Essentially, Local Enterprise Office is interested in projects, which would develop manufacturing in the area, or will be service companies of certain size.

New Frontiers Entrepreneur Development Programme

The aim of the program is to support sustainable early stage startups across the country, which has a tangible growth potential. Funding in this program happens on a competitive basis. Every application should also fit the criteria of eligibility. The successful applicants should be able to prove their eligibility of extensive future growth and ability to employ more than 10 employees in a course of the next few years.

Innovation Vouchers

The initiative is launched and supported by Enterprise Ireland, and is aimed at SMEs, who are looking to develop their product or operations, but face the intellectual property issue. The voucher of €5,000 is to the SMEs to facilitate the process of cooperation by knowledge and technology providers (universities, research centres, etc) and small and medium businesses.

Lean Business Continuity Voucher

The mentioned voucher is an initiative of Enterprise Ireland, which provides the eligible companies with opportunity to access up to €2,500. These funds are transferred in the form of training and advisory support to the businesses to ensure the continuing operations of these businesses during the current pandemic.

Tax Refunds

Three-year corporate tax exemption

With the help of this program, new companies can apply for tax relief during the first three years of operational activity and trading. The relief goes as high as €40,000 per year, making it €120,000 maximum for three years. If the company’s corporate tax is between €40,000 and €60,000 a year then this sort of company could file a partial tax relief for them.

R&D Tax Credit

Every  company with R&D expenditures taking place in the European Economic Area are eligible for application on the 25% tax relief. The subject of relief is the part of the corporate tax, which was paid due to R&D activities.

Incubators

NDRC LaunchPad

This incubator program is run by the National Development and Reform Commission in cooperation with Enterprise Ireland. They are giving pre-seed rounds of up to €20,000 during an extensive three-month incubation program. Moreover, the incubation program includes not only financial support, but a huge amount of guidance by expert mentors and assistance in definition of product’s UVP and positioning.

Enterprise Allowance Incentives

Short Term Enterprise Allowance

This program is designed by the Irish government to support those individuals who have lost their jobs, and are seeking opportunities of starting a new business of their own. The mentioned enterprise allowance replaces Jobseekers allowance. A future entrepreneur can receive funds within the program for 9 months.

Back to Work Enterprise Allowance

The second enterprise allowance program is designed for those who are out of work for more than 1 year. If such individuals set up a business of their own, they would be allowed to keep all of the welfare payments for the first year. In the following 2 years the eligibility to keep payments would be cut by 25% per year – to 75% and 50% respectively. The Enterprise Allowance program lasts for 3 years, which is a realistic period to develop a company from scratch.

Further Growth

Grants, Funding, and Special Programs

Local Enterprise Office

Feasibility Study Grant, which is given to the local enterprises seeking funds for different types of research and development expenses. This grant is created to assist different businesses in their efforts of conducting industry research and studies in order to optimize their business and costs, as well as identify the best and most promising niches to occupy.

The types of research and analysis headings, which are eligible for the grant is as follows:

• Market Research;
• Salary or labor research;
• Prototyping, Innovations, or Technical development;
• Consultancy costs; – Miscellaneous costs.

Both grants are obtainable for almost any early stage company and serve the purpose of giving sort of a small “head start” for the local enterprises.

Enterprise Ireland

Enterprise Ireland is the national organization to support the Irish companies on all stages of their development. As it was mentioned before, Enterprise Ireland is sort of a next step for a successful company in its path to success and scaling. In fact, one of the requirements of a Prime grant from the Local Enterprise Office was to be eligible for Enterprise  Ireland’s portfolio in future.

– Online retails scheme fund

This scheme is created to enable the Irish-owned e-commerce and online retailers to grow and expand their operations outside the country. The main goal is to build a more resilient business in the homeland by accessing new markets and opportunities outside the country.

– Powering the Regions – Enterprise Centre Scheme;

– Brexit – Ready for Customs grant;

– Sustaining Enterprise Fund

Is a program of liquidity and medium term financial support from Enterprise Ireland. With the €180 million fund created in April 2020, any company can apply for funding of up to €800,000 at different growth stages – from established companies to startups.

– Sustaining Enterprise Fund – Small Enterprise

Is a program that will provide from €25,00 to €50,000 to small and medium enterprises as a short term capital injection to support continuity and ability to return to active trading within the course of 3 years.

– Strategic Consultancy Grant & Key manager grant

This grant provides partial funding to enterprises in their strife to hire a manager or a consultant with skills, crucial for operations continuity and growth.

– Business Process Improvement Grant

The business process grant is designed to support short to medium term projects of the company that will improve efficiency and business processes in the organisation. This grant also gives prospects to specific E-marketing support of the company’s operations with the goal to make internet a profitable and tangible source of company’s development.

LEADER program by National Rural Network

Essentially, this program is an option only for those, whose projects are targeted on development and sustainability of rural areas. There are three main categories of projects and products, addressing different problems of the rural areas:

– Economic development, Enterprise Development, and Job creation;

– Social Inclusion;

– Rural Environment.

The criterias of identification of the company’s main goal and suitability are strict enough, which makes it an outstanding opportunity for those, who really care about rural development. The grants’ funding varies from €30,000 to €500,000 or various types of projects. The funding rate also varies from up to 50% for private projects to 100% for some of the community projects.

Business Loans

The Future Growth Loan Scheme

This scheme is a long-term (7-10) years loan scheme to support businesses in their struggle towards sustainable growth and expanding operations. The loan is supported by the Department of Business, the Department of Agriculture, Enterprise and Innovation, Food and the Marine, the European Investment Bank and the European Investment Fund (EIF). The size of the loan can vary from €25,000 to €3 million per applicant.

Leasing, Hire purchase and other flexible funding schemes

Is another option provided by the Strategic Banking Corporation of Ireland, which covers a set of financial and entrepreneurial instruments. The common point between all of them is that the SBCI provides funds for purchasing certain equipment (cars, vehicles, machinery, etc) and gives these equipment to an applicant in return of certain regular payments. When the contract ends, the equipment is passed to the applicant under the different terms and conditions.

Invoice Financing

Is one of the flexible schemes, when the size of finance assistance is tied to the invoicing of the SMEs, motivating them to increase their trading and operations.

Brexit Loan Scheme

The mentioned loan scheme Is designed to support innovation, adaptation, and changes happening in the region due to Brexit taking place. The loan scheme is offered in partnership with the Department of Business, Enterprise and Innovation and the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine. With the help of these schemes, applicants are able to develop solutions to fit the new economic reality in the region and reflect the changes occurring with the Brexit.

COVID-19 Support

Enterprise Ireland

Business Financial Planning Grant

This COVID-19 initiative enables eligible Irish businesses to work with third-party consultants on detailed and financial planning, including forecasts and assumptions. The forecasts and assumptions are conducted keeping in mind the current state of the global and Irish economics of the COVID-19 era.

Lean Business Continuity Voucher

The mentioned voucher is an initiative of Enterprise Ireland, which provides the eligible companies with opportunity to access up to €2,500. These funds are transferred in the form of training and advisory support to the businesses to ensure the continuing operations of these businesses during the current pandemic.

COVID-19 products scheme

The COVID-19 outbreak revealed a severe imperfection in the continuity and adaptiveness of the businesses to diverse unpredicted economic events. Especially, industries like public health, as well as health products and solutions have shown their inability to shand the overloads and demand spikes due to pandemic outbreak. In response, the State Aid framework was temporarily amended to support the facilitation of research and development of the coronavirus-related products.

Powering the Regions – Enterprise Centre Schemes

This program is aimed at supporting the enterprise centres, which were impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic in their strife towards continuity of operations.

SBCI

COVID-19 Loan Scheme

The two main purposes of the COVID-19 Loan Scheme is to support innovations, adaptation, and change initiatives related to COVID-19, and fund working capital requirements. The applicants can apply on either of the two main goals. The loans are available through AIB, Bank of Ireland and Ulster Bank. The review process and due diligence are also subject to the bank’s own procedures. Though, one can’t file an application for this loan without a letter of eligibility from SBCI.

COVID-19 Credit Guarantee Scheme

This scheme is designed to facilitate lending to Micro, Small, and Medium sized enterprises, which were hardly impacted by COVID-19. The main target of this scheme are primary manufacturers – Agriculture and Phishing industries. Though, other industry participants can also apply to the loan scheme.