Businesses with just one employee can now access discounts worth up to £5,000 on approved software via the Help to Grow: Digital scheme from the UK government. Ecommerce software has also been added to the scheme from today, to help businesses to sell online and reach new markets.

Eligible businesses will receive one financial discount towards the purchase of one approved software product up to a maximum of £5,000 (not including VAT) in ecommerce, customer relationship management (CRM) and digital accounting software product categories from 14 leading technology suppliers.

Previously, only businesses with more than five employees were eligible for the scheme. From today, businesses with at least one employee up to 249 are now eligible to benefit.

Additionally, the government has announced that Help to Grow: Digital will support one-to-one advice for SMEs on how best they can adopt digital technology. The government will be launching applications for advice platforms to partner with the scheme from today, and the advice service will go live later this year.

The Help to Grow: Digital sits alongside the Help to Grow: Management scheme as the government’s flagship programme to help small and medium-sized businesses to scale-up and grow. Help to Grow: Management offers business leaders 50 hours of leadership and management training across 12 weeks, with government covering 90% of the costs involved.

To qualify for the financial discount through Help to Grow: Digital, businesses can be from any business sector, but must meet all four of the following criteria:

• be a business based in the United Kingdom registered with Companies House or be a registered society on the Financial Conduct Authorities Mutuals Register
• have at least one employee who is not an owner, up to a maximum of 249 employees
• have been actively trading for over 12 months, and have an incorporation date of at least 365 days prior to application
• be purchasing the approved software for the first time

The financial discount covers 12 months’ worth of approved software product core costs, exclusive of VAT.

The current approved technology suppliers are listed below, although the government said it intends to further expand the range of software on offer through Help to Grow: Digital.

Ecommerce software:

• Shopwired
• Gob2b
• Kentico
• Comgem
• EKM
• Big Commerce

Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software

• Capsule CRM
• Zymplify
• Livepoint Software Solutions Ltd
• Gold-Vision CRM
• Deskpro Ltd

Digital Accounting software

• Sage
• Intuit Ltd
• Crunch

FIND OUT MORE AND APPLY

Find more sources of funding for UK fashion and textile businesses here.