With lockdown finally over, business owners across the country, especially in NSW, are getting ready to hit the ground running as part of the national COVID reopening program.
While there are plenty of reasons to get excited about businesses reopening, many business owners are facing seemingly insurmountable challenges. No or little revenue during the past 3.5 months means that the cash flow is running critically low for many businesses.
How does a business reopen with such little cash available? How to pay for staff wages, electricity, supplier costs, rent? When it will in fact take months to build up that cash bank again.
Luckily, every bad situation has a silver lining and many small businesses are in the same boat, there are plenty of small business COVID support resources available.
What kind of small business COVID support is out there?
One of the key challenges for businesses is to ensure they have enough cash to pay for the reopening of their business. There are two main ways to access additional funds in order to increase cash flow during this critical period.
State government or national government support
There are multiple small business COVID support grants available both from the federal and state governments. Each state has their own regulations and process to apply for those grants. Make sure to check the relevant state government websites for COVID-19 business support.
Grants might include one-off payments or ongoing payments to support small businesses in need to cover costs such as staff wages etc. When researching COVID business grants, pay attention to the eligibility criteria such as turnover and decline in revenue that a business will have to prove.
Small Business funding
Another way to access cash is by applying for a small business loan or line of credit. However, the challenge is that lenders usually request proof of your monthly average revenue of the last 12-24 months, depending on the lender. And with almost four months of little to no revenue, it can be very difficult to find a lender that will approve your business loan application since their credit criteria would categorize it as too risky for them to lend you money.
Luckily lenders, especially forward-thinking fintechs such as lumi.com.au, are adapting to the ever-changing needs of small businesses in need of funding during this critical time.
That’s why lumi.com.au just launched Lumi Kickstarter, a loan specifically designed to help COVID impacted businesses get back on their feet after lockdown.
The best thing about that loan? Your affordability will be assessed based on your pre-lockdown turnover and recalculated in reflection of your decline in revenue. This means that even a Sydney-based hairdresser who generated zero dollars during lockdown could get access to funds, provided that their business would have qualified for a lumi.com.au loan pre-lockdown.
This is a total game-changer. Since it will allow small businesses to access COVID support through small business funding when they would usually be declined for a loan.
As an added bonus your business might even be eligible for a Payment Holiday meaning that you won’t have to start loan repayments straight away and you even get the option to refinance your loan once you are back on track and have made at least four consecutive payments. Sounds too good to be true? Check out all the details of the COVID recovery loan at lumi.com.au/kickstarter-loan.
How to access small business COVID support?
Depending on what path you choose to access additional funds for your business, there will be different processes and requirements to apply for small business COVID support funding or grants.
If your business is eligible for government funding, follow the application process that’s explained on their respective website.
If you are thinking about applying for a small business loan, do your research and find a suitable lender that offers flexible funding options for COVID impacted businesses, like lumi.com.au. Their application process for the Lumi Kickstarter loan can be done online in less than 5 minutes. Often you can get an application outcome within a few hours and funding on the same business day is also possible. An easy, fast, and flexible way to access funds to reopen your business and set yourself up for success.
Lumi.com.au is a leading online business lender dedicated to helping the best Aussie small businesses get back on their feet with Lumi Kickstarter – Australia’s #1 loan for COVID impacted businesses. Want to kickstart your business after lockdown? Head to lumi.com.au/kickstarter-loan to find out more.
