Businesses could boost their productivity by more than 10% using new Government-backed financial discounts worth up to £5,000 through the Help to Grow: Digital scheme.
Analysis by the Office of National Statistics shows using a single piece of business management technology, such as accountancy software or customer relationship management (CRM) systems, leads to productivity gains of at least 10% for small and medium-sized businesses. This can increase to 25% if a business uses two or more digital technologies.
A recent survey by the Department of Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy found almost a third (31%) of SMEs still used paper-based records for handling VAT. And a similar figure (30%) used paper-based records for company tax.
Businesses that adopted digital accounting software also saw an increase of 11.8% in employee sales over three years, according to a recent report by the Enterprise Research Centre.
Financial discounts for Help to Grow: Digital are available to UK businesses that have between 5 and 249 employees, been trading for more than 12 months and are purchasing the approved software for the first time.
To find out more and to make an application, visit www.gov.uk/helptogrow
Source: The Northern Echo
