Firms could save up to £5,000 with government software scheme

A new government scheme offering discounts for small businesses looking to adopt digital accounting or CRM tools for the first time has opened.

Launched on 20 January, the Help to Grow: Digital scheme aims to assist eligible businesses choose, buy and adopt digital technologies by providing advice and money off accounting and CRM software licences.

Through a government portal on the Help to Grow: Digital website, eligible businesses can apply for a one-time discount of up to 50% on the costs of buying approved software, worth up to £5,000.

The offer covers one discount towards the purchase of 12 months of approved software product ‘core costs’, up to a maximum of £5,000 (not including VAT). 

Companies registered in the UK that are a year old or more and employ between five and 249 people are eligible for the discount. They must also be purchasing the approved software for the first time, although some technology upgrades are permitted for approved product categories – full eligibility criteria are available on the scheme’s guidance page. There are currently no restrictions on firms applying from different sectors.

At the time of writing, only three vendors appear in the ‘digital accounting software’ section of the scheme’s product page: Sage Business Cloud, QuickBooks Online and Crunch Pro. Customer Relationship Management (CRM) providers listed include Capsule, Zymplify, Livepoint. Esteiro and Deskpro. It is currently unclear how vendors were selected for the scheme.

The Help to Grow site promises that additional products, including e-Commerce software, are expected to become available for ‘digital discounts’ soon.

Businesses can also use the scheme’s new online platform to access videos and advice articles on how to choose the right digital technologies. A tool is also available to help less experienced applicants discover what services they could use, although businesses will have to enter additional information such as how they typically engage with customers and the size of their IT teams.

A release accompanying the scheme claimed businesses that adopt digital accounting software see on average an 11.8% increase in employee sales over three years, evidencing this with a link to a 2018 study by the Enterprise Research Centre.

Trailed in the Chancellor’s 2021 Budget and run by the Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy, the digital scheme runs alongside the existing Help to Grow: Management programme, which features a 90% government-funded 12-week management course costing businesses £750. The government has faced calls to widen the criteria of the management scheme, as only 810 people had signed up to the programme by October 2021, despite there being 30,000 places available.