Accountancy firm Purple Lime offers support for effective access to government funding

Tech-led accountancy firm Purple Lime is flexing its business to offer up-to-the-minute support to companies seeking financial support from the government.

Based in Wiltshire the team are fully operational at home and are ready to help their own clients and any business owner access the funding being offered to deal with the Covid-19 crisis.

Oli Thomas, co-founder of Purple Lime, said: “Any business can apply for funding themselves without incurring extra costs. However, if any application is missing any information deemed to be critical to success, there will be further delays causing the business to be even more under pressure.

“We are very experienced in helping business owners to access funding, particularly loans, promptly.” 

The team will help business owners and directors in three stages: 

Stage 1 – Lending specification, for a flat fee, the team will contact the lender in respect of the project to establish both lender appetite and specific requirements of the loan application process. Purple Lime will set out details of the business, its background and the purpose of the loan. They will then pass that information back to the business to make a judgment around continuing to the application stage. 

Stage 2 – Application, a scope of work and a fee will be agreed by Purple Lime and the business based upon the information gathered in Stage 1. The team will work with the business to provide a detailed financial model, over the period of the loan required, to include a balance sheet, cash flow, profit and loss forecasts as well as a short report setting out the business background and history, explaining its market, customers, risks and opportunities, and therefore presenting a narrative around the funding requirement and financial model. 

This will have to clearly demonstrate how the business was performing prior Covid 19 and how the business is affected now and is likely to be affected in the short to medium term.

Stage 3 – Post application to draw down, a percentage fee will be payable from the loan amount. Depending on the lenders’ requirements Purple Lime will support and attend any remote management meeting, liaise with the bank’s legal team on clients’ behalf and under their instruction; co-ordinate and respond to any due-diligence requests.

Oli and his team believe the more quickly and efficiently a company is able to access the government loans, the more it can invest in being sustainable through the Covid-19 crisis and beyond. 

He said: “Even in this situation it’s never been more critical to get the application right. It’s not going to be a case of one size fits all in terms of lending requirements by banks and other institutions. It can be a false economy to ‘go it alone’ and then fall down because the right information is not available, causing further delays and frustration.”

Purple Lime was set up more than three years ago by co-founders Angela Ashworth and Oli Thomas and has now expanded to a team of ten – usually based at their HQ at Hartham Park. Currently the team are fully operational working from home. 

They provide an outsourced finance department for SME business owners using cloud technology enabling them to have real time financial data when making important strategic decisions. Purple Lime are a silver champion partner with the accountancy technology brand Xero. For more information visit http://www.purplelime.uk.com