Weekly Digest – 17 June 2020
Welcome back to our Weekly Digest. Read on for this week’s update.
Level 1
As you know, New Zealand moved to Alert Level 1 last week, which means restrictions to work, school, sports, and domestic travel are lifted. Our border remains closed to most travellers and strict controls are in place. All arrivals are tested for COVID-19 and a 14-day managed quarantine or isolation is mandatory.
After 24 days with no new COVID-19 cases, you’ve probably heard of the 2 new cases who arrived from the UK via Australia. Both are self-isolating in Wellington, and contact tracing is now being conducted.
As the country remains in the lowest Alert Level, all businesses are now allowed to operate, which is great news for everyone! If your business has been hit by the pandemic and you’re looking at ways to adapt, get in touch with us. We’ll help you take stock of where your business is at and identify areas to improve.
Contact Tracing
While new COVID-19 cases are something everyone hoped we wouldn’t get, they are also something that is expected as Kiwis are returning from countries where there is active community spread of the coronavirus. This is why the Ministry of Health has geared up, and continues to gear up, contact tracing at a local level and national capacity to enable rapid response.
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern also encouraged everyone to continue using the NZ COVID Tracer app to keep a “digital diary” and track their movements. However, for the NZ COVID Tracer app to work, businesses need to generate QR code posters and display them at their premises.
Get your QR code Poster
The Ministry of Health has an online form to help you create your QR code poster online to support contract tracing with the NZ COVID Tracer app. You can find the details here.
What’s your Break-even Point?
No matter what type of business you have, calculating your break-even point is important. It tells you the amount of revenue you need to generate to cover your fixed and variable expenses. But if you’re not a finance or math person, don’t stress! This FREE Break-even Calculator that we created will make your analysis fast and easy.
If you need expert advice on the financial aspects of your business, especially on how you can become more profitable, please get in touch so we can help you.
Small Business Cashflow (Loan) Scheme Extended
If you’re still having a bit of cashflow trouble, the Small Business Cashflow (loan) Scheme (SBCS) can give you an immediate boost. This one-off loan has been introduced to support small- to medium-sized businesses with 50 or fewer full-time employees, as well as sole traders and the self-employed.
The maximum loanable amount is $10,000 plus $1,800 per full-time-equivalent employee, and there will be no interest if the loan is fully repaid within one year.
The scheme has been extended to 24 July 2020, so if you haven’t applied yet, now is the best time to do so! You can find more information here, or drop us a message and we can help.
Application for Wage Subsidy Extension Still Ongoing
The application for the Wage Subsidy Extension opened last week and will be available until 1 September 2020. This initiative ensures that employees of affected businesses continue to get paid. Just recently, the government announced a change in criteria from a 50% decline in revenue to a 40% revenue drop.
This means that to be eligible for the financial support, your business must have had at least a 40% revenue loss for a continuous 30-day period in the last 40 days before the application. If you have any questions about this form of financial support, contact us today and we’ll talk you through it.
What’s next?
Over the last few weeks, we’ve brought you updates on various government initiatives aimed at easing the financial burden of businesses and shared guidelines on how to operate at various alert levels. We will keep you posted if anything changes but we’re glad to see things easing in recent weeks. We now shift our focus to helping you and your business on the path to recovery. Please feel free to get in touch with us for more personalised business advice tailored to your situation.
Get in touch
Contact us if you have any questions or want to discuss the next steps for your business.