What is the SMART initiative?
tomato pay, together with untied are delighted to collaborate on SMART - SMEs Manage Accounts Receivables and Tax.
SMART helps sole traders and micro-businesses manage the most important areas of their working capital - revenue, costs and cash.
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Revenue
In 2019, UK SMEs were owed £25,000 on average and faced payment delays of over 25 days. The late payments issue causes 50,000 small businesses to close down each year.
SMART empowers sole traders to easily invoice customers, and track and incentivise payment through discounts and penalties using best-in-class behavioural science techniques. Payments are embedded in the invoice, minimising the friction in the payment process and putting dynamic control of payment instructions in the hands of the business.
Costs
KPMG research indicates tax is the second largest cost for an SME.
Sole traders bear the burden of interpreting and meeting HMRC’s tax requirements, resulting in 67% of sole traders hiring an external accountant to manage parts of their taxes, paying them up to 3% to 5% of their annual turnover.
SMART empowers SMEs to automatically prepare and file an HMRC compliant tax return.
The tax liability algorithm helps them manage their tax filings at a fraction of the cost of an accountant and is compliant with HMRC’s Making Tax Digital initiative.
Cash
SMEs suffer from limited visibility into their future cash flow. Insufficient tax planning contributes to a shortage in working capital particularly towards the end of the financial year when tax payments are due.
SMART aggregates bank transaction data, invoice data and tax data into one place, provides an intuitive cashflow forecasting tool that surfaces potential cash shortfalls, and proposes tangible mitigating actions in the form of financing and insurance solutions.
Who will SMART serve?
The initiative focuses on sole traders. Sole traders with no employees make up 4.4 million of the 5.9 million small businesses in the UK. These can range from street market vendors and restaurants to hairdressers, electricians and plumbers.
Sole traders represent a fast-growing segment of the population and are expected to constitute a third of the UK’s workforce by 2025. These businesses are key drivers to the UK economy, however, they are often overlooked by traditional financial services.
This needs to change.
What are the SMART components?
The following SMART components are available to partners. The SMART functionality is available through a standalone app, or integrated into an existing service.
This will be included in a bespoke app or via an API.
Let's chat |
Making Tax Digital | Available now |
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Tax Submission | Available now |
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Account aggregation | Available now |
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Payment for major banks | Available now |
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Tax Optimisation | Available now |
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Invoicing | Available now |
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99% coverage of all bank accounts | Available now |
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Forecasting | Available now |
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Tax Forecasting | Available now |
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Borrow against invoices | Available now |
How is SMART funded?
SMART is backed by the Banking Competition Remedies (BCR) Capability and Innovation fund, designed to improve the financial products and services made available to small businesses.
Who is behind SMART?
About tomato pay:
tomato pay is a free, simple, QR-code based payments app used by businesses and sole traders who want to receive payments in a fairer, cheaper and more ethical way. Businesses and sole traders can benefit from a low-cost solution with no hidden fees, that saves them money compared to their current payment systems, gives them instant access to their money as cash settlement happens almost immediately, and access to all of their bank accounts in one place. Everyone can support their local communities thrive by paying their neighbourhood businesses in a cashless, hassle-free way.
About untied:
untied is the UK’s personal tax app. It’s built for people, not accountants and is designed especially to help sole traders to get on top of their taxes. untied is the only end to end app that enables users to link their bank accounts, makes tax sense of their transactions and files directly to HMRC. untied launched untied lite in April, the first tax product designed specifically for gig/platform workers. untied’s partners include Revolut, Deliveroo, Stuart and Deloitte. untied is regulated by the FCA, supervised by the Chartered Institute of Taxation and recognised by HMRC.