Financial Support

We want to make it as easy as possible for everybody, from local organisations to international business, to access University expertise.
Our reputation rests on the quality of our research, training and the services we provide for business and industry. We can match your needs with our expertise and find the right solution for your company - whatever its size or location.
There are a number of funding streams and financial support available to assist you in the process of accessing the services you require for your business, including:

Business Link in the North East

The North East of England has many funding sources available to support your business including grant, loan and equity funding.
In addition to traditional funding streams, there is also other financial support including tax relief for research and development projects as well as loan schemes from a number of sources.

Budgeting and business planning

Introduction

It's essential to plan and tightly manage your business' financial performance. Creating a budgeting process is the most effective way to keep your business - and its finances - on track.
This guide outlines the advantages of business planning and budgeting and explains how to go about this. It suggests action points to help you manage your business' financial position more effectively and ensure your plans are practical.

 Planning for business success

When you're running a business, it's easy to focus on day-to-day problems and forget the bigger picture. However, successful businesses invest time to create and manage budgets, prepare and review business plans and regularly monitor finance and performance.
Structured planning can make all the difference to the growth of your business. It will enable you to concentrate your resources on improving profits, reducing costs and increasing returns on investment.
In fact, even without a formal process, many businesses carry out the majority of the activities associated with business planning, such as considering growth areas, competitors, cashflow and profit.
Converting this into a cohesive process to manage your business' development doesn't have to be difficult or time-consuming. The most important thing is that plans are made, they are dynamic and are communicated to everyone involved. See the page in this guide on what to include in your annual business plan.

The benefits of business planning

The key benefit of business planning is that it allows you to create a focus for the direction of your business and provides targets that will help your business grow.
It will also give you the opportunity to stand back and review your performance and the factors affecting your business. Business planning can give you:

• greater ability to make continual improvements and anticipate problems
• sound financial information on which to base decisions
• improved clarity and focus
• greater confidence in your decision-making

• What to include in your annual business plan

  The main aim of your annual business plan is to set out the strategy and action plan for your business. This should include a clear financial picture of where you stand - and expect to stand - over the coming year.
  Your annual business plan should include:
  
• an outline of changes that you want to make to your business
• potential changes to your market, customers and competition
• your objectives and goals for the year
• your key performance indicators (KPIs)
• any issues or problems
• any operational changes
• information about your management and people
• your financial performance and forecasts
• details of investment in the business

To find out more about the essential parts of your business plan and how to pull them all together effectively, see our guide on how to prepare a business plan.
You can find more information about KPIs on the page choosing and using key performance indicators in our guide on how to measure performance and set targets.
Business planning is most effective when it's an ongoing process. This allows you to act quickly where necessary, rather than simply reacting to events after they have happened.

A typical business planning cycle

There are a number of key steps you should consider incorporating into your business planning routine. Below is an example of a typical business planning cycle:

1. review your current performance against last year/current year targets
2. work out your opportunities and threats
3. analyse your successes and failures during the previous year
4. look at your key objectives for the coming year and change or re-establish your longer-term planning
5. identify and refine the resource implications of your review and build a budget
6. define the new financial year's profit-and-loss and balance-sheet targets
7. conclude the plan
8. review it regularly - for example, on a monthly basis - by monitoring performance, reviewing progress and achieving objectives
9. go back to step 1

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