Coronavirus (COVID-19) Updates and Resources for Epos Now customers
Last updated: 06/05/2020
To our customers,
The situation around the coronavirus outbreak is unprecedented and as a result, the long and short term impact to the global economy is developing daily.
What is clear though, to reduce the spread of the virus the reduction of in person visits and foot fall in small businesses has been restricted, causing disruption and impact to the lives and businesses of our customers.
The good news is international governments have acted decisively to mitigate this impact with unprecedented measures to protect businesses to ensure when this temporary situation is over that the economy is the best place to bounce back.
We founded Epos Now straight after the global crash in 2008/09 and our leaders saw the impact of the crisis first hand. We have always understood that recessions and downtrends can and do happen periodically and therefore, we have always had a robust business continuity plan to be able to weather a storm.
It is critical for us that we are here to support you through this difficult time, but in turn we need your support to ensure we stand strong together as although prepared, we must all appreciate this is a daily moving target.
As this situation develops and we assess the situation we are all learning, but we will do our very best to keep you informed and connect you to relevant and helpful information as it happens.
Let us know how we can help
We are in this together and would welcome your suggestions, questions, views or success stories.
How we can help you and your business
Access to short term finance
Over the last few months, we have been working with a finance partner on a new short term lending facility to help those customers who need immediate access to finance, use credit cards to bridge funding gaps or do not have two years audited financials.
We would advise our customers to first exhaust all the funding options available from the government first.
Although we had not planned to launch this until feature until April, we are launching this immediately to provide aid to some customers.
Here are some of the benefits:
- No late fees - ever
- Fixed amount per month which scales with your takings
- Fixed interest percentage
- Quick deposit
What can you do to keep productive if you experience downtime?
It's important to remember that this situation is only temporary so here are a few items to ensure stay as productive as possible, to ensure your business stays in great shape.
- Check your Insurance policy for business interruption insurance
- Work with us to ensure your inventory, stock and pricing is all set up correctly on your system.
- Let us help you to build some custom dashboards and reports
- Ensure you engage with us to deliver multiple remote training sessions for your team to ensure your business gets the most out of all our functionality.
- Download and trial most of our apps to streamline your business.
- Connect your customers via social media to keep them informed.
- Connect Mail chimp or your CRM to the system to custom mailing lists (app is complimentary for 3 months).
- Set up a loyalty program.
- Redecorate your premises. There is never a better time!
- Review your prices and ensure your margins are correct.
- Review your suppliers list
- Organise your inventory
- Integrate an accounts package like Sage and Xero to enable real time profit and loss, saving thousands on accountancy fees.
- Build a new website with an online builder or get in touch with a marketing agency to relaunch.
- Look for customer feedback online and engage with customers to help you improve your business.
- Build a review strategy online to ensure you are capturing feedback and acting on it.
- Let us work with you to upgrade your hardware from older, slower terminals with no upfront cost to get you prepared for the rush.
- Have a redecorate, deep clean and tidy up.
- Set up a Click & Collect Service
Turn your business into a takeaway
The general demand for the takeaway industry has grown tenfold overnight due to social distancing measures.
Turning your hospitality business into a takeaway will ensure your business stays strong and is a great way to retain your staff and customers. The supermarkets and current vendors can't keep up with current demand and this is also great way to give back the community and help vulnerable and isolated people fed and healthy
Become a Takeaway: A hospitality survival guide
You can even apply to Deliveroo through your Epos Now back office.
Learn more here: Becoming a takeaway
Find out how to attract customers to your food delivery business: https://www.eposnow.com/uk/resources/how-to-attract-customers-to-your-food-delivery-business
Our partner Paymentsense whom we share 5,000 customers with has also enabled our customers with a quick toolkit called ‘Bite Back’ to become a take-away business
https://www.paymentsense.com/uk/biteback
Hospitality
- Completely redo your menu
- Input your stock, purchase prices and ingredients in your back office to ensure your margins are on point and you can closely manage everything.
- Let us help you set up Kitchen Display to streamline your order processes - Any tablet or computer will do!
Retail
With many governments across the world imposing restrictions on retailers that sell non-essential goods, we have put together a helpful guide on how to get your shop delivery ready with resources on how to start selling online.
Get Online & Delivery Ready, a Retail Survival Guide
- Supermarkets are struggling with demand for general supplies and essential goods there is a massive opportunity to aid the community providing these goods and services.
- Add or create a delivery element to your offering to reach those millions of customers that are self isolating, especially the elderly or vulnerable people.
- Organise your stock, inventory and prices. Maybe sell some old stock on Ebay or offer a sale.
- Sell online through your back office, Omnichannel is booming... Why not set up a Shopify or Woo commerce site?
- Ensure your stock ordering process is on point.
- Set up an Ebay, Amazon or Etsy store.
- Offer for delivery any services or products you sell.
United Kingdom Business Support
Government support for businesses - gov.uk
- Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme
- Deferring VAT and Income Tax payments
- Statutory Sick Pay relief package for SMEs
- 12-month business rates holiday for all retail, hospitality and leisure businesses in England
- Small business grant funding of £10,000 for all business in receipt of small business rate relief or rural rate relief
- Grant funding of £25,000 for retail, hospitality and leisure businesses with property with a rateable value between £15,000 and £51,000
- The Coronavirus Business Interruption Loan Scheme offering loans of up to £5 million for SMEs through the British Business Bank
- A new lending facility from the Bank of England to help support liquidity among larger firms, helping them bridge coronavirus disruption to their cash flows through loans
- The HMRC Time To Pay Scheme
Learn more about how to be productive
Other useful links
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