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Great article Richard. However I do question the current value of the Smart Capital proposition. In the US the APR varies between 26% and 10% based on the business credit rating. Assuming similar rates in the UK this is certainly far more than an equivalent high street bank (HSBC 7.4%) or a less traditional funding source i.e Funding Circle (starts at 3%).
However I can a see more companies cross selling funding solutions to their customers based on access to data. Tide (the app based bank for freelancers) have just launched a similar offering in conjunction with Iwoca. You can get approved for short term business credit of up to £150k at around 9.9% APR with no repayment penalty.
Interesting to also note they will be basing it on the QB data.
You have to wonder whether they will expect verification from a third party, e.g. accountant, to sign off such applications.
Based on recent experience over the last month the direction of travel is very much seeing new businesses signing up for cloud accounting believing the "accounts done" hype and then quite quickly realising there's a lot more to accounts/tax return prep than just putting numbers into software.
Three new clients via the QBO find an accountant service in a month offers represents a growth for us of 1% in clientele at a time when small businesses at large still have no real knowledge/understanding of what MTD means. I have to wonder whether we should all be prepared for an avalanche of work in the next few years as people realise they simply can't/don't want to do accounts. There's a lot more to it than simply attaching a bank feed and hoping for the best.
Saying all that though there's no doubt that businesses who are interested in their accounts, and are pro-active with us as their accountants, are dream cloud clients to have and the adding on of more complimentary services to the cloud offering can only be good.
However, in contrast to some firms who promote "cloud or nothing" to their clients, then I actually think there will be more than one solution to MTD and we have to be prepared to be flexible along the way.