Build your financial security with OBT Financial Group – Lockyer Valley’s Business of the Year 2015 and specialist financial advisers to individuals, business owners and farming families on accounting, tax, business advice and wealth planning for over 30 years.Industry Skills Fund
The Industry Skills Fund is available for any type of business with a grant being made available to assist individual owners and employees to improve their skills, subject to there being a nexus between the skills training and the anticipated activities within the business.
It’s a very interesting grant; it is targeted towards the government priority industries, but any type of industry can apply for the grant.
The government’s priority industries are:
- Advanced Manufacturing
- Mining Equipment, Technology and Services
- Oil, Gas and Energy Resources
- Medical Technologies and Pharmaceuticals
- Food and Agribusiness
The government also has this term “enabling technologies” and there are four industry groups, so if a business within those industry groups has been working for one of those five priority industries then they are also included in this overall description of priority industries. Those industries are:
- Freight and Logistics
- Infrastructure Related Construction
- Information and Communication Technology
- Digital Technology
- Professional Services but primarily in a scientific area
Other types of businesses can apply, but they need to have a very good case which they’ve made in their submission:
- Micro businesses – 0 to 4 full-time equivalent employees – grant 75%
- Small businesses – 5 to 19 full-time equivalent employees – grant 66% (if the business is located in northern Australia – 75%)
- Medium sized businesses – up to 199 full-time equivalent employees – 50% (if the business is located in northern Australia – 75%)
- Large businesses – more than 200 full-time equivalent employees – 25% (if the business is located in northern Australia – 50%)
Northern Australia is defined as the area in Queensland and Western Australia north of the Tropic of Capricorn and the whole of the Northern Territory.
That’s the Industry Skills Fund, it’s well worth consideration and working out what skills you need to improve.
Business Growth Grant
The Business Growth Grant is for companies and is directly targeted at those priority industries mentioned above.
They’re the only industries that are eligible for the Business Growth Grant. When we analyse how many different types of businesses are included in those nine industries, we have come to a list of over 650 business types, so there is plenty there for you to look at.
The turnover requirement is $1.5M to $100M and, if the business is located in Northern Australia, the minimum turnover is only $750,000. The grant is $20,000 maximum on a 50/50 basis, meaning that if the business is attracting a grant of $20,000, there is $40,000 in the pool for anything that is going to improve the business’ performance.
OBT already assists business owners with business plans, budgets, cash flow forecasts, lean management reviews, and other activities like corporate governance all under that funding, so it’s worth thinking about.
Accelerating Commercialisation Grant
Accelerating Commercialisation is the largest grant of the Federal government targeted at small/medium enterprises.
Any type of entity can apply, but if a grant is going to be offered to you by the government, you then have to form a company. At that stage, you’re going to receive a substantial amount of government grant money. The turnover can be from $0 to $20M, so this is really targeted at people who have developed new products, processes or services and want to raise money to assist in the commercialisation process.
Over recent months we’ve written about Early Stage Innovation Companies and perhaps applying for an Accelerating Commercialisation Grant could be done in conjunction with the concept of getting the company self-assessed as being an Early Stage Innovation Company. That will lower the amount of percentage of the company that the directors have to allocate to investors and, in some respects, it will make the investors a lot happier that they can see that the company has been able to secure a grant from a major fund like the Accelerating Commercialisation Grant Fund.
