Digital experience designed around small businesses will provide relevant, timely insight and take the worry out of tax compliance
Sage, the market leader in cloud business management solutions and Tide, the UK’s leading business financial platform, announced a new partnership, offering a tightly integrated banking and accounting product for Tide members.
“Adding an accountancy offering to the Tide platform is a huge step towards our mission to make life easier for people who work for themselves, saving them time (and money) on their financial admin. ”
Designed for people taking their first steps towards making their business dreams a reality, the partnership will provide UK self-employed and business owners with a new product that combines banking and accounting – all in a single digital environment. By connecting banking data and Tide’s existing finance and admin tools to Sage’s new accounting and compliance as a service platform (ACaaS), Tide members will be able to streamline financial and tax compliance processes, such as self-assessment and year-end accounts.
Research* shows that financial constraints and worries are the most common barriers preventing people from starting their own business. Many start-ups and small business owners worry about getting their tax and accounting wrong, resulting in facing penalties for making mistakes. With upcoming legislation like Making Tax Digital potentially impacting 4 million businesses in the UK, many don’t have an accountant, and are now looking to their banking providers for support and advice.
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Tide is the UK’s leading business financial platform, helping small business owners save time and money on their financial and admin tasks by offering a range of highly connected products and services. Tide’s partnership with Sage will offer a seamless accounting tool from the Tide app, that will provide members with compliant accounts and insights about their businesses to reduce the time and stress of traditional accounting.
Having simple accounting and taxation built into Tide’s mobile and web platforms will give start-ups the familiar experience they need to be confident that they are doing all they need to stay compliant and avoid any penalties. This will allow them to streamline admin as well as benefit from the financial insights accounting can provide to help make better business decisions.
Neal Watkins, EVP of Small Business Segment at Sage said, “By partnering with Tide, we hope to encourage more people, who have so far only dreamt about being their own boss, to start a new business. Many entrepreneurs are held back from starting a new business by fears around getting their tax right, but with this new offering, accountancy and compliance will become a simple and seamless service, meaning that the business owner can sleep easy knowing that they’re getting their tax right and making well-informed decisions.”
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Commenting on the partnership, Oliver Prill, Tide CEO said: “Adding an accountancy offering to the Tide platform is a huge step towards our mission to make life easier for people who work for themselves, saving them time (and money) on their financial admin.
Tide has chosen to work with Sage to deliver this product due to Sage’s long and impressive record in accounting and compliance and their strategic alignment with Tide. We share a similar customer base, and combining our expertise will bring the right technology solutions to small business owners at the right time.”
Tide will trial their accounting and compliance solution with its 340,000 members later this year.
*In January 2021, Sage UK commissioned research via Edelman Intelligence across 2,500 individuals. The research focused on understanding aspiring entrepreneurs and small business owners attitudes towards starting a business, their motivations for doing so, as well as the barriers and challenges they encounter.
