Business Grant: Our experience

We chanced upon 2 articles in the Straits Times Forum today on the painful process while applying for the Enterprise Singapore Business Grant. While we are really grateful for the assistance provided by our Government to help SMEs digitize their business so to stay relevant and survive during these trying times, we do empathize with the writers' experiences.

We had decided to apply for an Enterprise Singapore Business Grant last year to upgrade our ordering system and integrate this with our inventory system. This will enable us to enhance customer ordering experience and increase productivity within our company. We applied for the grant and was informed that we could initiate the project pending grant approval. And so we did. The grant was finally approved... one month AFTER our project went live. Grant money came 2 months later. In perspective, the whole project took about 6 months to complete.

The longer approval process may be due to various reasons: the increased number of applications for such grants; delay in getting the relevant checks and approvals given the work disruptions as a result of Covid-19; or simply the need for more stringent approval process with the increasing number of grant abuses reported. However, for SMEs on a tight budget seeking genuine financial assistance to innovate/transform their businesses, the long approval process is certainly a cause for concerns.

We wish to offer 2 other pieces of advise for potential applicants of business grant:

1.  You should have sufficient funds to foot the bill first, as the money from the grant is unlikely to arrive in time before payment is due. We were fortunate in the sense that we were not waiting for the grant money before we could pay our vendor.

2.  The final amount of the grant will never cover 100% of the final bill. The cap is usually set at 70% (to our knowledge). Even so, you may not get the full 70%. In our case, we got back about 30% of the total project outlay. So for those who think that you will eventually pay zero dollars on your project, think again. 

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