February 2020

What’s the difference between Public Liability and Professional Indemnity?

Aug 3, 2020Feb 26, 2020 by Admin

difference between public liability and professional indemnity insurance

What’s the difference between Public Liability and Professional Indemnity?

Public liability is used to protect businesses from third-party lawsuits due to injury or property damage caused by your business operations. Professional Indemnity is used to protect businesses from client lawsuits due to services they’ve provided.

Public Liability vs Professional indemnity Coverage
Coverage	Public Liability Insurance	Professional Indemnity Insurance
Physical injury or property damage to third-parties (e.g. customers, members of the public)	Yes	No
Professional errors & omissions	No	Yes
Defamation	No	Yes

Here are real-world public liability vs professional indemnity claims examples, which will illustrate the differences in more detail:

Example Company	Public liability	Professional indemnity
Construction firm	You’re constructing a building, and accidentally damage surrounding properties. You’re liable to the property owners for the damage you caused them due to your business operations.	You’re constructing a building, and your workers do a shoddy job causing structural instability. You’re liable to your client for financial losses you caused them due to your negligence/errors/omissions.
Doctor’s clinic	A patient slips and falls in your clinic, injuring themselves. You’re liable to the patient for their injury, since it was caused by your business operations.	Your medical advice worsens the patient’s condition. You’re liable to the patient for causing them bodily harm due to your negligence/errors/omissions.
Financial services firm	You post some advertising signboards in public. One of your signboard falls on a pedestrian, injuring them. You’re liable to the pedestrian for their injury, since it was caused by your business operations.	You trash a competitor with exaggerated claims about how bad their business is. You’re liable to the competitor for defamation.

In each of the above scenarios, this is how each type of insurance would respond to protect your business against legal liability:

Public Liability Insurance: This policy would protect you from the legal fees and damages awarded to your injured client. Some public liability policies will also have Food & Beverage extensions, which will cover food poisoning caused by your business.
Professional Indemnity Insurance: This policy would protect you from the legal fees and damages awarded to your client.

Common misconceptions about public liability vs professional indemnity:

#1. Public liability covers liability to the entire “public” body right? So shouldn’t it cover me if I make mistakes while providing a service to clients?

Nope. Public liability is designed to protect you when your business accidentally causes injury or damage when conducting business activities in public, or that involve congregations of people. It’s not designed to protect you if you make a negligent mistake while providing your services. In fact, public liability policies will often come with clauses that will expressly exclude coverage for any protection offered by a professional indemnity policy.

#2. Public liability should cover me if my business makes defamatory statements, right?.

That’s another nope. Public liability will not protect you if you make defamatory statements about someone else, like a competitor. Defamation encompasses slander (which is spoken), and libel (which is written). Only professional indemnity would cover you if you had committed such an act.

Do businesses need both public liability and professional indemnity insurance?

If your business involves providing any kind of services to clients, then yes – you need both insurance types. As you’ve seen in the above examples, public liability and professional indemnity protect you from very different – and very real – risks. If you only have one or the other, then you’re really exposing yourself to 50% more risk. If you have one of these policies, make sure to get the other so that you’ll be fully protected against lawsuits.

If your business sells only goods instead of services, then instead of professional indemnity, you’ll need a product liability policy. Product liability insurance will protect you from lawsuits targeting your business because of injuries or damage caused by goods you sold. Depending on what kind of goods you sell, the potential liabilities on your business may be huge. For instance, if you sell car parts to auto workshops that later turn out to be defective, you could cause fatal car accidents. You’d be legally liable for someone’s death in that scenario.

How much does it cost to have both public liability and professional indemnity insurance?

Public liability insurance is very affordable, with a large amount of $1,000,000 coverage starting at only $16/month (depending on the industry). That’s the price of a single meal in a restaurant!

Professional indemnity insurance will have higher premiums, and due to its highly tailored nature, quotes can only be produced with more precise information about the business seeking coverage. Get in touch with us for a quote on professional indemnity coverage for your company.

Remember that with Provide, you save up to 25% on your insurance premiums. Thanks to our digital operating model, our overheads are much lower, and we pass every dollar saved back to our clients.

Sometimes business owners might brush off the need for commercial insurance, viewing it as an unnecessary expense for a risk that will never materialise. We would urge extreme caution in this regard – legal liability is one of the most serious risks any business can face, particularly for small businesses that have limited resources to handle sudden, large expenses.

When you get hit with a lawsuit totaling hundreds of thousands of dollars (or even millions), the small annual premium for a good insurance policy will immediately seem like a small sum compared to the immense legal costs you’ll be facing.

What are the typical coverage amounts businesses should have

What other types of liability insurance do businesses need?

In addition to public liability and professional indemnity, businesses should also have:

Directors & Officers (D&O) Liability Insurance: This type of insurance protects company directors & officers from personal legal liability. Most company directors are blissfully unaware that their position exposes them to a stunningly wide variety of legal liabilities. Get an instant D&O insurance quote here.

WICA Insurance (Work Injury Compensation): This type of insurance protects the business from liability when workers get injured on the job. Under the 2012 WICA Act, your workers can file a WICA claim against you if they get hurt or sick due to work-related causes. You’ll have to pay their medical fees and damages if the WICA claim is approved by the courts. MOM (Ministry of Manpower) regulations also stipulate mandatory WICA insurance for employees earning less than $1,600/month, or employees performing manual labour. Get an instant WICA insurance quote here.

Where can I get great public liability and professional indemnity insurance quotes?

Get broad-coverage and affordable quotes for public liability here, and professional indemnity here. With Provide, you save up to 25% on your insurance premiums. Our digital operating model creates lower overheads, and we pass every dollar saved back to you.

Xero Review 2021: Online Accounting for Small Business

Mar 18, 2021Feb 26, 2020 by Admin

Xero Review 2020: Online Accounting for Small Business

Pros	Cons
Rich accounting features	User interface could be more intuitive
UI fairly intuitive	Customer support takes longer than needed to respond, needs improvement
Can generate 80+ different accounting reports	Mobile app functionality is poor
Inventory tracking
Fixed asset management
Customisable invoices
Extensive third-party integrations to extend functionality even more

Xero is overall a great software package for online business accounting. Xero serves more than 1 million businesses globally, and its easy-to-use interface and advanced features make it loved by many small-medium enterprises (SMEs). Xero boasts great functionality: extensive reports, customisable invoices, inventory tracking, and 800+ integrations. It also has unique features like allowing you to manage fixed assets, which other competitors don’t.

Xero is really ideal for small-medium businesses that need strong accounting features, put together in a well-designed package that really helps save time on accounting.

Xero Add-Ons

Payments

You can accept online payments with Xero Payments, which are powered by Stripe. Transaction fees are 3.4% + SGD 0.50 for online payments.

Payroll

Xero comes with a helpful Payroll add-on. You can schedule automatic wage payments (weekly, bi-monthly, monthly, etc.). You can pay employees specific amounts for the type and amount of work they do (e.g. software engineers who did both coding and graphic design for a project). You can also easily reimburse employees for work expenses.

New Additions

In the latest global update in September 2019, Xero added several new features on top of its already impressive function-rich base.

HubDoc Permissions

Xero acquired HubDoc in 2018, which allows users automate manual tasks like data entry and document collection. HubDoc scans documents like your receipts and bills, automatically extracts information, and uploads it as transaction data.

Previously, if you granted employees permission to HubDoc, they were able to see all uploaded documents without the possibility of individual restrictions. Xero’s latest update allows you to set specific permissions for each user: upload only, standard, or accountant/bookkeeper.

Stripe Live Feed and Auto Pay

You’re now able to view your Stripe transactions in real-time via Xero. This allows for easy reconciliation and simple importing of transactions. You can do this even if you don’t use Stripe as a payment service within Xero’s platform.

You can also receive automatic repeat payments from customers directly with Xero. You can set up repeat invoices for customers, and your clients can save their credit card details to make automatic payments to you.

Zendesk API

If you use Zendesk to manage your support functions, you now have a really useful integration. Your support team can now input the time they’ve spent on their support tickets directly into Xero’s time tracker. Logged hours can be instantly invoiced and reported, so there won’t be double entries caused by your support team manually entering hours in their own schedules.

Xero’ Features

Dashboard

Xero’ dashboard is clean and well-designed. It gives you a quick overview of your total cash balance, invoices, owed bills, and bank balances (if you’ve connected your bank accounts). You can move these accounts around, which is nice if you want to prioritise certain information. Xero’s dashboard gets the job done by giving you the most important information about your business every time you log on.

Chart of Accounts

Xero will create a chart of accounts template for you based on your industry. You can also import another chart of accounts into Xero. The layout is clean and it’s easy to filter through the list to find specific transactions.

General Ledger

Xero’s general ledger is well laid out. Transactions are sorted by account (e.g. advertising, utilities, etc.), so it’s easy to see the overall status of major parts of your business. The general ledger shows you debits, credits, net movement, and the YTD balance. All this is helpful in quickly understanding how each account is performing, and if major inflows/outflows are occurring you can easily spot them.

Business Performance

Xero’s Business Performance dashboard gives you a comprehensive look at a wide variety of performance metrics. You can see total revenue, expenses, your top 5 customers, cash balance, payables, overdue bills, and much more. You can view many common financial metrics that gauge liquidity, efficiency, leverage, and profitability. These include Account Receivable (AR) days, Account Payable (AP) days, Inventory Turnover, Current Ratio, Debt to Equity Ratio, etc. All these metrics are presented in graph form over time, so you can easily track how your business is improving (or declining). Having a business intelligence tool like this in your accounting software is certainly helpful.

Monitor key financial metrics within QuickBooks

Invoices

Xero only has 1 default invoice template, which is lacking compared to competitors that offer many different options. You can create your own custom templates though. Invoices are highly customizable: you can change the logo, font, colour, background, header, footer, and many other elements. Xero’s feature-rich strengths come into play here – you can set up recurring invoices to save time on billing, schedule automatic invoice reminders, send invoices in bulk, and set default payment settings for customers. You’re able to see when your customers have viewed your invoices. There’s even a live preview for invoices so you can see exactly what you’re sending.

Xero has a unique service called “Xero to Xero”, where you can easily send invoices to other companies that also use Xero. Do note that Xero to Xero invoices can’t be sent if your invoice has tax adjustments or credit notes. Xero only supports English for invoicing.

xero invoices — Create clean, professional invoices to send to your clients

Contact Management

Xero’s client management system is one of the most comprehensive in the game. On top of basic information like contact details, you can add discounts, and sales tax rates. You can even tag attachments to each contact (like legal documents, images, etc.) You can group different customers into “smart lists”. This allows you to target each group with different marketing offers. You can also send invoices to entire groups with a single click.

Payroll

Xero’s payroll add-onXero comes with payroll functions included, which is a nice touch. Most competitors charge extra for this function. You can schedule automatic wage payments (weekly, bi-monthly, monthly, etc.). You can pay employees specific amounts for the type and amount of work they do (e.g. software engineers who did both coding and graphic design for a project). You can also easily reimburse employees for work expenses.

You can also subscribe to Xero Payroll alone if you don’t want to use the full Xero package.

Manage your employees wages, taxes, leave schedules, and logged work hours

Client Portal

Xero offers your clients a clean-looking portal where they can view invoices. Your clients can pay you directly on the portal, and can also send you comments if they have queries or issues with your invoice.

Estimates

You can easily send professional estimates to your clients, which can then be converted into quotes when your client accepts.

Purchase Orders

You can create purchase orders. If your supplier ships your goods to you piecemeal, you can record how much inventory you’ve already received. You can convert purchase orders into bills.

Expenses

You can connect Xero to your bank accounts to enable “live” importing of transactions. When you connect your bank account to Xero, the software will automatically import your last 90 days of transactions.

Categorising expenses is easy with over 80 default categories to choose from. You can also create your own custom expense categories. Xero has a useful receipt capture function that allows you up to upload receipt images, with Xero automatically extracting key information like transaction amount and date from the receipt. You can then tag receipts to specific expense payments.

You can also create bank rules to automatically categorise your transactions. Xero uses machine learning tools to learn your categorisation patterns – the more use Xero, the better it gets at sorting your transactions for you. This is a big time saver.

Accounts Payable

Xero has an informative “Purchases Overview” dashboard that shows you all you need to know about your bills. You can view upcoming bills. There’s a well-designed dashboard that shows you all your vendors, your total purchase value, and your overdue, outstanding, and paid bills.

Inventory

Xero helps you track your inventory and displays basic information about your stocks. You can add inventory items with basic information like unit prices, descriptions, images, and notes. If you use Xero’s inventory tracker, you’ll be able to view helpful information like total stock value, average cost, number of items that you’ve committed in quotes, and number of items that you’ve ordered.

However, Xero doesn’t allow you to track negative inventory, so if you record the sale of goods before you’ve recorded their purchase you won’t be able to use this function. You can’t track components that make up final goods (annoying for manufacturers), and you also can’t track goods if you use periodic inventory methods (e.g. you only update at months’ end). Unfortunately, unlike with QuickBooks, you can’t set automatic re-ordering alerts when stocks are running low. If you need these functionalities, you’ll have to explore Xero’s app marketplace for third-party integrations.

quickbooks inventory tracking management — Track inventory, and view important information about your supplies

Fixed Asset Management

Xero comes with this unique feature, which allows you to manage fixed assets. You can create different depreciation schedules: straight-line, declining balance, double declining, etc. You can also roll back depreciation. You can set up default disposal accounts when you need to get rid of your assets.

Packing Slips

Xero doesn’t come with a packing slip function built in. You’ll have to download the Packing Slip template from Xero’s website. It would be easier if the platform came with this function as a default.

Project Tracking

Xero has all the industry-standard project features: managing team members, tracking individual hours allocated, and assigning invoices and other bills to projects. A nice added feature Xero has is project profitability tracking. This helps you prioritise the highest earning projects, and also enables you to quickly address margin issues that may occur with particular projects.

In terms of control over project costing, Xero allows you to set hourly cost rates for each staff member you assign to projects. You can also load your employee’s work hours into Xero Payroll to quickly calculate the wages you owe them which is a good time-saver.

quickbooks projects — Monitor all your projects conveniently

Time Tracking

Xero automatically reports time and costs into your invoices and accounting records. You can convert timesheets into invoices for easy billing. Like other time-trackers, there are automatic functions (start/stop button) and manual timesheet entries.

Budgets

You can create up budgets for various time horizons: 3 months all the way up to 2 years. You can compare these budgets with actual business performance to see how much you’ve beaten (or missed) targets by.

Outsourced Bookkeeping: Xero doesn’t have a “live” bookkeeping function like QuickBooks, but it does have an advisor directory where you can find a local accountant near you. You can then engage this accountant, and Xero allows you to give your accountant read-only access to your account so they can effectively manage your books.

Mobile Apps

Users often comment that Xero’s mobile app functionality is lacking compared to its desktop version.

Xero Customer Support

Xero’s after-sales support is where it really falls short, which is a pity given how robust the actual software package is. Customers have left numerous reviews citing poor support – long wait times for a response being the chief culprit. If Xero could invest more into supporting their customers, then the platform could really push past all its competitors.

Phone: Xero does not offer phone support. If you need to speak to someone urgently, you’re out of luck.

Email: Users have often reported having to wait for a day to get a response from Xero’s support team. Xero has a helpful function that allows you to give Xero support staff read-only access to your account, which helps them directly diagnose and solve whatever issues you might be facing.

Message: Xero has a live chat function, but it’s not located on the accounting platform – you have to go back to xero.com to access it. Users report the support representatives usually answered their queries well enough, but it’s puzzling why Xero doesn’t just include their live chat function within their accounting platform.

Documentation: Like its main competitors, Xero has an extensive base of online documentation. There are in-depth guides to all of Xero’s functions. There’s a community forum where users post questions and other users and Xero representatives will answer them, so you’ll probably be able to find an answer to whatever queries you have here.

There’s an FAQ, blog, and Q&A forum that helps users understand all of Xero’ functions, from the simple to the complex. There’s also a live “AI” chat that can answer basic questions like “how much sales did I generate last year” or “which payments are overdue”.

Videos: Xero has hundreds of video tutorials (called XeroTV) to help you navigate the platform.

Podcasts: Xero also has podcasts that feature business advice, like how to retain staff or how to build software businesses. I’m not sure if anyone really listens to these clips, but if you really want business-related audio playing while you’re on your morning drive, I suppose you could play this on your speakers.

Ultimate Verdict

Xero is a great online accounting software for small-medium businesses, especially for beginners just starting to use an accounting platform. Its features and UI are designed to let newcomers hit the ground running, so you won’t have to spend much time at all learning how to use the platform’s key functions. It’s a great choice for businesses that don’t need complex accounting features, but still want more functionality than more basic alternatives, like FreshBooks. Xero’s highest-tier plan also supports unlimited users, which is great for businesses that have lots of staff and are growing rapidly.

Xero’s customer support could certainly do with a good dose of improvement, and is really a pity given the polished quality of its product. This, and its lacklustre mobile offering mean that Xero still has a ways to go before it can claim to be the undisputed no.1 provider of online business accounting services.

In the grand scheme though, these drawbacks are not huge, and Xero’s many strengths certainly outweigh its few weaknesses. For any small-medium business that demands advanced accounting capabilities, strong reporting, a good user experience, and lots of users, Xero stands as a fantastic choice.

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QuickBooks Review 2021: Online Accounting for Small Business

Mar 18, 2021Feb 25, 2020 by Admin

QuickBooks Review 2020: Online Accounting for Small Business

QuickBooks is one of the most – if not the most – well-known names for online business accounting. QuickBooks serves more than 2 million businesses globally, and its rich features make it a favourite of small businesses all the way to large companies. QuickBooks has great functionality: extensive reports, customisable invoices, inventory tracking, and extensive integrations. It also has unique features like SME financing via QuickBooks Capital (only for businesses in USA/Canada), and QuickBooks Live Bookkeeping, which allows you to get an accountant to help with your accounting tasks.

QuickBooks is really ideal for small-medium businesses that need strong features, in a simple-to-use package that really helps save time on accounting. It helps that QuickBooks’ highest tier plan allows up to 26 users, which allows businesses with more workers to effectively track their projects and transactions together.

QuickBooks Add-Ons

Payments: You can accept online payments with QuickBooks Payments. Transaction fees are 3.4% + USD 0.25 for online payments.

Payroll: You can add on payroll functionality, with a choice from 3 different plans: Core, Premium, and Elite. These plans range from USD 45 to USD 125/month, with an additional cost between USD4-10/employee.

Live Bookkeeping: You can outsource your accounting work to a QuickBooks accountant with this function. Fees range from USD 300 to 600 per month depending on the workload. This is one of QuickBooks’ most useful functions, and can really help you save time and ensure you have clean, accurate records.

New Additions

In their latest update in October 2019, QuickBooks added several new features on top of its already impressive function-rich base.

Instant Deposits

You can now receive instant deposits from clients via QuickBooks Payments. Clients can pay directly through the invoices you send them. This helps you pay your employees, suppliers, and other expenses much quicker. Payments are automatically matched to invoices, so that reconciliation is conveniently done for you.

Mobile App Re-Design

The mobile app now has a more attractive, easy to use design that uses large icons instead of long text lists. These icons help you navigate to the most used functions like invoices, transactions, customers, and sales receipts. It’s a lot easier and quicker to access these critical accounting records now with the app update. QuickBooks has been learning from its competitors about good UX, and it’s showing in the designs of their products.

quickbooks mobile app — Easily access the most used functions at the touch of a button

Batch Entry

QuickBooks allows you to make edits to multiple line items at once. For instance, if you have to write many cheques at the same time, you’ve probably gotten frustrated with having to repeatedly write similar things again and again. With QuickBooks batch entry, you can now duplicate cheque line items for multiple categories, as well as create one cheque and then duplicate it across multiple vendors. You can make batch entries/edits for other things like GST too – a single click allows you to set GST rates for all Chart of Accounts items that you select, which is a big time saver.

Exporting

You can now export QuickBooks reports to Google Sheets.

QuickBooks’ Features

Dashboard

QuickBooks’ dashboard gives you a quick overview of your expenses, invoices, profit & loss, sales, and bank balances (if you’ve connected your bank accounts). A navigational menu on the left lets you access important features like invoices, expenses, workers. Instead of manually going through your transactions, there’s a search function to help you bring up what exactly what you’re looking for. There’s a “see all activity” button which brings up a full audit record if you need to do a deep-dive into your transaction history. Overall, it’s a well-designed dashboard that gives you all the high-level, critical information you need to assess your business’ financial health.

Chart of Accounts

Prior to 2018, there wasn’t a search function for the Chart of Accounts, which was a real bummer if you were trying to find a specific transaction. Even though this is one of the most critical accounts, you had to scroll up and down to find an account. There’s a search function now though, which makes pulling up information a lot easier.

General Ledger

QuickBooks’ general ledger is well-designed, and allows you to easily view all your transactions in a single glance. You can view starting balances, ending balances, and all transactions sorted by account. This report allows you to quickly spot incorrect ending balances, and how much has been posted to revenue accounts and drawn from expense accounts. If you find an incorrect or suspicious transaction, you can click on it to view transaction details. Both cash and accrual methods are supported.

Sales

QuickBooks Sales menu gives you a quick overview of how much revenue you’re generating over time, and you can set the time period from weekly, monthly, quarterly, and annually. You can see how many invoices are paid versus unpaid. You can also view all your customers’ payment statuses. If you use QuickBooks Payments or link QuickBooks to your bank account, you can also handily view all your deposits here as well. No more tabbing to-and-fro from your bank account to your accounting platform. The sales menu also lets easily send a new invoice or set up a recurring invoice.

Invoices

QuickBooks has 6 different invoice templates. Invoices are highly customizable, You can change the logo, font, colour, background, header, footer, and many other elements. QuickBooks has a recurring invoice feature that isn’t common amongst competitors, allowing you to set up recurring invoices so that you can bill clients at a particular time repeatedly. You can set up automatic email reminders when customer invoice due dates are approaching. You can also set up late payment reminders to alert customers once their invoices are overdue.

QuickBooks also features invoice tracking, so you can see when your customers have viewed your invoices. 6 languages are supported for invoices: English, Chinese, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and Italian. The first two should be especially helpful to businesses in Singapore.

quickbooks invoice — Easily edit and send invoices to clients

Contact Management

QuickBooks has a comprehensive client management system. Beyond the normal stuff like contact information, you can save preferred payment methods, default payment terms, tax codes, opening balances. You can even tag attachments to each contact (like legal documents, images, etc.) You can also customise the category of “customers” to different names like patients, members, tenants, etc. which makes it helpful for businesses across multiple industries.

Client Portal

Your clients have a portal that they can login to for viewing invoices (unfortunately the portal doesn’t support estimates you’ve sent them). Your clients can send you payments through the portal and ask you questions about the invoices.

Estimates

You can easily send estimates to your clients. However, unlike FreshBooks, you can’t send detailed proposals. Estimates can be converted into invoices.

Purchase Orders

You can create purchase orders, and specify which orders will be recurring so you don’t have to keep entering them. You can convert purchase orders into bills.

Sales Receipts

Unlike invoices, which can only be closed when customers make payment, QuickBooks allows you to create sales receipts. This lets you record sales for which payment has already been received. This is helpful for industries where on-the-spot payment is the norm, e.g. food & beverage, retail, and clinics.

Watch the short clip below to see QuickBooks automatically extract receipt information:

Expenses

You can connect QuickBooks to your bank accounts to enable “live” importing of transactions. When you connect your bank account to QuickBooks, the software will automatically import your last 90 days of transactions.

Categorising expenses is easy with over 80 default categories to choose from. You can also create your own custom expense categories. QuickBooks has a useful receipt capture function that allows you up to upload receipt images, with QuickBooks automatically extracting key information like transaction amount and date from the receipt. You can then tag receipts to specific expense payments.

You can also create bank rules to automatically categorise your transactions. QuickBooks uses machine learning tools to learn your categorisation patterns – the more use QuickBooks, the better it gets at sorting your transactions for you.

Accounts Payable

You can create AP accounts, and can set up recurring payables so you don’t have to keep entering the same expenses repeatedly. There’s a well-designed dashboard that shows you all your vendors, your total purchase value, and your overdue, outstanding, and paid bills. This is a really helpful function to help you manage your payables.

Inventory

QuickBooks has a nice inventory tracking system that simplifies product handling for businesses. You can add inventory items with SKU numbers, sale prices, purchase prices, product images, and product descriptions. You can also set automatic re-ordering alerts when stocks are running low. You can create bundles, which are a collection of different inventory items that you sell together (e.g. a fruit basket, a set of clothes). This saves you from having to select each inventory item individually when you make a sale.

Packing Slips

You can create packing slips within QuickBooks, which is easier than other competitors that require third-party integrations to do this.

Project Tracking

You can create projects, add team members, add hours worked to projects, and assign expenses. One unique feature QuickBooks has is it allows you to immediately see the direct profitability of projects (e.g. 50% profit) by comparing sales value with assigned expenses. This helps you prioritise projects better, and also gives you a quick view into any margin issues that may arise with particular jobs. With each project, you can assign job costing via labour, materials, overhead, and more. Projects will track the number of hours worked by each contributor.

Time Tracking

QuickBooks allows you to track your time. Assign your time to projects, describe the work. You can choose customers to assign billable hours. This provides a transparent breakdown of what services were provided, and how many hours were put into them, which helps reduce payment disputes over completed work. You can use automatic time trackers (just press start/stop), or enter hours worked manually.

There’s even a GPS tracking function so you can keep tabs on your employees when they’re out on the road meeting clients. Users can also attach photos as evidence of completed work, or to update co-workers on the status of the job. The time-tracker function also allows you to set up schedules so you can ensure your workers meet deadlines, and you can set automatic reminders so no one forgets that important client meeting!

quickbooks time tracking — Track and analyse hours logged for each employee

quickbooks gps tracker employee locator — Track employee locations to ensure they’re on the job

Budgets

You can create up to 5 budgets to plan for future revenues and expenses. You can compare these budgets with actual business performance to see how much you’ve beaten (or missed) targets by.

QuickBooks Customer Support

Phone: Monday to Friday, 6AM to 6PM; Saturday 6AM to 3PM. Many online reviews cite long wait times on the phone, so don’t have high expectations for quick customer service unlike with FreshBooks.

Message: QuickBooks has a live chat function. However, users also often report having to wait long periods of time to get a response.

Documentation: Online documentation is extensive, with lots of written guides to walk you through the platform. The documentation doesn’t have pictures, so it’s less intuitive than FreshBooks’, but it gets the job done.

There’s an FAQ, blog, and Q&A forum that helps users understand all of QuickBooks’ functions, from the simple to the complex. There’s also a live “AI” chat that can answer basic questions like “how much sales did I generate last year” or “which payments are overdue”.

Videos: QuickBooks has a series of video tutorials to help you navigate the platform.

Ultimate Verdict

QuickBooks is a great online accounting software for small-medium businesses. Its broad range of features and advanced accounting functions makes it an excellent choice for small businesses to medium enterprises. Its 600+ integrations (and counting) means you can enhance this functionality even more broadly, with great support for key functions like payroll and taxes.

Customer support does have a long way to go, but as far as the robustness of the software, QuickBooks is hard to beat. Previously, another issue that users had with QuickBooks was its limited number of users – that’s now been fixed, with the highest tier plan supporting 26 users (25 regular seats + 1 accountant seat).

QuickBooks Online is our editor’s choice for online small-medium business accounting. If you need a web-based accounting platform that has great features, saves you time, and is easy to use, we’d highly recommend you give QuickBooks a try.

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FreshBooks Review 2021: Online Accounting for Small Business

Mar 18, 2021Feb 24, 2020 by Admin

FreshBooks Review: Online Accounting for Small Business

FreshBooks has become known as the web-based accounting choice for freelancers, sole proprietorships, and small startups. Its popularity has also attracted a rapidly growing base of small-medium enterprises (SMEs). FreshBooks is the best choice for sole proprietors, freelancers, and small businesses with <$1 million in annual revenue. FreshBooks boasts an incredibly intuitive interface and its intelligent host of features that easily meets the needs of the smallest businesses.

Here’s a summary of the different plans FreshBook offers:

FreshBooks Pricing Overview
Plan	Number of Billable Customers	Price
Lite	5	USD 7.50/month
Plus	50	USD 12.50/month
Premium	500	USD 25.00/month
Select	>500	Custom Pricing

FreshBook’s software is clearly priced to move. You enjoy a 10% discount if you sign up for an annual subscription, and you can enjoy a 30-day free trial at any tier, too. FreshBooks costs more than free accounting alternatives like Wave, buts its sheer ease of use and rich-functions make it worthwhile for business owners.

FreshBooks’ UI: Intuitive and Simple

Setting up FreshBooks is easy. It’s a quick 3-step process: you enter details about your business, select your invoice style (logo, background colour, fonts), and then you’ll send a test invoice to make sure everything’s working.

After set-up, you’ll see your Dashboard. This gives you an overview of your company’s finances. In Dashboard, you’ll see 5 items:

Outstanding Revenue: Which customers owe you payments
Total Profit: Real-time P&L
Spending: Total expenses, with breakdown by type of expenditure
Revenue Streams: Total revenue, with breakdown by type of revenue
Unbilled Time: Useful if you need to rebill a client or if you categorised a time entry incorrectly

freshbooks dashboard — FreshBooks Dashboard: Your Accounting Home Page

FreshBooks user interface features training videos so you can make full use of the platform, and access to customer support so you can quickly troubleshoot issues. The UI allows you to easily invite team members (like an accountant) so you can collaborate on projects together. You can set various permission levels so you don’t have to worry about unwanted changes being made by people who shouldn’t be making changes.

FreshBooks also has excellent importing functionality. You can provide your username and password for financial institutions like banks. You can then import all your transaction records from those accounts automatically. One of the most common pros that FreshBooks users cite is its sheer ease of use. All the different functions are clearly labelled, you don’t have to go through multiple menus to find what you need, and you certainly don’t need to be an accountant to understand hwo to use the sfotware. All these are great points for people running a business on the side, or small businesses owners who don’t have complex accounting needs and want to save time on accounting.

Compared to other tools like QuickBooks or Xero, FreshBooks has the the most simple and easy-to-use UI.

FreshBooks Features

Double-Entry Accounting

In 2019, FreshBooks added bank reconciliation and double-entry accounting (https://www.freshbooks.com/press/releases/freshbooks-adds-bank-reconciliation-and-double-entry-accounting-to-its-small-business-friendly-software). The lack of double-entry accounting was something that previously had kept businesses that weren’t micro enterprises away from FreshBooks. With this recent and much-welcomed addition, FreshBooks now supports industry-standard accounting practices.

Adding double-entry accounting capabilities provides business owners with well-structured accounting records, and helps improve visibility into the financial performance of the company.

Chart of Accounts

The Chart of Accounts provides a quick overview of all the company’s major accounts:

Assets
Liabilities
Equity
Revenue
Expenses

freshbooks chart of accounts — See all important assets, liabilities, and more in one look

See all important assets, liabilities, and more in one look

Being able to view the status of all these major accounts in one quick glance helps business owners stay constantly updated on the financial health of the company.

General Ledger

This is a complete record of all your financial transactions so that you can prepare your financial statements. With it, you can thoroughly understand how each account has performed, and where they stand currently.

These accounts include:

Assets
Liabilities
Revenues
Expenses
Gains and Losses

Trial Balances

As part of its double-entry accounting update, FreshBooks allows you to create trial balances to ensure that all your accounts are properly balanced. You can use this to easily check if all your debits and credits are properly matched.

Creating Invoices

FreshBooks allows you to easily create professional-looking invoices easily. The software has templates with designs customised for multiple industries like construction, web design, attorneys, and more. (URL) You can see invoice amounts that are overdue, unpaid, and currently being drafted. see dollar totals for invoices that are overdue, outstanding, and in the draft stage. Templates are also available in Word, Excel, PDF, Google Docs, and Google Sheets.

FreshBooks’ invoice function has additional features that are unique to it: the ability to request a deposit, and setup a payment schedule.

freshbooks invoice template — Create professional-looking invoices like this with a simple click

Besides invoices, FreshBooks features two more types of transactions: estimates and proposals. Both of these can be converted into invoices, which is very helpful.

Estimates: Send estimated prices to your clients easily. You can duplicate estimates and view their statuses (sent, viewed, accepted, declined).

Proposals: This is one of FreshBooks’ coolest features that distinguish it from other competitors. You can create detailed client proposals that are many pages long, complete with text, graphics, images, and attachments. Proposals come with default sections that help you clearly outline what you’re offering: Scope of Work, Timeline, Pricing, Notes, and Terms. FreshBooks supports electronic signatures, so your clients can sign your proposals. There aren’t any other accounting platforms on the market that offer such detailed transaction features.

freshbooks proposal — Send detailed, customisable proposals to win your clients over

Retainers

Another useful feature is the ability to create retainers. With this function, you and your clients can set up budgets and work-hours to be performed. All the hours that you log via the “time-tracker” tool is automatically debited from the client’s available time balance, and invoices are even automatically generated which makes billing very easy. If you log more hours than the client has agreed to pay you for, those extra hours are automatically categorised as excess work-hours, which you can then send the client an invoice for.

This is helpful for handling continuous businesses transactions with clients, and takes the repetition out of creating invoice after invoice to the same customer.

Payments and Sales Taxes

FreshBooks allows you to accept payments from your customers. For US and Canada customers, this is powered by either WePay or Stripe, and for international customers, payments are processed by Stripe. If your business is in Singapore, domestic transaction fees are 3.4% + SGD 0.50 for every payment. International transaction fees are an additional 1%.

FreshBooks allows users to add sales taxes directly to your invoices. So if you need to add GST charges to any invoices, you don’t need to go hunting around in another panel. Unfortunately, handling sales taxes aren’t the most convenient with FreshBooks, because you do have to add sales taxes manually to each invoice that you create. FreshBooks can save the sales taxes you key in (e.g. 7% GST, 20% VAT, etc.), but you’ll still need to select them each time you want to apply the tax.

Add taxes to any invoice line item directly

Specify in detail what kind of tax you’re paying

FreshBooks has a Sales Tax Summary function that will generate sales tax reports. Business owners will find this helpful to consolidate all necessary information to file their annual tax forms.

Project Tracking

FreshBooks allows you to create projects, which are a useful way to collaborate with clients, employees, and external contractors in a single place. Project management features here tend to be more extensive than its competitors.

There are a variety of useful functions that projects feature:

Assign employees, clients, and contractors (you can set individual access restrictions for each member)
Specify budgets for projects
Set project type:
- Hourly rate project (allows you to set a single hourly rate, or rates by team member/service provided)
- Fixed rate project

FreshBooks’ hourly rate function is particularly useful as it allows you to customise rates by employee. So if you run a construction company, and you charge clients different rates for say, your engineers vs architects, you can make this clear in your projects. This not only helps you track your own revenues, but also provides transparency and accountability to your clients, which reduces the chances of billing disputes.

When managing a project, you can specify the services that will be provided to your client. You can create a service type (e.g. graphic design, consulting, etc.), save it, and then reuse it for all future projects which eliminates the need for you to enter the same thing repeatedly. This also helps clients understand exactly what services were provided.

When you’re tracking time in a project, you can either enter the amount of time manually, or use FreshBooks’ timer function. The Time Tracker tool will show you all the hours worked by each contributor, giving you a clear view of how much each person has worked. You can convert a project or time entries to an invoice.

freshbooks project tracking — Track project progress, assign project contributors, monitor employee productivity, and total billable hours

Time Tracking

FreshBooks allows you track the time spent on tasks by your team members. Time tracking can be done automatically (start/stop buttons), or can be keyed in manually. This helps you easily bill for every hour that your team and you have worked. You can view at a glance how much time each employee is spending on particular tasks, what work has been done (or not yet done), so you can intervene if certain tasks or employees are falling behind.

Contacts, Expenses, and Payables

Contact Management: FreshBooks’ clients function contains all your clients’ information: it displays their contact information (in a nice graphic of a business cards). It shows you how much outstanding revenue is linked to the client, with a breakdown of this revenue into unbilled time, unbilled expenses, and invoices. You can send invoice statements directly to your clients from this panel, and can also set automatic late payment notices and invoice reminders to be sent to them.

Expense Tracking: If you connect your bank accounts to FreshBooks, you can view recent transactions you’ve made on the “Expenses” panel. FreshBooks will automatically categorise these transactions (e.g. Office Supplies, Transport, Advertising, etc.) when it imports them from your bank account (it doesn’t always get them right). Do note that these bank connections are not “live” feeds and are only updated once a day.

If you’re entering expenses manually, you can upload receipt images (accountants sing hallelujah), specify vendor names and expense descriptions, and allocate the expense to a category (e.g. advertising, rent, etc.). FreshBooks comes with a list of 45 default expense categories, which are set up to closely mirror IRS tax categories. US users will find this the most useful, but Singaporean users will benefit from this too . In any case, you can create your own expense categories to supplement the comprehensive default list. You can also designate expenses as Cost of Goods Sold (COGS) to easily track your margins. FreshBooks easily has one of the most comprehensive expense-management functionalities compared to other providers at a similar price point.

freshbooks expense tracking — Easily keep track of all expenses

Accounts Payable

FreshBooks doesn’t have an Accounts Payable (AP) function that allows you to key in bills that you owe. It does, however, allow you to view bills that other FreshBooks users send you. This is one area that the software falls short. If you need to manage high volumes of payables, then you should probably consider using either QuickBooks or Xero.

Currency Support

FreshBooks supports 170 currencies and 14 international languages. If you do business across multiple countries, you won’t have a problem using FreshBooks.

FreshBooks’ Mobile Apps

FreshBooks’ mobile apps are available on both Android and iOS, and are very well designed. The apps are just as easy to use and have the same features as the web-based version. In both cases, the FreshBooks app opens to a dashboard that contains three critical charts, Outstanding Revenue, Total Profit, and Total Spending. Icons at the bottom of the screen take you to the working areas of the tool, where you can view, add, and edit data contained in invoices, expenses, time tracking, estimates, and client records.

Customer Support

FreshBooks has a great customer support system to ensure that all clients are able to quickly get any issues solved. Phone calls are answered immediately. Email messages are replied to within a few hours (not days). The online documentation is expansive, so if you don’t want to bother with speaking to a representative, you can always tackle the issues yourself with large amount of self-help resources available.

Phone: Monday to Friday, 8AM to 8PM.

Email: Response time is usually within a few hours.

In-Platform Help Section: Search function for FAQs, or leave a message for the support team to get back to you on.

Documentation: Huge pool of written resources that will answer the majority of your common queries. Lots of how-to guides, articles explaining new features, and other documentation that will help both new and advanced users.

Video Tutorials: Webinars are available to help new users familiarise themselves with FreshBooks.

FreshBooks: The best choice for freelancers, sole proprietors, and (very) small businesses

New users will be wowed by FreshBooks’ outstanding design, sheer simplicity of use, and host of useful accounting functions.

FreshBooks is perfectly designed for those running a solo company, or a very small business with less than 5-7 employees. This platform allows you to capably manage your finances, helps you track projects, and automates time-consuming tasks like sending repeat invoices. It does all of this with a really attractive and intuitive user interface.

Although FreshBooks is an outstanding accounting platform solo ventures or small companies, it doesn’t feature the sort of in-depth accounting functions that larger businesses will need. For companies that need web-based accounting for small businesses, Xero or QuickBooks (our choice) are better options.

Ready to get insured?

E&O vs D&O Insurance: What’s the Difference?

May 9, 2021Feb 22, 2020 by Admin

E&O vs D&O Difference Summary
	Errors & Omissions (E&O) Insurance (known in Singapore as Professional Indemnity Insurance)	Directors and Officers (D&O) Insurance
Who it covers	Company itself (i.e. the corporate entity)	Directors and Officers
What it covers	· Negligence · Errors and Omissions · Malpractice · Defamation · Government fines	· Negligence · Errors and Omissions · Malpractice · Defamation · Government fines · Shareholder lawsuits · Employment liability lawsuits · Criminal trials
Who needs it	All service businesses that provide any kind of professional advice	All businesses regardless of industry
Key feature	Designed to protect the company from business-related lawsuits	Designed to protect directors and officers from business-related lawsuits that target them personally

You might have heard of both Errors & Omissions (E&O) insurance and Directors & Officers (D&O) insurance. This article explains the major differences between both types of coverage, and why it’s important for businesses and business owners to have both types of coverage if they want to protect themselves from legal liabilities. (Side note: In Singapore, E&O insurance is called Professional Indemnity insurance. E&O is the term more commonly used in the US.)

It’s usually easier to understand how each type of insurance works, and the major differences between them, with an example. Here’s an illustrated situation of how professional indemnity and D&O insurance would each act differently to protect you if you find yourself in trouble.

E&O vs D&O – Sample Case Study: You run a construction company. One of your clients complains about shoddy work that was performed for his construction project, claiming your work caused structural issues with the building. Your client sues you for negligence.

The BCA (Building and Construction Authority) steps in to investigate, and finds that there are indeed structural issues. The BCA also initiates legal action against both you and your company. The BCA is seeking civil penalties against your company.

Your shareholders sue you for mismanaging the company, and causing financial losses to shareholders. As a company director, your shareholders are holding you responsible for not ensuring proper building requirements, which led to equity holders suffering financial damages.

Here’s how your E&O and D&O insurance would be activated to protect you:

E&O insurance would pay for legal fees to defend your client’s negligence lawsuit, and the BCA lawsuit against your company
D&O insurance would pay for legal fees to defend your shareholder lawsuit targeting company directors

Now that we’ve covered a broad overview of E&O vs D&O policies and the way each works, let’s get into the details of each type of insurance to further explain their differences.

E&O a.k.a. Professional Indemnity Insurance: The essence of E&O/Professional Indemnity Insurance is to pay for legal costs when the company itself is sued. E&O insurance protects the company against claims of negligence, errors & omissions, malpractice, defamation, and improper advice/practices which end up harming clients. This policy extends coverage to mistakes made by all the company’s employees. Beyond salaried and hourly employees, even subcontractors working for your company are also covered. You can thus see that E&O insurance is tailored to protect the corporate entity from a wide variety of legal liabilities!

Some additional examples of where E&O insurance would protect you:

Your business produces promotional materials for a client, and misspelled the client’s name on all the brochures/fliers/advertisements.
You provide advice that was incorrect. Even a seemingly simple mistake could lead to a legal claim for negligent or wrongful advice.

This type of insurance is important for companies of all sizes, as long as they provide professional advice to clients. Even if you think the quality of your service is impeccable, and you have strong corporate governance to limit poor advice from being provided, not all of your customers will feel the same way as you. Clients can accuse businesses of providing them sub-standard work, or providing them advice that caused them financial harm. Such accusations could occur anytime, and could come from anyone.

The legal costs to settle these legal disputes are often tremendous, with costs easily totaling in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. This can severely disrupt business operations, particularly so for small businesses. If you run a sole proprietorship, the costs and disruptions are magnified even further. With E&O coverage, the company is safeguarded from such legal risks. You’ll see that this differs very much from D&O insurance, which as its name projects is designed solely to protect senior executives.

Directors and Officers (D&O) Insurance: Unlike E&O Insurance which covers the company, the essence of D&O Insurance is to protect the Directors & Officers of the company against legal liability.

This type of insurance pays for the defense costs for directors and senior executives who are sued personally because of a mistake they made while managing the company. Directors get sued for a wide variety of reasons: negligence, errors & omissions, defamation, mismanaging the company, misusing company funds, and much more.

These claims can be made by a very wide variety of sources: regulators, employees, competitors, shareholders, creditors, etc. D&O insurance is important for all companies, whether they’re small or big, because lawsuits filed against directors will go after the directors’ personal assets! So if you don’t have D&O insurance, your bank account, house, and other personal possessions are at risk. Because directors are exposed to lawsuits from so many directions,

Unlike E&O policies, D&O insurance will cover directors after they retire for several years (usually 5-7 years). This is called run-off coverage. Because your liability as a director doesn’t end after you resign (yes, you can get sued for what you did as a director even if you’re no longer one!), you’ll need D&O insurance to protect you. This is one of the most important parts of liability protection for directors, which is why D&O insurance is a necessary complement to E&O insurance.

D&O insurance will also cover criminal trials if the police charge you with crimes related to your management of your business. Usually, policies will compensate your defense costs only after the court finds you not guilty. This prevents insureds from committing crimes just because they have insurance. Such “alleged criminal acts” coverage is not available under E&O/professional indemnity insurance.

D&O insurance also protects directors from employee lawsuits, while professional indemnity insurance doesn’t. So if directors get sued by their employees for things like wrongful dismissal, harassment, or other reasons, they’ll be protected. The same goes for shareholders; if directors get sued by shareholders for mismanaging the company, causing them financial losses, etc. D&O insurance will be activated to pay for defense costs and damages. E&O/professional indemnity insurance won’t cover such events.

Does a business need both E&O and D&O Insurance? What happens if I only have one type of coverage?

You need both types of policies, because having only one type of coverage leaves you 50% exposed. You need both E&O and D&O insurance to provide you company-level protection and director-level protection. All businesses will need a D&O insurance policy to protect directors from lawsuits that target their personal assets. If you’re running a service business, then you’ll also need E&O coverage to protect you from lawsuits that are aimed at the company.

Many business owners with E&O insurance operate under the mistaken impression that a single policy is all they need. That’s dangerous. Many business-related lawsuits, whether one filed by unhappy customers or disgruntled business partners, will be aimed at both the corporate entity and the directors who oversee the company. If you only have either type of insurance, you’ll only be half-covered if you get sued!

Where can I get great E&O and D&O coverage?

You can get it right here at Provide. We offer broad-coverage, high-indemnity E&O/professional indemnity insurance and D&O insurance. Our prices are up to 25% lower, thanks to our digital platform that creates lower overheads.

What is the Australian Securities and Investment Commission (ASIC)?

Feb 17, 2020Feb 17, 2020 by Admin

What is the Australian Securities and Investment Commission (ASIC)?

Are you a financial services company based in Singapore, looking to do overseas business in Australia? If you want to expand your operations into Australia, you’re going to be regulated by the Australian Securities and Investment Commission (ASIC). Make sure you know ASIC regulations that you have to follow when you’re providing financial services over in Australia. Here’s a primer on what ASIC is, what they do, and some notable cases they’ve prosecuted in recent times.

Purpose

ASIC is an independent authority of the Australian government. ASIC administer the Australian Securities and Investments Commission Act 2001 (ASIC Act). ASIC’s purpose is to regulate companies, and ensure compliance with corporate and financial security laws to protect Australian investors, consumers and creditors.

ASIC’s role involves:

Maintaining and improving the Australian financial system
Promoting fair and knowledgeable participation in the Australian financial system
Carrying out the law under the powers granted by the ASIC Act and related legislation

Who ASIC Regulates

Financial services businesses: ASIC oversees firms operating in this industry to ensure they operate in a fair, lawful and ethical manner.

Consumer credit: ASIC issues licenses and oversees businesses that lend money out. ASIC ensures such businesses maintain compliance with the rules found in the 2009 National Consumer Credit Protection Act.

Markets: ASIC acts as the supervisory body for the Australian Stock Exchange (ASX). ASIC ensures that market activity is fair and transparent, and that no bad actors are manipulating the market for their own benefit.

The overall goal of overseeing activity across these 3 broad parties is to protect participants in the Australian financial system from wrongdoing, and to encourage growth by building an open and law-abiding financial ecosystem.

History

ASIC was first founded in 1991 as the Australian Services Commission (ASC). It was founded to replace the National Companies and Securities Commission (NCSC) and the Corporate Affairs offices of various Australian territories. Its name was changed to the current ASIC in 1998.

In 2010, ASIC was granted additional powers and duties. ASIC now oversees consumer credit, financial broking services, and regulates the trading on various Australian securities markets.

Powers and Responsibilities

ASIC has 3 main powers and responsibilities:

Registration and Licensing

ASIC handles the registration of financial services companies, and manages publicly available registers of companies.

Regulation

ASIC can ban or censure firms that do not comply with laws under the ASIC Act. ASIC also introduces legislation to make the financial markets more fair, more efficient, and more transparent.

Enforcement

ASIC can investigate breaches of financial laws. The body can levy fines and prosecute individuals and companies that have been found to violate such regulations.

Notable Cases

Westpac fined AUD 9.15 million as a result of ASIC investigation

In December 2019, The Federal Court of Australia filed an order against Westpac Banking Corporation, ordering the renowned lender to pay AUD 9.15 million for a string of regulatory breaches. The bank had allowed one of its former financial advisors, Mr. Sudhir Sinha, to provide financial advice to its clients that were in contravention of its best interests’ duties and other obligations under the 2001 Corporations Act. Westpac Bank was judged to have direct liability for these regulatory transgressions.

The judgement stems from a case first filed in June 2018, when ASIC lodged a civil suit against Westpac bank for breaching its duties under the 2001 Corporations Act. ASIC’s investigations into Westpac revealed various regulatory breaches. Mr. Sinha did not act in his clients’ best interests, had offered them unsound financial advice, and did not prioritise his clients’ financial interests. Westpac had known about these issues since as early as 2010, when internal reviews conducted by the bank surfaced these breach of duties. However, Mr. Sinha kept his position. Only 4 years later, in 2014, did Westpac fire Mr. Sinha, and the bank only reported Mr. Sinha’s unlawful conduct to ASIC in 2015.

During the trial, Westpac admitted that it had breached the Corporations Act. The presiding judge, Justice Wigney, found that Westpac had failed to properly monitor the behaviour of Mr. Sinha. Even when the bank knew about Mr. Sinha’s unlawful conduct, it failed to intervene as it should have. Instead, the bank simply let the rogue employee continue with his unlawful actions, which were a direct breach of the bank’s regulatory duties. Justice Wigney also found that Westpac stood to profit from Mr. Sinha’s actions, as his advice was bringing in clients and commission fees to the bank. The bank had placed profit above its duties to operate in an honest and transparent manner, which benefitted the bank and its advisors at the expense of their clients.

In its decision, the Court found Mr Sinha failed to act in the best interests of his clients, provided inappropriate financial advice, and failed to prioritise the interests of his clients, in four sample client files identified by ASIC. Westpac is directly responsible for the breaches of the best interests obligations by Mr Sinha under section 961K of the Act.

If it had not been for ASIC’s thorough investigation and strong enforcement of financial securities laws, Westpac bank might have continued to profit at the expense of its clients.

ASIC initiates civil penalties against RI advice and ex-financial advisor, Jon Doyle

In October 2019, ASIC began court action against RI Advice Group Pty Ltd (RI Advice) and an ex-financial adviser, Mr. John Doyle. Before its recent acquisition by IOOF Holdings Limited, RI Advice operated as an ANZ financial advisory business.

In its civil suit, ASIC filed allegations that RI Advice had failed ensure with reasonable care that Mr. Doyle provided financially sound advice to his clients. RI Advice had also failed to ensure Mr. Doyle had acted in his clients’ best interests. These are duties required under the 2001 Corporations Act. Mr. Doyle worked for RI Advice from 2013 to 2016.

The civil suit also names Mr. Doyle as a defendant. ASIC filed claims that Mr. Doyle provided unsound advice that was not tailored to each individual client. This advice involved urging the clients to invest in risky and complex structured financial products: Instreet’s Masti S&P500/ASX 36 and 38, and the Macquarie Flexi 100 Trust. He had provided such advice without properly considering his clients’ financial background, risk appetite, and investment objectives.

Some of the clients that Mr. Doyle provided advice to were nearing retirement, which would make them unsuitable for such risky products. ASIC’s suit alleges that Mr. Doyle had acted in his own interests ahead of his clients, because he would have received commission fees for each of his client’s investments, with larger commissions for more exotic products like the structured funds he was recommending.

The lawsuit claims that RI Advice either had knowledge of, or should have had knowledge of, a significant possibility that Mr. Doyle was acting in a non-compliant manner with his duties under financial services laws. Mr. Doyle had repeatedly been pushing structured products to his clients, many of which were unsuitable for such high-risk investments. RI Advice did not operate the proper compliance processes to ensure such unlawful behaviour was not taking place.

Under Australia’s financial securities laws, RI advice is facing up to $1 million in fines per contravention. Mr. Doyle faces up to $200,000 per contravention.

How To Buy A Business In Singapore: The Essential M&A Guide

Jun 28, 2020Feb 14, 2020 by Admin

How To Buy A Business In Singapore: The Essential M&A Guide

Taking over a business for sale consists of 8 broad steps:

Strategic Purpose of Acquisition
Target Search
Getting to know your target
Valuation
Offer and Negotiation
Due Diligence
Purchase Agreement
Takeover and Integration

Strategic Purpose of Acquisition

The process begins with the buyer identifying the specific motivations for purchasing another firm. What are the benefits they are looking to get out of it?

Some of the most common reasons are:

Rapidly scale a business
Expand into new/overseas markets
Improve unit economics by combining business functions
Acquire new technology that would be difficult to self-develop

Formulating an overall strategy for how an acquisition helps your business will influence the types of companies you need to look at, and how much you will need to pay for the takeover.

Target Search

After the acquisition purpose has been confirmed, the buyer creates a list of potential companies to buy (the “targets”) based on the strategic criteria they have identified.

For instance, a buyer looking for rapid scale may focus their search on targets that have a large customer base and high growth rates. A buyer looking for exclusive technology will look for firms that have developed innovative software/hardware whose rights they can acquire.

Often, bigger buyers will hire an investment bank to help in the M&A process. These banks have a dedicated M&A department that will handle the entire process from start to finish for their clients. In exchange, investment banks typically ask for a portion of the final acquisition price (2-8% is typical), and a retainer fee ($50,000 to $100,000 a year).

Small to mid-sized buyers will sometimes hire business brokers, which perform similar M&A functions to investment banks. These brokers charge lower fees, and specialise in executing smaller deals that would be too costly for a buyer to give to an investment bank.

Getting to know your target

If the buyer and target show a mutual interest in the transaction, they will both prepare a Letter of Intent or a Term Sheet. This is a legal document that sets out the material conditions of the takeover, signifying both parties want to move deeper into the process.

A Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA) will also be signed to prevent sensitive transaction details from being leaked to competitors and other parties.

After these documents have been prepared, both parties will exchange corporate information like financial statements and business plans. This information will be assessed by the management and Board of Directors of both firms to get a better sense of the deal’s benefits, and potential risks.

Valuation

Once the buyer has received the target’s financials and business plans, they will construct an M&A financial model to determine a purchase price.

This model can comprise several common valuation techniques:

On top of the standard purchase price, the buyer will often pay a takeover premium between 10-25%, depending on the strength of synergies provided by the target. Target firms that provide particularly strong synergies can even command premiums upwards of 50%.

Synergies

Synergies are a crucial factor in determining the eventual price a buyer will pay, and the ultimate strategic benefit to the buyer.

Common synergies are:

Lower costs from combining business units (Marketing, R&D, Sales, etc.)
Faster growth from access to new markets, patents, or technology
Stronger pricing power from increased market share

Financial Impact

From a valuation standpoint, there are two outcomes: the deal is either earnings accretive or earnings dilutive.

An accretive deal means that net profit per share for the combined entity increases after the takeover, and a dilutive deal means that net profit per share decreases.

An accretive transaction is immediately beneficial to shareholders, since each share is now worth more than before. However, it is not necessarily true that accretive deals are always better than dilutive ones. A dilutive deal may temporarily reduce shareholder value, but if there are strong long-run synergies, then such a transaction can actually be accretive down the road, bringing great benefits to shareholders.

Offer and Negotiation

Once the buyer has completed their valuation, they will send their purchase offer to the target’s shareholders. Purchase offers can be made in cash, or stock, or a mix of both.

If there are multiple buyers competing to buy the same target, this is the stage where they will enter a bidding war to offer the best price and terms.

Negotiations will involve more than just purchase price. For example, a highly contested point will be the target’s Representation and Warranties. This is a legal obligation by the target to provide compensation to the buyer if the information they have provided is inaccurate. Buyers will want comprehensive warranties and large indemnification amounts, while targets will want the minimum possible to close the sale.

Due Diligence

At this stage, the buyer will conduct thorough checks on the target. This is to ensure that information provided by the target is accurate, and no material facts that could adversely affect the buyer have been concealed. Buyers will construct a due diligence checklist to ensure a thorough investigative process.

Some common items in a due diligence checklist are:

Independent audit of past 5 years’ (or longer) and projected financial statements
Review of all insurance policies
Review of compliance with government regulations
Review of potential legal liabilities
Review of physical assets and their operating condition
Technological audit of software or products (if applicable)
Interviews with target’s customers, suppliers, and employees

It is crucial for the buyer to allocate sufficient time and resources for a comprehensive due diligence process. Ensuring that all the facts are in order will save the buyer from serious repercussions later on, like having to initiate legal action against the target for misrepresenting information.

Purchase Agreement

After due diligence is complete, any discrepancies must be highlighted and mutually resolved. Material discrepancies will often result in purchase terms being altered. For instance, if some undisclosed legal liabilities are discovered, the purchase price will likely be lowered, and the buyer will demand greater indemnification from the target to protect themselves.

Regulatory approval may have to be sought if the target is operating in a heavily regulated industry (e.g. financial services), or if the deal has a risk of severely restricting market competition.

Once all negotiations have been finalised, both parties will then sign the Purchase Agreement.

Takeover and Integration

After the purchase agreement is signed, the buyer makes payment and legally assumes control of the target. Buyers in Singapore must notify the Accounting and Corporate Regulatory Authority (ACRA) within 14 days of the sale closing.

It is important to note that closing the deal is only the beginning of another long but critical process: the successful integration of buyer and seller.

Here are 5 key steps to ensure a smooth transition as both companies merge:

Establish clear targets: Leaders should set out what financial and non-financial results they want to achieve, and when they want to achieve it by. Focus on the key decisions needed to create an integrated company – any fine-tuning can come later. For instance, prioritise issues like creating a unified product/service mix with a clear marketing strategy; tweaking product features can be done after the integration is done.

Coordinate closely: Key integration decisions will require input from multiple business functions, and this input should be given quickly. With reference to the earlier example, a marketing plan for a combined product portfolio can only be created after the new portfolio has been decided upon.

Leaders must thus create an overall workflow for integration input. They must then communicate this workflow to their teams, so that everyone understands what they need to deliver, when they should deliver it, and how their delivery will affect other teams down the pipeline. This smooths day-to-day functioning and minimises the operational chaos that can overwhelm unprepared buyers.

Sell the idea: Integrating two companies often creates uncertainty for key stakeholders. Leaders should clearly explain to their customers what benefits an integrated company will bring to them, and which company they should reach out to for support issues. This minimises customer confusion, and reduces the probability of competitors stealing clients who are unsure of how their customer experience might change.

Leaders also need to sell the benefits of integration internally. Employees may be unsure of whether they will keep their jobs, or how their career progression will change in the new entity. When articulating the advantages of integration, diction is key. Focus on how it will help individual workers, rather than the organisation alone. “New leadership posts will be created to drive our combined product lines” is a lot more relatable than “greater market leadership will be achieved by merging products”.

Decide on a culture: Leaders should first diagnose what differences exist in cultures between both firms. Once these differences are identified, leaders can then decide how to close them: continue with one culture (often the buyer’s) or create a blend between the buyer and the target. Whichever the case, leaders should take time to explain why the culture they want to build is beneficial, and ensure that it is practiced daily. When managerial changes need to be made, buyers should also pick the right leaders who share their vision of what the combined firm should look like.

Focus on the business: While proper integration is important, buyers should not allow themselves to become consumed by the process. It is helpful to commit to a cut-off date where complete integration must be achieved. A good rule of thumb is that 80-90 percent of available time should be spent on continuing to drive the core business forward. Many changes are occurring during the integration period, so leaders must monitor business metrics closely to ensure that the combined entity is maintaining its speed and not veering off track.

Protecting Your Investment

After spending a large sum of money to buy a business, it only makes sense to ensure that the investment is protected from business interruptions that could damage shareholder returns. Proper insurance coverage ensures that the newly combined company will safely produce great dividends in the years to come.

After acquiring another firm, a buyer will have to replace almost all their insurance policies.

This is because:

Insurance policies of the acquired company cannot be transferred to the buyer.
Insurance policies often have a “Change of Control” clause that void coverage when a target is acquired.
Thus, the coverage limits of the buyer’s insurance will either be too low, or simply not applicable to protect both the buyer and target after they merge.

Example: Company A acquires Company B. The buyer will need to replace all their Premise-based policies like Property, Fire, and Money insurance to cover both the buyer and the target’s locations. Other policies like Public/Product Liability and Professional Indemnity will also need to be replaced to ensure sufficiently high coverage amounts.

Protecting a combined business after an acquisition is thus a highly complex issue. It is vital that buyers speak to an insurance expert who can guide them through the process. Click here to arrange an expert consult with our advisors today, or click here to see our full product range.

Should I Switch Insurance Companies?

Aug 3, 2020Feb 14, 2020 by Admin

Should I Switch Insurance Companies?

You’re thinking of switching insurance companies for your business. Maybe you’re shopping for a better price. Maybe your current coverage isn’t good enough. Or maybe your insurer botched a claim that you felt should have been paid.

Whatever the case, know that our online platform makes it easy for business owners to compare and switch insurance companies. If you’re wondering whether you should take the final plunge to change your insurer, we’ve come up with a simple 3-step checklist to help you decide. Read on to find out if another insurer deserves your business more:

Step 1: Review Your Current Policy and Insurer

Review your current policy to determine what coverage you have. Then create a list of all the protections you would like to have in your new policy. This makes it easy for you to compare your existing policy with the new one. If the new insurer offers you a better price but weaker coverage, you’ll be able to make a more informed decision about which policy you’d prefer.

During your review process, ask yourself these 3 quick questions:

Question 1: Is your current insurer meeting your protection needs?
Answer: If the policy you have with your current insurer isn’t providing you sufficient coverage, then you should consider upgrading your coverage to higher limits or more comprehensive terms. If your current insurer cannot provide this higher coverage, or cannot do so at a sufficiently affordable price, then it’s time to consider switching insurance companies.

Question 2: Are your current insurance premiums too high?
Answer: Do you feel you’re paying too much for your business insurance policies? If your current policies are priced too high, you should consider comparing policies from other insurers to see if you could save money. Provide’s online platform helps you save up to 25% on all types of business insurance policies.

Question 3: If you’ve filed claims before with your current insurer , how was your experience?
Answer: Was the claims investigation process smooth or troublesome? Did they pay out your claims on time or did they drag it out? How supportive was the customer service team in your time of need? If your answers to these questions are negative, then perhaps it’s time to give your business to someone else who might appreciate it more.

Step 2: Source Quotes

Once you know all the protections you want to have in your policy, start sourcing for quotes from different insurers.

The vast majority of insurers will not directly provide business owners with quotes due to the complexity of insurance products. You will need an insurance broker to help you with the sourcing process.

Provide is a digital broker that makes commercial insurance cheaper, faster, and exponentially more convenient for business owners. We provide instant quotes for a variety of products, and our prices are up to 25% lower than traditional offline brokers.

Click here to get a quote from our comprehensive product range, or click here to schedule a call with one our expert advisors.

Compare Quotes

Once you have a few quotes in hand, it’s time to see which suits you best.

If you feel you want better coverage, or your protection needs have changed, it’s helpful to rank which protections are most important to you.

Having an expert broker walk you through the pros and cons of each policy is immensely helpful.

Consider total costs: Consider the total costs of switching, beyond merely the quoted price. You should take into account the cost of longevity discounts and multi-policy discounts (if applicable) that you would lose if you switched insurers. If the new insurer offers a better rate even after these discounts, then go ahead and make the change.

Step 3: Cancel Your Old Policy

If you’ve decided to switch insurers, there are a few things you need to take note of.

Ensure coverage is in force: Before you cancel your old policy, check the date on which your new policy will activate. It’s a good idea to align the start date of your new policy with the cancellation date of your existing one.

This helps you avoid a situation where you have a gap in coverage. If a claim situation arises (e.g. an accident happens) and you did not have coverage during that period, you would not be able to file a claim with your insurer.

Give sufficient notice in writing: Insurers will have a clause outlining the number of days of written notice you must provide to cancel a policy. This often ranges from 7-14 days.

Cancelling a policy in writing also provides proof of your cancellation request, and when you made it. This removes all ambiguity from any dispute that may arise later (e.g. the processing department at the insurer forgot to cancel your policy and charges you for next year’s policy).

Check your policy terms: You will need to check whether your policy is pro-rated or short-rated.

A pro-rated policy means that if you cancel a 12-month policy after 9 months, you will be refunded for the remaining 3 months of coverage.

A short-rated policy means that if you cancel the policy before it expires, the insurer may deduct a cancellation fee from whatever refund you were entitled to. Sometimes, these fees can be large to disincentivise customers from switching their policies early. Check your policy wording document to make sure it’s worth switching.

A good broker should be able to answer all these above queries for you, and to handle all the administrative tasks of switching insurers.

Ready to Switch? Choose Provide.

Provide’s online platform makes it easy for business owners to compare the most popular types of business insurance. If you can’t find something you like, our expert advisors will be happy to tailor protection to your exact needs.

Click here to compare business package insurance, or click here to speak with our expert advisors who can handcraft a comparison of any policy type for you.

Top 3 Insurance Policies For Employees In A Small Business

Aug 3, 2020Feb 14, 2020 by Admin

Top 3 Insurance Policies For Employees In A Small Business

Running a small business can be very challenging – business owners often rely on small teams of employees, so it’s doubly important that each employee gives their absolute best every day so your business can flourish. If one, or even several employees become sick or injured, their absence can put noticeable strains on the smooth running of the business.

Employees getting sick or injured while on the job also creates serious liability issues for small business owners. Under the 2012 Work Injury Compensation Act (WICA) in Singapore, companies are legally required to provide WICA insurance for any employees who earn less than $1,600 a month, or for any employees who perform manual labour. The WICA statute also requires employers to compensate employees up to $73,000 for work-related injuries. If you have multiple employees getting injured in a single year, these costs very quickly add up and become a significant burden on the company’s cash position.

The potential to be hit by significant costs related to employee injuries means that small business owners must take appropriate steps to protect themselves. Here are the 3 best insurance policies that company owners should have to protect their business and their employees:

#1. Work Injury Compensation Insurance (WICA Insurance)

Work Injury Compensation Insurance protects businesses from legal liability when employees become injured or sick due to work-related causes.

What WICA Insurance covers: WICA insurance covers legal expenses to defend against work-injury lawsuits. It also covers employee medical expenses for injuries or illnesses sustained from work.

Employer Coverage:

Lawyer’s fees for employee injury/sickness lawsuits
Legal damages for employees injured/sick for work-related reasons

Employee Coverage:

Medical expenses
Lost salary while on medical leave (includes salary, bonus, overtime pay, food and housing allowances, but excludes CPF payment)
Lump sum compensation for death, or total permanent disability

What WICA Insurance doesn’t cover:

Self-employed individuals
Pre-existing conditions
Self-inflicted injuries
Workplace fights
Injuries or illnesses that occur outside of work-related causes
Injuries or illnesses that occur in violation of company policies
Injuries or illnesses that occur from drug or alcohol use

How much WICA Insurance should small businesses have?

For small businesses, it’s advisable to have between $50,000 to $100,000 in Work Injury Compensation coverage per employee. Lower risk occupations involving mostly desk-bound work, or light outdoor supervisory roles can make do with $50,000. Manual workers should have at least $100,000.

Under Singapore law, businesses must cover their employees for the following minimum sums:

Death coverage: $57,000

Permanent disability coverage: $73,000

Medical expenses coverage: Up to $30,000, or 1 year of expenses from the date of accident, whichever is reached first

How much does WICA Insurance cost?

Non-Manual Worker: Starts from $25/year, per worker

Manual Worker: Starts from $50/year, per worker

As you can see, this type of coverage is very affordable for the benefits you’re getting! Prices may be higher for certain higher-risk industries, like manufacturing.

Get your instant WICA Insurance quotes here! With Provide, you save up to 25% on your premiums. Our digital operating model creates lower overheads, and we pass every dollar saved back to our clients.

#2. Group Personal Accident Insurance

Group Personal Accident Insurance protects employees if they suffer serious accidents, or accidentally die. This policy will provide cash payouts for accidental injuries or death, and also pays for employee medical expenses.

Singapore’s tight labour market means that small businesses face strong competition to hire and retain the best employees. Today’s workers increasingly expect good healthcare benefits from their companies. It’s become very common for business owners to offer good benefits (beyond just salary raises) as a strong employment incentive. A comprehensive Group Personal Accident policy is a great way to retain and attract talented employees. It’s also a fantastic method to keep employees safe, protecting your staff and their families from huge medical bills.

What Group PA Insurance covers:

Loss of Body Parts/Body Functions: Pays a lump sum for loss of arms, hands, fingers, legs, toes, sight, hearing, and more.
Total Permanent Disability: Pays a lump sum for permanent inability to work. Some insurers may have alternative definitions of this condition, like loss of a minimum number of specific body parts/functions.
Accidental Death: Pays a lump sum.

The following coverage features are offered in various combinations, depending on the insurer:

Medical Expenses/Hospital Cash: Pays for medical fees (up to a specified amount). Pays a daily hospitalisation benefit.
Temporary Disability (Partial/Total): Pays a daily cash benefit while temporarily disabled and unable to work.
Family Cover: Automatically covers employee’s child & spouse.
Reservist Cover: Covers employees performing reservist duty.

What Group PA Insurance doesn’t cover:

Individuals over 65-75 (depends on the policy)
Suicide
Pre-existing physical or mental defect or infirmity
Illness, diseases, infections, AIDS, HIV, and HIV-related illnesses
Childbirth, miscarriage, pregnancy or any other complications thereof
Injuries or death from criminal acts
Professional sports activities of any kind
Hazardous sports activities such as mountaineering, cave exploring, parachuting, hang gliding, hunting, racing of any kind (other than on foot), scuba-diving, bungee jumping and water ski jumping
Pilots or cabin crew, unless they’re travelling as fare paying passengers
Radioactive and nuclear weapon material accidents

How much Group PA Insurance should small businesses have?

Companies should look into having between $100,000 to $500,000 in coverage per employee. Lower coverage amounts are perfect for small companies that are looking to offer more than just salary as performance incentives, but are still operating on a lean budget. Higher coverage amounts are well suited for medium sized firms with larger salary budgets, that want to provide more competitive hiring and retention incentives.

Business Package Insurance will usually come bundled with Group PA insurance. However, this bundled Group PA insurance is most commonly only for 1-2 directors/officers. If you want to cover your staff, make sure to get a standalone Group PA policy.

How much does Group PA Insurance cost?

Premiums usually begin from $50/employee, for $100,000 in annual coverage.

With Provide, you’ll save up to 25% on premiums, with broad coverage & high indemnity policies guaranteed. Our digital operating model creates lower overheads, so we pass every dollar saved back to our clients.

Interested in protecting your employees with Group PA insurance? Get your Group PA insurance quote today!

#3. Group Health Insurance

Group Health Insurance is another strong incentive for hiring and retention. Given the high and increasing cost of healthcare in Singapore, employers that can offer good health insurance coverage for their staff immediately become highly attractive companies to work for. A 2018 survey found that health insurance was the number one benefit employees want when deciding which company to work for.

What Group Health Insurance covers:

The table below provides a broad overview of available coverage by plan type:

Coverage	Inpatient	Inpatient + Outpatient	Inpatient + Outpatient + Vision + Dental
Annual Premium	Starts from $400/staff	Starts from $600/staff	Starts from $800/staff
Inpatient Treatment
Hospital room	✔	✔	✔
Intensive care	✔	✔	✔
Prescription medicine	✔	✔	✔
Doctor/specialist fees	✔	✔	✔
Surgeon’s fees	✔	✔	✔
Anesthesiologist fees	✔	✔	✔
Laboratory and diagnostic tests	✔	✔	✔
Outpatient Treatment
GP consultation		✔	✔
Specialist consultation		✔	✔
Outpatient medical procedures (e.g. day surgery)		✔	✔
Prescription medicine		✔	✔
Physiotherapy		✔	✔
Home nursing		✔	✔
TCM/Chiropractor treatment		✔	✔
Psychiatric treatment		✔	✔
Dental Benefits
Routine dental work (scaling, polishing, fillings, simple extractions)			✔
Complex dental work & major restoration (e.g. root canal, jawbone surgery)			✔
Vision Benefits
Eye examination with optometrist or ophthalmologist			✔
Contact lenses, corrective lenses, glasses frames			✔

Common add-ons to Group Health Insurance:

The following types of coverage are usually purchased as a separate add-on to Group Health policies.

Critical illness: Critical illness protection gives you a lump sum cash payout in the event of major illnesses like:

Cancer
Organ failure
Heart attack
Stroke
and many more

Hospital Cash: Pays out a daily cash benefit while the insured is hospitalised. This helps defray the impact of lost wages while the person is recovering.

Maternity Benefits: Pays for pre-natal, childbirth, and post-natal treatments.

What Group Health Insurance doesn’t cover:

Pre-existing conditions: Most plans will ask each insured to declare pre-existing conditions, which will be excluded from coverage. If you need protection for a condition you already have, speak to an experienced broker like Provide, who can help you arrange coverage for certain pre-existing conditions.

Employees over 65-80 years old: The exact age at which applications are not accepted differs between different plans, but most insurers will not offer Group Health policies to new applications over 65-70 due to significantly increased health risks.

If you’re already insured by a Group Health Insurance plan, then most insurers will continue to cover you up till 70-80 years old.

Companies with fewer than 3 employees: Group health plans cost less per person than individual health plans, so a minimum size is necessary for insurance companies to provide savings.

How much Group Health Insurance should small businesses have?

Most small businesses will do well with an inpatient plan with annual coverage of up to $250,000. Inpatient H&S policies will protect employees from diseases or accidents that require expensive medical procedures to treat. It is precisely these large, out-of-pocket financial burdens that workers want to avoid and will need the most assistance to deal with. Consequently, companies that help employees with these costs already provide a significant incentive.

Plans that include outpatient treatment will often command a sizeable premium over inpatient-only plans. Consider undertaking an outpatient plan if your business is growing quickly, and you want to attract the best talent by offering comprehensive employee benefits. The highest-end plans with vision and dental benefits are usually suitable for mid-sized companies that have more resources to spare.

How much does Group Health Insurance cost?

These are the typical prices SMEs can expect for Group Health Insurance:

Plan Type	Annual Premium
Inpatient	Starts from $400/employee
Inpatient + Outpatient	Starts from $500/employee
Inpatient + Outpatient + Vision + Dental	Starts from $600/employee

Annual premiums are largely based on: age and health condition of insured, and the number of insureds. The prices above are typical for staff in their 20s to 30s. Staff in their 40s and above may pay 30-50% more, to account for increased health risks.

Provide helps businesses get broad cover, high indemnity health insurance. Our experts have decades of experience crafting tailored health insurance plans for business owners. Contact us today for an expert consult on health insurance!

5 Best Corporate Governance Practices for Small Businesses

Nov 11, 2021Feb 14, 2020 by Admin

5 Best Corporate Governance Practices for Small Businesses

What would a country be like if it had no laws? I’m sure you can immediately imagine the uncontrolled havoc that people would be constantly wreaking. Having strong corporate governance principles in a company is much the same as having laws in a country. An established governance framework minimises the possibility of unethical or unlawful acts being committed, motivates each individual to do their best at all times, and maximises performance of the business as a whole.

Corporate governance is not just something practiced by large corporations. These governance principles are incredibly helpful to small businesses, because it maximises the work contributions of each employee – particularly helpful for SMEs that rely on small numbers of people. If you’re a small business owner, there’s no doubt that solid corporate governance practices will bring long-term benefits to your bottom-line.

What are the benefits of corporate governance for small businesses?

Minimises wasteful expenses, corruption, and unethical/unlawful behaviour
Maximises staff performance by holding everyone accountable for their actions and job results
Builds a strong, highly motivated workforce by ensuring fair treatment and compensation
Creates strong shareholder and investor confidence in the business
Ensures effective management of business risks

5 Best corporate governance practices for small businesses:

1. Adopt strong internal controls for accountability

Having proper accountability structures means that all members of the company, from the most junior to the most senior, are held responsible for their actions. Employees are less likely to commit unethical/illegal acts like forging expenses, having personal interests in transactions, etc.

Conduct regular accounting audits to prevent fraudulent transactions.
Require approvals for high-value transactions.
Separate approval powers. Require at least two directors to approve the disbursement of company funds.
Standardise financial documents to make audits easier.

2. Assign clear roles and responsibilities to directors and officers

A distinct understanding of roles allows senior management to focus on maximising the performance of their business functions, and avoids unproductive job overlaps between different business managers.

Create job mandates in writing for the board chairman, each board director, the CEO, and all company officers. Each person’s role and responsibilities should be clearly understood.
Create separate board-level committees to perform key oversight functions. Committees are commonly grouped as such:
- Audit
- Nominating
- Compensation
- Corporate governance
- Special committees, for high-value or complex transactions
Always remember “noses in, fingers out”: the board of directors should maintain oversight of the company, ensuring that senior executives are serving the best interest of shareholders. However, the board should respect that day-to-day management is best left to company officers, who are ultimately answerable to the board.

3. Set measurable performance targets, and make transparent compensation decisions

You don’t know what you don’t measure, and you can’t improve what you don’t know. Work teams – both big and small – benefit greatly from quantitative and qualitative measures to drive consistent performance improvement. Constant measurements also make it easier for business owners to allocate financial rewards where they’re most deserved.

Identify measurable KPIs for management. Ensure that KPIs are aligned to the results you seek, and will drive performance. Provide regular and honest feedback on performance to ensure best results.
Make fair and justifiable compensation decisions based on these measured performance targets. This allows executives to clearly understand what drives their incentives, and avoids contentious debates over the fairness of individual remuneration.
Establish a board-level Compensation Committee to engage in annual reviews of compensation.

4. Establish a thorough compliance process to mitigate unlawful or unethical behaviour

No, this isn’t about setting up thick layers of red-tape that kills new ideas. Having established compliance processes helps small business owners ensure their employees are conducting themselves in an upright fashion, minimising the liability of the company and of the directors.

Establish an official code of conduct that lays out specific actions to prevent conflicts of interests.
Establish a conflict of interest policy: company members must know when, and to whom, to declare personal interests in transactions, hiring, or any other company activity.
Implement a non-compliance process: compliance reports should be regularly generated, and the types of responses against non-compliance should be agreed upon.
If the non-compliance is serious enough, authorities and shareholders need to be informed.
Appoint a board-level compliance committee to oversee compliance with this code of conduct.

5. Regularly identify business risks and address them

Small companies, with their limited resources, are especially vulnerable to business risks. Technological disruption could make your goods or services obsolete. A big lawsuit could wipe out your finances. A cyber attack could destroy years’ worth of laboriously-accumulated customer data. Risk management is essential here to ensure your business continues to prosper for decades.

Directors and officers should assess the multi-varied risks the company faces: financial, technological, strategic, reputational, and compliance risks.
Develop a fundamental understanding of short-term and long-term risks the business faces. These assessments should be sufficiently deep to push management to question the sufficiency of current risk management systems, and to make regular improvements to them.
Ensure sure your business is protected by insurance policies that will cover you from a wide variety of risks. You should have coverage against property damage, employee injuries, and various legal liabilities, at the minimum. Engage an experienced insurance broker to provide advice and handle claims.

Engage an experienced risk management team to protect your business

Small companies, with their limited resources, are especially vulnerable to business risks. Technological disruption could make your goods or services obsolete; a big lawsuit could wipe out your finances; a cyber attack could destroy years’ worth of laboriously-accumulated customer data. Risk management is essential here to ensure your business continues to prosper for decades.

A central part of any business’ risk management strategy should be to have a comprehensive suite of insurance coverage to guard the business against common risks.

These include:

Property damage
Inventory/equipment damage
Business lawsuits
Personal liability as a director/officer
Customers defaulting on payments owed to you
Hackers attacking your website and database

As Singapore’s leading online business insurance platform, Provide helps business owners to protect their companies. Our online platform makes business insurance cheaper, faster, and exponentially more convenient. Our brokers have more than 20+ years of experience serving both large corporations and small businesses.

We offer the most affordable and comprehensive business insurance plans in Singapore. Click the links below to get insured online, in just 3 mins!

Commercial Property Insurance from $12/month
Public Liability Insurance with food poisoning extension from $9/month
Work Injury Compensation (WICA) Insurance from $5/month
Business Interruption Insurance from $9/month

D&O Insurance Basics: The Ultimate Guide for Business Owners

Aug 3, 2020Feb 14, 2020 by Admin

D&O Insurance Basics: The Ultimate Guide for Business Owners

What is D&O Insurance?

Directors & Officers (D&O) Insurance protects company directors & officers from lawsuits filed against them.

The moment you serve as a company director or officer (e.g. when you incorporate your own business), you are immediately exposed to a wide variety of legal liabilities: professional negligence, breach of fiduciary duty, misleading shareholders, wrongful employee dismissal – and a thousand more legal allegations that could cripple your finances.

These lawsuits could be filed against you by a dizzying multitude of parties – suppliers, customers, competitors, employees, creditors, regulators, or shareholders. Essentially, almost any party your business comes into contact with is a potential claimant.

When you are sued as a company director, your personal assets like savings in your bank, your house, and your car will be completely open to legal claims. If you don’t have D&O insurance, you will have to use your personal assets to pay for expensive legal fees and damages awarded, which often stretch into hundreds of thousands of dollars.

How does D&O Insurance work?

To understand how D&O insurance functions, we must first understand what a typical D&O policy looks like. D&O insurance is structured around 3 “sides”: A, B, and C. These “sides” are basically individual components of the D&O policy, with each section protecting you from different risks.

D&O Side A: Director Coverage

This side of D&O insurance protects directors when the company is unable to indemnify them against lawsuits. Side A is most commonly activated when companies go bankrupt, or when companies are prohibited by law from indemnifying directors against certain allegations.

Example claims: Your company goes bankrupt, and thus cannot pay for directors’ legal fees and damages. Side A of the policy will be activated to protect the directors.

A director is fined by government regulators for breaching certain legal statutes. Under Singapore law, companies cannot indemnify directors for regulatory penalties. Side A of the policy will pay for the director’s legal defense and damages.

D&O Side B: Company Reimbursement

This side of D&O insurance reimburses the company for legal fees and damages paid to defend directors. Side B is most commonly activated in D&O lawsuits, since companies will defend their directors, and then claim reimbursement from their insurer.

Example claims: You run a construction firm. Your customers sue you as a company director, alleging professional negligence that led to defective property construction. Your company spends $500,000 on lawyers and settlement fees. You can claim back these costs under Side B of your D&O policy.

D&O Side C: Entity Coverage

This side of D&O insurance protects the company whenever the firm and its directors are sued together. Private businesses enjoy broader Side C coverage than public companies – the latter are only entitled to activate Side C coverage for securities-related claims.

Example claims: Shareholders sue the directors of a public company for allegedly misleading numbers and facts published in the company’s financial statements.

What does D&O insurance cover?

Misrepresentation or misleading statements

Directors have a responsibility to be truthful when making agreements or providing information. If directors commit acts like presenting inaccurate financial statements, or publishing false advertisements, they can be held liable. Covers lawsuits alleging such misrepresentations.

Errors, Omissions, Professional Negligence

When performing a service, negligent acts can sometimes occur, resulting in financial loss or physical injury to third-parties. Covers lawsuits resulting from such negligence.

Breach of Warranty of Authority

Company officers may make decisions that exceed the scope of authority granted to them by the Board of Directors, resulting in financial loss or other damages. Covers liability from such acts.

Breach of Fiduciary Duty

If Directors and officers do not act in the best interests of the company, they can be held liable by shareholders. Covers liability from such acts.

Employer Liability

Directors can be held responsible for workplace practices like wrongful dismissal, employment discrimination, and sexual harassment. Covers employer liability from such allegations.

Defamation/Slander

Covers lawsuits alleging defamation (written) or slander (spoken).

What does D&O insurance not cover?

Dishonest, Criminal or Fraudulent Conduct

Directors have a legal responsibility to act in good faith and to comply with regulations at all times. D&O policies thus will not cover lawsuits stemming from such behavior.

Insured vs. Insured Lawsuits

D&O insurance will not cover you if you are sued by another insured individual covered under the same policy (e.g. two directors in the same firm suing each other).

Breach of Contract

D&O policies often will not cover breach of contract claims. This is because a contract is not a liability imposed by law, but an obligation that is voluntarily entered into. There would be conflicts of interest if contract breaches were insurable, since insured individuals could break contracts at will without bearing any financial repercussions.

Prior and Pending Claims

D&O policies will not cover claims that have arisen before, or are currently being litigated, at the time you purchase the policy.

Key clauses in D&O insurance

Of the many clauses found in D&O policies, there are 5 crucial clauses that will have a significant impact on the effectiveness and breadth of coverage.

Advanced Defense Costs

Does your D&O policy pay your lawyer fees in advance, instead of having you pay first then seek insurer reimbursement later? Wherever possible, you should choose a policy that will give you advanced defense payments. Provide’s D&O policies feature this clause (URL) – this lifts a significant financial burden off the shoulders of small business owners.

Run-Off Coverage/D&O Tail Insurance

Directors & Officers can be held liable for management decisions that they made while they held office, even after they’ve resigned! Post-resignation liability is one of the biggest and most worrying liabilities that directors face, because such liability will follow directors for many years even after they no longer hold office. You should therefore select a D&O policy that contains run-off protection – Provide’s D&O policies offer this protection. This means that even when Directors & Officers leave the company, the D&O policy will still protect them from claims. Run-off protection usually lasts for 5-7 years, depending on the policy. For even greater protection, a stand-alone Side A policy (also called D&O tail insurance) can be purchased. D&O tail policies will provide an extended duration of run-off protection (often 10+ years).

Duty to Indemnify vs. Duty to Defend

Duty to Indemnify: The insurer is obligated only to reimburse the company for any expenses incurred while defending a claimable D&O lawsuit.

Private company D&O insurance is often written on a Duty to Indemnify basis. This means the insurer will only pay for lawsuits that are claimable events under the policy. If you’re sued for a reason that is not covered under the policy, you won’t be covered.

A Duty to Indemnify policy gives you control over the defense process: you are allowed to select your own lawyers to defend lawsuits (subject to insurer approval), you are responsible for making payment for legal expenses, etc. This level of control may be useful if you are defending an especially complex lawsuit.

Duty to Defend: The insurer is obligated to defend the company for any D&O lawsuit, even if coverage is in doubt and may not ultimately apply.

Sometimes, D&O policies are written on a Duty to Defend basis. The implications are exactly as it sounds – the insurer must defend the policyholder against all D&O lawsuits.

With Duty to Defend policies, the insurer will select lawyers for you, and manage the whole defense process. Although this means you do not control the defense proceedings, it doesn’t lower the quality of your defense in any way. Insurers have access to top legal firms who will have handled similar lawsuits many times before. It’s also always in the insurer’s best interests to win the case for you quickly, since it reduces the amount they have to pay out under your D&O policy. Having the insurer manage the defense process is especially useful for more routine D&O lawsuits, since the insurer will handle payments, legal arrangements, and other administrative tasks so that you can focus on your business.

A particular advantage of Duty to Defend policies is that if any part of your claim is covered, the insurer must defend the entire claim, even those parts of the claim that are not ordinarily covered. This “umbrella defense” provision provides Directors much broader coverage. It also avoids a problem commonly seen with Duty to Indemnify policies, where insurance payouts must be negotiated and split between covered and uncovered portions of the claim. This negotiation process, as you might expect, is often rife with frustrating disputes between policyholders and insurers. Having a Duty to Defend policy allows insured individuals to avoid frustrating arguments with insurers on coverage, and to instead focus on resolving the lawsuit.

Shrinking Limits

D&O policies are written with a “shrinking limits” provision. This means that the amount of coverage available for damages is reduced by the amount paid out for legal expenses. Make sure you select a policy that will provide sufficient payouts for both!

Why is D&O insurance essential for small businesses?

Small businesses have limited resources to fight lawsuits: Unlike large corporations, SMEs typically do not have millions of dollars in cash reserves that they can draw on anytime to fund a lawsuit defense. Diverting significant amounts of liquid assets and cash flow away from operations, and towards legal fees, will often cause significant detrimental impacts on the small businesses.
The cost of a single D&O lawsuit could easily bankrupt an SME and its Directors: A D&O lawsuit could easily cost between half a million to several million dollars to resolve. A single D&O claim, if not insured for, could essentially bankrupt a small business and its Directors.
Small businesses often do not have in-house counsel: Unlike large corporations, very few SMEs have in-house lawyers that can review every decision your business makes with third-parties or with employees. This increases the likelihood of making management decisions that Directors may have to answer for in court. Having a D&O policy ensures that if management decisions ultimately result in a lawsuit, Directors are not left without recourse to protect themselves.

Will Limited Liability laws protect directors from personal lawsuits?

In Singapore, Limited Liability statutes only prevent directors from being held responsible for company liabilities. These laws do not apply to directors’ personal liabilities.

It is crucial to know that when plaintiffs sue, they will often file multiple lawsuits targeting both the company and the company’s directors. When you are sued personally as a director, Limited Liability laws will not help you. You will only be protected if you have a D&O policy in place.

What are common claims for D&O insurance?

It’s easier to understand how this type of insurance works with some D&O claims examples. Here are the top 6 most common claims made for D&O insurance:

Shareholder Claims

Shareholders have a financial stake in the business, so when they feel their interests are not being appropriately represented, they can take Directors to court. Common shareholder lawsuits involve:

Errors or misleading statements in financial reporting
Breach of fiduciary duty leading to financial losses or bankruptcy
Mismanagement of company causing poor financial performance
Mergers & acquisitions
Decisions exceeding authority given to company officer

Employment Claims

In this litigious age, it is increasingly common for employees to file civil suits against company directors for perceived workplace wrongs. Directors can be sued for:

Wrongful dismissal
Breach of employment contract
Employment discrimination (e.g. hiring, promotions)
Sexual harassment

Customer Claims

Directors can face claims from customers if they fail to properly provide promised services or goods. Customers file suits against Directors for:

Fraudulent behaviour
Contract disputes
Professional negligence
Misleading promises/claims

Creditor Claims

When a company owes money to a third-party, directors of the indebted company are legally required to act in good faith to both shareholders and creditors. Directors can be sued by creditors for:

Breach of fiduciary duty to creditors, leading to a loss on assets owed/impairment of ability to repay debt
Irresponsible or fraudulent accumulation of debt
Conducting business while insolvent

Competitor Claims

In Singapore’s competitive business environment, it’s not uncommon for small businesses to be litigated by rival firms. Directors can be sued for:

Defamation/slander
Infringement of Intellectual Property
Theft of trade secrets
Collusion & other anti-competitive behaviour

Regulator Claims

Comprehensive legal frameworks help ensure responsible business behaviour, but it also increases the chance of company directors inadvertently breaching regulations, and bearing painful penalties. This is especially true for businesses operating in tightly-monitored industries (e.g. financial services, law, and healthcare). Regulators can file lawsuits or fine Directors for:

Breaching industry regulations
Professional negligence that results in loss or injury to third-parties
Engaging in deceptive marketing
Causing pollution
Any other unlawful conduct

Having D&O insurance will protect you from this wide variety of legal liabilities. If you’re a director, do you want your personal assets to be exposed to so many risks without some kind of protection?

How much D&O insurance do private companies need?

When planning the amount of D&O coverage to purchase, it’s helpful to map out the potential costs of defending a D&O lawsuit.

Lawyer’s fees: A safe estimate would range between $50,000 to $100,000 a year. A typical D&O lawsuit will easily last a minimum of 2-3 years.

Damages/Settlement: A safe estimate is to have at least $500,000 set aside, exclusively for damages.

Given the combined cost of lawyer’s fees and potential damages, most SMEs should be looking at D&O policies beginning from $1 million in coverage.

How much does D&O insurance cost?

A million dollars of D&O coverage starts at only $3.80/day. That’s less than the price of a daily cappuccino!

In a year, small businesses should expect to pay no more than $1,500 for between $1-2 million dollars in coverage. The large amount of coverage you get for such affordable premiums is a strong incentive for business owners to protect themselves with a D&O policy.

There are 2 principal ways company directors can prepare for litigation:

Pay lawsuit expenses out-of-pocket	Purchase D&O insurance
Easily $200,000 to $300,000/year	$1,500/year

When you compare the costs side-by-side, it’s not difficult to see which is the better option for directors and business owners.

Where can I buy D&O insurance?

Provide is the easiest place to get online D&O insurance quotes. It takes only 60 seconds to get covered. You’ll save up to 25% on premiums compared to traditional brokers, with broad coverage and high indemnity guaranteed.

How To Get Liability Insurance For Your Small Business

May 24, 2022Feb 14, 2020 by Admin

Are you a business owner wanting to protect yourself from damaging and expensive lawsuits? Unsure of how to get liability insurance for your business? Are you looking for a better, cheaper, easier way to protect your company from legal liability?

This easy-to-follow guide clearly explains:

The different ways you can get business liability insurance
Which way helps you save the most money, gives the best protection, and is the simplest to use

There are 3 main ways business owners can get liability insurance to protect themselves and their company.

Features	Insurance Agent	Traditional Insurance Broker	Provide: Online Insurance Broker
No. of Insurers	Maximum 3	Unlimited	Unlimited
Expertise	Depends on agent	Depends on broker, usually higher than agent	20+ years experience serving large corporations and SMEs
Price	Industry standard	Industry standard	10-25% savings on all policies, forever
Speed	1-3 week(s) for quotes	1-3 week(s) for quotes	Instant quotes for all essential SME policies. 1-2 week(s) for complex policies
Convenience	No instant services. Must schedule calls/meetings. Send text messages/emails.	No instant services. Must schedule calls/meetings. Send text messages/emails.	24/7 online platform to instantly buy coverage, change policies, get advice. Calls/meetings available for more complex needs.
Claims process	Depends on agent	Depends on broker	Easily file claims online. Receive automatic updates on claims process. Expert team to act as strong claims advocate.
In-person consults	Yes	Yes	Yes

#1. Use an insurance agent

Business owners can use a commercial insurance agent to purchase insurance. Most insurance agents in Singapore are focused on personal policies like car, maid, and life plans, so make sure to approach an agent with specific experience in handling commercial policies.

It’s important to note that insurance agents are only legally allowed to represent a maximum of 3 insurers. There are 82 insurers in Singapore: 60+ global insurers (e.g. the AIG’s, Chubb’s, QBE’s of the world), with another 20 regionally-focused insurers. What this means is that if you have an insurance agent source commercial insurance quotes for you, you’re probably not going to get the best prices, or the best coverage options. Agents unfortunately don’t possess the ability to conduct a broad search across the insurance market.

There are more insurance agents in Singapore than insurance brokers because qualifying to operate as a broker is much harder. Brokers have to meet much more stringent insurance experience criteria, undergo a stricter review process by MAS, and must have much more paid-up capital.

#2. Use an online insurance broker

You can use an online insurance broker to purchase business liability insurance. Provide is Singapore’s 1^st online business insurance platform, exclusively focused on protecting SMEs.

If you run a small business, you should consider using an online broker to protect your company. Provide helps SME owners get the best insurance protection rapidly, and to save lots of money in the process.

Our digital platform helps business owners:

Save up to 25% on all insurance premiums
Buy protection instantly
Get broad coverage, high indemnity policies guaranteed
Get access to industry experts who will provide tailored advice, and be strong claims advocates

If you’re looking for a better, faster, and easier way to get covered, choose Provide.

#3. Contact an insurance broker for an in-person consultation

Lastly, there’s always the traditional route of calling up a commercial broker, and having a sit-down to review your needs and get quotes. Traditional brokers will solely operate via this route.

Provide also offers in-person consults with our insurance experts. Provide’s highly experienced brokers have 20+ years of combined experience protecting all types of companies, from large corporations to small businesses. If you prefer to meet with someone over using our online platform, our industry experts will come down to meet you, analyse your business, and provide thorough coverage recommendations. Arrange an expert consult now.

What types of liability insurance should small businesses have?

There are 4 main types of liability insurance that business owners can use to protect themselves and their company:

Director & Officer (D&O) Liability Insurance
Work Compensation Injury (WICA) Insurance
Professional Indemnity Insurance
Public Liability Insurance

How does liability insurance protect business owners and their companies?

Lawsuits are one of the single most damaging risks any company – let alone a small business – can face. Defending legal claims can easily cost a small business owner half a million dollars or more. These costs could very easily bankrupt an entire business. Business liabilities can even lead to business owners themselves being declared bankrupt, or in some cases going to jail.

This table below shows how the 4 types of liability insurance, put together as a suite, will protect business owners and their companies from expensive and dangerous litigation.

Insurance Types	Personal Liability (Directors & Officers)	Company Liability
Diretors & Officers (D&O) Liability Insurance	Protects directors & officers personal assets from legal exposure when they are sued. Also protects against cost of criminal proceedings.	Protects company when the firm pays to defend its directors & officers against lawsuits.
Work Injury Compensation Insurance	Prevents directors/officers from being convicted of criminal offence for failing to comply with WICA regulations.	Protects company from legal liability when employees get injured/sick from work-related causes. Note: All injured/sick workers can file injury claims against their employer under the WICA act.
Professional Indemnity Insurance	N.A.	Protects company from legal liability when company is sued for professional negligence, errors, omissions, defamation, and more.
Public Liability Insurance	N.A.	Protects company from legal liability when company is sued by third-parties (like customers or members of the public) for physical injury or financial damage.

How much should small businesses pay for liability insurance?

For small businesses with annual revenues of less than $5 million, use the following table as a liability insurance guide. These are easy-to-follow estimates for how much liability coverage you’ll need, and how much the premiums will be.

Liability insurance guide for businesses with <$5 million annual revenue
Liability Insurance Type	What It Covers	Recommended Annual Coverage	Premium
Directors & Officers (D&O) Liability Insurance	Directors & Officers personal liability	$1 million	Starts from $42/month
Professional Indemnity Insurance	Company liability for negligence, malpractice, breach of care, and more	$1 million	Starts from $42/month
Public Liability Insurance	Company liability to third-parties for damage or injury	$500,000	Starts from $9/month
Work Injury Compensation Insurance	Company liability to employees for injuries/illness	$50,000 per employee	Non-manual staff: Starts from $5/month Manual labour staff: Starts from $15/month

At Provide, we believe that businesses deserve the most comprehensive protection, delivered at the most affordable prices. That’s why all our policies cost up to 25% less, with broad coverage & high indemnity guaranteed. Our digital platform creates lower overheads, and we pass every dollar saved back to you.

Get your liability insurance quotes today for:

E&O vs D&O Difference Summary

Does a business need both E&O and D&O Insurance? What happens if I only have one type of coverage?

Where can I get great E&O and D&O coverage?

What are the benefits of corporate governance for small businesses?

5 Best corporate governance practices for small businesses:

1. Adopt strong internal controls for accountability

2. Assign clear roles and responsibilities to directors and officers

3. Set measurable performance targets, and make transparent compensation decisions

4. Establish a thorough compliance process to mitigate unlawful or unethical behaviour

5. Regularly identify business risks and address them

Engage an experienced risk management team to protect your business

#1. Use an insurance agent

#2. Use an online insurance broker

#3. Contact an insurance broker for an in-person consultation

What types of liability insurance should small businesses have?

How does liability insurance protect business owners and their companies?

How much should small businesses pay for liability insurance?