Cashless transactions have been increasing in popularity as a preferred means of payment, particularly by smaller businesses and particularly since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic. “Fintech” solutions such as tap-to-pay, interbank instant deposits, eWallet, PayPal, Snapscan, Zapper continue to grow in popularity.

We have a look at a survey conducted during the pandemic, and at the resulting report which draws out interesting behavioural changes taking place under lockdown and discusses whether these will endure. 

There is a notable move towards digital methods of conducting financial transactions and SMEs are embracing the trend. We list four reasons why this could benefit your small business…

Starting a new business can be stressful. Long hours and late nights become the norm as you battle to do as much as possible yourself knowing that taking on staff is a big commitment. Understanding just when to onboard staff and pass on some of the responsibility is a skill in and of itself, but you need not take the plunge immediately. 

Building a team of reliable freelancers can give you as a business owner peace of mind within a budget and has none of the commitment that hiring staff does. A team of freelancers can easily be upgraded and downgraded as necessary depending on conditions and you only need to hire to fit your current workload. It is this flexibility that makes working with freelancers a valuable tool to growing your business. Here is how you do it.

“The future of money is digital currency” as Bill Gates put it, and certainly interest in crypto currencies - like Bitcoin, Ethereum, Polkadot, Solana and the many others popping up all the time - is surging dramatically.

Of growing importance therefore is that anyone holding or planning to buy cryptocurrency needs to understand the tax angle, and by way of an updated warning to keep up to speed on this we point you to SARS’ new webpage on the subject for a “from the horse’s mouth” take on the whole question.

SARS addresses questions such as what a crypto asset is, whether tax needs to be paid, how it will work (with an example of the 2020/21 tax year ITR12 Tax Return), and how it traces crypto asset transactions.