JMMB Bank, We Inspire host all-female SME seminar

The JMMB Bank recently partnered with We Inspire Women for the second staging of its small and medium-size enterprise (SME) development seminar. The event, which took place at the ATL Audi Showroom, saw the all-female audience of entrepreneurs, drawn from a range of industries, all decked out in red.

The invitation-only event was open to female business owners registered for the We Inspire brunch slated to take place this weekend in Montego Bay.

This partnership with JMMB Bank and We Inspire aims to impart proven strategies that will bridge the gap between the failure and success of companies.

“We believe that the process of being an entrepreneur is even more daunting when the knowledge base is absent.

As such, this partnership is designed to bridge that gap between failure and success in entrepreneurial companies, through initiatives like this SME development seminar, led by JMMB. Through partnerships like these, I believe we can embark on a journey towards the sustained success of businesses,” said Cortia Bingham-McKenzie, We Inspire Ltd founder and CEO.

In keeping with the tone of partnership which was set for the event, Shani Duncan-Falconer, JMMB’s senior corporate manager, SME Resource Centre, used the occasion to highlight several supporting services and the expertise available to these budding entrepreneurs, through the recently-launched JMMB SME Resource Centre and JMMB Bank. Duncan-Falconer, in her presentation, detailed a range of critical resources that these entrepreneurs could access to assist them in growing their business through the SME Centre, including financial opportunities through grant funding; expertise in business plan writing; creation of financial statements; access to other resources, such as the Branson Centre’s online learning platform; and mentoring.

Additionally, Duncan-Falconer underscored a few fundamental financial principles that she noted were critical to have establish, in the initial stage of their businesses, as these would form a solid foundation for financial management going forward.

“Separate your personal and business account so that you can make the process of preparing financial documentation for your business easy, especially later when applying for a loan from a financial institution, and to ensure accurate recordkeeping.“

She also reminded them of the financial principle of paying yourself first and setting business SMART goals so that your success can be measured and adjustments made throughout the process.

Lavern O’Hara Jenkins, taxpayer education officer at the Montego Bay Revenue Centre, Tax Administration of Jamaica, detailed the types of taxes that entrepreneurs and corporations would be required to pay, provided their companies were earning above the respective tax threshold, namely: income tax and salary deductions, such as National Housing Trust, National Insurance Scheme, Education Tax, HEART and Pay as You Earn Taxes, for employees.

Jenkins emphasised to the all-female entrepreneurs that good record-keeping is key to helping them to not just monitor their operations, but to keep track of deductions, to file and validate taxation information, and prepare financial statements. She also introduced the audience to Tax Administration’s eServices, a digital platform that allows businesses to access several services of the TAJ. She also noted that TAJ’s eServices is designed to promote ease of doing business, increase efficiency and make monitoring of taxes easy.