Funding partners named for the self employment program

Monique Smith congratulates recent graduate as Vincent Shank looks on.

VS Accounting & Consulting
News Release

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VS Accounting began administering the Self Employment Benefit program (SEB) in June of 2003 with the support of Human Resources and Development Canada. We are pleased to renew our commitment to the program and would like to recognize our new funding partners – the province of Ontario and the Ministry of Training, Colleges, and Universities. The MTCU assumed responsibility for the program in January of 2007 making it a provincially funded initiative.

Our joint partnering effort is dedicated to the development of successful small businesses in the Nipissing Region.

“The SEB program, administered through VS Accounting, is a wonderful resource to aspiring entrepreneurs,” Nipissing MPP Monique Smith said. “This is one example of how the McGunity government is committed to helping people find employment and support small businesses grow and prosper throughout Nipissing.”

VS Accounting has recently launched new technology that will enable SEB participants access to VS Accounting’s terminal server. With this technology they can access their own business plans, based on VS Accounting standards, from anywhere in the world and collaborate live online via terminal with VS Accountings’ trained staff for business planning purposes, therefore increasing accessibility.

This exciting new technology allows the participants 24hr access to files and resource material that VS Accounting provides and our support staff offer one on one live mentoring to assist participants via online demonstrations and tutorials.

Since VS Accounting began with the SEB program in 2003, we have assisted 124 participants launch their businesses. The funding agency has provided approximately $2.4 million to the start up of these businesses in ongoing employment insurance benefits. VS Accounting has provided numerous hours in mentoring and approximately 6200 hours of training through seminars such as:

Business planning Accounting
Bookkeeping Human resources
Internal control Small business management
Simply accounting Quick books
Advertising Marketing
Website and e comm. Desktop publishing
Time management Stress management
Finance and interest Commercial financing
Trade show preparation

And the pay off has been huge. In a constantly changing business environment that typically sees about 37% of small business survive for 4 years; we are proud of our participants’ success rate. 83% are still in full time operation. Overall, 92% are still operating their businesses. This translates to over $5 million in direct dollars back into the regional economy, 150 employment positions, and a long-term development plan for the Nipissing Region.

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