Certificate in Small Business Management

Everything an owner has to get right, in the order you meet it. You start by getting your business onto one page, then work through customers and competition, pricing and margins, cash flow and funding, setting up properly in the UK, records and tax, operations, sales, marketing on a small budget and hiring your first employee. It finishes with your plan for the year and a full business plan, stress-tested against a late payer, a cost rise and a lost fortnight, then pitched as if to a lender.

It covers the money every owner has to understand: pricing, margins, cash flow, records that stand up to HMRC, and how Self Assessment, corporation tax and VAT work. For doing the books day to day, take Bookkeeping & Payroll, and our Xero and QuickBooks courses teach the software.

Yes. It's built on UK rules: HMRC, Companies House, Making Tax Digital, PAYE, workplace pensions and employment law, with the differences in Scotland and Northern Ireland pointed out where they matter. Rates and thresholds change, so you learn to look up the current figure on GOV.UK rather than memorise one that goes out of date.

No. The course works in Google Sheets or Excel and Google Docs or Word, and the free versions are enough. The official guidance and tools it uses, from GOV.UK to HMRC's free payroll software, cost nothing either.

Freelancing if you're going solo with a service and want your first clients, your rates and your proposals sorted. Small Business Management if you run, or plan to run, a business with customers, stock, premises or staff, because it adds cash forecasting, UK set-up and tax, operations and hiring. If you start solo and then grow, this is the natural next step.

No. You build your plan around your own business, one you're planning, the one you work in (with permission) or one of the course's case businesses, such as a mobile dog grooming start-up or a plumbing firm taking on its first employee. The York florist you follow all year gives you a worked example of every step.

As long as you need. It's self-paced, so it fits around running the business, and there's no deadline. Building your own plan alongside the lessons takes real time, so treat it as steady work rather than a weekend job.

Yes. Pass the final assessment and you get an OBA certificate of completion that an employer can verify online. It isn't a regulated qualification such as a CMI or ILM award. The business plan you build is the other half of the proof, and it's one you'll keep using.

Download the free info pack first. It walks you through every module, what you'll build and what you need before you start, so you can enrol knowing exactly what you're getting. If you'd like to talk it through, get in touch and we'll help you choose.