How The Mac-Nutrition Collective put idle cash reserves to work with Insignis 

Company: Mac-Nutrition Uni

Sector: Nutrition education and professional mentoring

Headquarters: Loughborough, UK

Results with Insignis:

• Consolidated a day-to-day current account and a single high-street reserve account onto the Insignis platform and gained access to a range of FSCS-protected banks.
• Improved FSCS protection by placing cash reserves across a range of accounts.
• Achieved materially better returns on cash across easy access and fixed term accounts.

“We started off placing funds to earn interest on our emergency business funds but seeing how simple it was to manage cash through Insignis, it quickly turned into the obvious place for smaller sums of cash flowing through our business. Now, we have a mix of longer-term investments and easy access funds all earning interest on cash we’ve place through Insignis, which is money we’d otherwise have missed out on.”

Martin MacDonald, Founder & CEO, The Mac-Nutrition Collective

An industry leading nutrition education and mentoring business

Mac-Nutrition Uni (MNU), a government-regulated Level 5 qualification in advanced nutrition science teaches and qualifies practitioners in over 95 countries worldwide. Alongside MNU, the Mac-Nutrition Mentoring Lab supports qualified practitioners around the globe with the business, communication and finance skills often missing from traditional academic training. Having studied a very traditional academic route himself pursuing a degree, Masters and Postgraduate qualifications, Martin built the Mentoring Lab to fill a gap he experienced first-hand:

“To prepare for real-world scenarios, we have our sister company The Mac-Nutrition Mentoring Lab, which is more about supporting people with key soft skills and business skills. Finance is one of those areas for nutritionists to focus on as they grow a new business.”

Before working with Insignis, Martin managed the business’s cash in the simplest way possible:

“We had our business day-to-day current account, as well as a reserve account. The money in each of these was over the FSCS protection limits, and the interest rates were low. Initially, I wasn’t aware there were alternatives for businesses, which meant I was missing out on potentially a lot of money, as well as having my cash reserves at risk if, worst case scenario, my bank failed.”

Handing over money, without handing over control

“The fact I have complete control of where to place my business cash has been great. While my profession is the nutrition space, I enjoy the business side of running my companies and being hands on with those decisions. The fact that I get to see exactly what’s happening and make choices myself is very rewarding, knowing that I’m making a decision that’s going to benefit the business.”

Martin’s onboarding experience meant he was able to start placing funds quickly:

“The onboarding was very straightforward, providing key documentation and with prompts from my account manager if anything was missing and reminding me to finish my application. It was super quick and painless.”

Full control, in one place

Once inside the platform, Martin found it just as easy to use day to day:

“The platform is very user-friendly. Before I clicked anything, because you’re dealing with large sums of money, I was thinking, am I going to lose this? But it’s very easy to explore. I’m somewhat tech savvy, but I remember thinking, this is quite cool. I get to do it in my own time. I don’t have to commit to something straight away. I actually transferred money in stages, and then found we were in a position, cash-wise, where we could put money into five-year fixed interest rates to get the best rates. The sorting function is like an online spreadsheet. You can filter for all the five-year fixed accounts but also sort by the best interest rate currently available, so it’s obvious which one’s for you. Being able to see that there’s a one-year or two-year or four-year rate that beats the five-year, and make a different decision, I selected a whole range of different providers for the savings. On each account you select, it’ll tell you how much protection you get and the minimum and maximum investment, so it’s very clear, it’s all there.”

He also points to the range of account types available, once he understood how they worked:

“I then realised that even the easy access accounts, were still giving better interest rates than letting it sit in a ‘what if’ pot for a week or a month. So I didn’t realise that most of our money would end up in Insignis accounts.”

Tangible returns, and peace of mind

Asked to quantify the difference, Martin points to both practical and emotional benefits:

“The benefits for me have been both tangible and intangible. I’m fortunate that I haven’t had to learn from mistakes or bad experiences, which would have made the protection side of things feel a lot more painfully real. Knowing I’m doing things right is a nice feeling. But really, the major benefit has been financial, and it’s very obvious to see. Even though I was using a reserve account, a high-street savings account for a business, the percentage difference you make on that is nothing compared to even some easy access cash accounts, and obviously miles away from a one, two, four or five-year fixed term.”

“I’ve used the basics of reporting, seeing month on month or year on year what’s happening. You can already see the benefits within a couple of months. I chose to get my interest monthly, so very quickly it was like, oh wow, the money’s just appearing and doing its job.”

Martin’s advice to other businesses

That view has been shaped by experience. During COVID, when gyms closed and many health and fitness businesses folded, Martin was able to support the practitioners his business works with:

“The way I’ve always run my business is to make it secure for my staff and for the future. During COVID, it was a very tough time for the fitness industry, with gyms closing and lots of people going out of business. We were able to support the people we work with, giving them payment holidays and refunding some money, gestures of goodwill. Being able to save large sums of money, and then have that money work back for you, it’s nice to know it’s doing that, rather than the cash just sitting there.”

Asked what he’d tell another business considering more proactive cash management, Martin shared:

“If you have cash reserves, which is obviously a smart move as a business, make sure you’ve got enough liquidity. I once read that one of the key reasons early businesses fail isn’t necessarily that their business model was wrong, it’s that they don’t have the cash reserves to cover an unforeseen expense. So, my advice would be, if you’re running your business in a way where you have any excess cash, this is a no-brainer. With the ease of sorting accounts and the interest rates you get, I wouldn’t bother redoing the research yourself, it’s all there in front of you if you have a platform like this to use.”

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