FINANCING CRAFT ENTERPRISES ASSOCIATED IN THE POLISH CRAFT ASSOCIATION

This article concerns functioning of small and medium enterprises and in particular: craft ones. In the sector structured European Union, the abovementioned stand for 80-95% of the existing companies and moreover, they generate the biggest number of job positions and the national income. The article focuses on a selected part of SME sector: craft enterprises and especially, on financing their activities. This financing relates to both, financing craft businesses' investments and their current operations. In the first part of the text one presents a literary query concerning the definition of a craft enterprise and the resulting from its characteristic functioning: conception and tools for financing investments and current operations of craft enterprises. In the second part, one demonstrates the results of researches on the conception and the tools for financing craft enterprises functioning on the Polish market. In the summary of the article one demonstrates conclusions concerning the ways of maintenance and (in many cases innovative) changes of the conception and the tools for financing craft enterprises. The element congruous with the basic topic of the article relating to the current functioning of a craft enterprise in the real environment (both: inner and outer one), is its functioning in the digital surrounding (including with regard to the conception of financing activities), which correlates with the dynamic development of ICT technologies. The aforementioned development together with digitalization determines many aspects of craft enterprises' functioning; also the ones connected with financing tools and conceptions. Referring to the things stated, it is clear that ICT technologies should be taken into account in enterprise's current activities and in other aspects of its functioning e.g. communication, as well as eservices it provides and receives.