How to Make it Through COVID-19
April 7, 2020
KEY HIGHLIGHTS of Paycheck Protection Program:
- They are forgivable loans that turn to grants, where if spent on payroll and other qualifying monthly expenses, the federal government is offering to cover 100% of your payroll for 2 months.
- Funding is large but limited to $350 Billion, time is of the essence.
- Talk to your local SBA 7(a) lender ASAP to ‘get in line’. Some lenders are clueless, but aggressive ones are already beginning pre-registration. If your banker is unaware of the program, you can supply this info. All FDIC banks can issue these loans, but the ones already lending under SBA 7(a) will be fastest to turn it around.
- Guidance from US Senate is they are working to make these loans available as soon as this Friday, April 3rd with 24-hour turnarounds. This is “fog a mirror’ type of qualifications. Its meant to be fast to get much-needed relief into small business owners’ hands, and KEEP people employed throughout this.
- Read up and talk to your banker ASAP. Do your research, acquire the funds. Your banker should be able to give the most accurate information on the loan.
- This starts as a loan but is 100% forgivable. A better way to say it, is that its a grant that becomes a loan if you don’t spend it on maintaining 100% of the payroll you had before the slow down.
- If you were unaffected or haven’t lost any revenues, that is the main disqualifier, but the language is very loose.