We are starting to have some success submitting CARES PPP Loan requests for our small business clients. The major bank web sites are VERY fragile and the way in which you provide supporting documentation varies widely. Here is my advice based on our work since Friday:
1. Get up EARLY. By 8:00am the sites are dragging and routinely crash. We did the 4:00am shift for PNC and Chase and the site seems to work OK.
2. Calculate out your total payroll for March 2019 - February 2020. (some banks may ask for April 2019 - March 2020) You can include owner draws up to $100k if not included in W-2 payroll. Divide this amount by 12 and multiply by 2.5 to get your loan amount.
3. Have your documents scanned and ready to go BEFORE you start the application. Have a hard copy you can reference while you are applying. Put your payroll register(s) in one file and all your other supporting documents in another. Some banks (PNC) require you to detail each month's payroll and provide a payroll register for each month. You will need 12 separate payroll register files in this case. Make sure your file names are less than 25 characters. We observed several application crashes with long file names.
4. Some questions you will be asked and need to have handy:
a. How many employees do you have
b. What is your annual sales
c. How many employees will you retain with the loan
d. How many new employees will you hire with the loan
e. How much of the loan will be spent on rent, mortgage interest, utilities (provide detail for each).
f. Date of Birth, SS#, and % ownership for each 20%+ owner
5. Be prepared to do this in one sitting. Most sites don't allow you to save your work. Also, be familiar with your documentation and answers. If you don't keep moving, the site will time out and you will lose your work. If you have everything together and the site is running OK. The application should only take about 20 mins if you are fully prepared.
6. Be patient. If you the site crashes or you missed a document. Don't fret. Go back and start over. Its worth the investment.
If you need additional information or help, please contact your True North account manager or call me personally at 304-459-2188. We can do this!
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