Select Page

As many of you have started to receive funds from the Small Business Association’s (SBA) Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loans provided by their lenders, I wanted to offer you some suggestions for tracking the use of these PPP loans.

It is essential that you are able to prove to your PPP lender that your PPP loan was spent on “covered” or allowed expenses and that the loan was spent during the correct time period for forgiveness.

COVERED EXPENSES – These are the business expenses that you are allowed to spend the PPP loan on during the covered period of February 15, 2020 to June 30, 2020.

COVERED EXPENSES ARE:

  • • Payroll costs – amounts paid to employees during the covered period. This is gross pay, not take-home pay or net pay. Gross pay, for this purpose, is anything you normally include in your employees’ paycheck. Payroll costs include health insurance premiums that you pay on the behalf of your employees.
  • • Gross Pay – limited to $100,000 ($8,333.33) per employee. Payroll Costs do not include the employer’s share of payroll taxes.
  • • Rent – cost of leasing your office, warehouse, manufacturing facility, equipment, copier, etc. The lease must have been in effect on February 15, 2020.
  • • Utilities – the typical; water, gas, electricity on business facilities, telephone, cell phones, and internet as long as your business normally pays these expenses.
  • • Mortgage Interest – the mortgage interest on you business facilities. Not principal, not taxes nor insurance.

IN ORDER FOR THESE TO BE FORGIVEN THE ABOVE EXPENSES MUST BE INCURRED AND PAID DURING THE 8 WEEKS COMMENCING ON THE DATE THE PPP MONEY APPEARED IN YOUR ACCOUNT. AT LEAST 75% OF LOAN FUNDS MUST BE USED FOR PAYROLL COSTS AND NOT MORE THAN 25% CAN BE SPENT ON RENT, UTILITIES, AND MORTGAGE INTEREST. LOAN ISN’T FREE MONEY, YOU MUST PROVE YOU NEED THE FUNDS AND THAT IT IS NECESSARY TO CONTINUE THE BUSINESS. YOU MUST ASK FOR FORGIVENESS FROM THE LENDER WHOM MUST GIVE YOU A REPLY WITHIN 60 DAYS.

SUGGESTED METHODS TO TRACK THE USES OF PPP FUNDS:

  • * We have attached an Excel schedule to record your expenses paid with the PPP loan. You may download this schedule and enter the amounts or you can print and write in your expenses.
  • * For our QuickBooks users we suggest that you create a subaccount for the non-payroll expenses on your chart of accounts.
  • * Open up a new account at your bank, transfer your PPP funds to that new account and use this money for the covered expenses only.

The SBA has announced that they will release new guidelines for forgiveness May 23-24, 2020. We will keep you updated.