LIBERTY, Mo. — It was such a relief for Christy Sharp to reopen her shop, Over Flow Coffee House in Liberty, this month.
"We were closed for 5 weeks," Sharp said.
She says the Paycheck Protection Program loan is the reason they were able to start brewing again.
"We knew that once we received that, that it means we could get our people back to work, we could start serving the community again that we love to be a part of, so it's really been helpful,"
she said.
Now, all six of their employees are back at work.
For many business owners like Sharp, the Paycheck Protection Program was a godsend, however navigating through the process can be a little difficult.
Business owners have to use at least 75 percent of their PPP loan on employees, and spend the same amount on payroll as they did before, for it to be forgiven.
The remaining 25 percent of the loan can be used for rent, utilities, and interest payments.
"If a borrower is a small business and they appropriately represented the needs of their business at the time they requested the loan, they have absolutely nothing to be concerned about," Tom Salisbury with the Small Business Administration for Region 7 said Tuesday.
Business owners will find out how much of their loan will be forgiven in a few weeks, and are working with their lenders to meet the criteria.
It's involved a little more accounting than Sharp and her husband are used to, but Sharp said her lender has been extremely helpful walking them through the process.
"They have sent us Excel spreadsheets to plug our numbers into. They've sent us follow-up emails saying, 'Make sure you are keeping track of your payroll, make sure you're keeping track percentages you're using for other things,'" Sharp said.
Another aspect for business owners to keep track of is how many full-time employees they hire back that will factor into how much of the loan is forgiven.
"It's been a little more difficult for us because we don't have full-time employees, and some of their numbers were based on full-time, so we've had to do some conversion of total hours divided by total employees and our accountant helped us with that before we applied," said Sharp.
For other businesses, the PPP loan has allowed them to hire more people.
Connecting for Good is a non-profit that provides free computers to low-income families. Tom Esselman, CEO, said the pandemic highlighted the need even more, so they needed more staff.
"Since April 1, we've actually hired five additional people and the PPP loan was a big catalyst to help us hire new people to give us the capacity to respond to the demand for our services," Esselman said.
Lending entities are asking the Small Business Administration to issue more guidance on forgiveness terms to help small business owners navigate the process.
Salisbury said extra guidance will be coming, but could not say how soon.
