On April 16 the SBA/US Treasury announced that the Economic Injury Disaster Loan (EIDL) and the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) have loaned out the allocation of funds provided in the CARES Act thus shutting down the programs. Congress is taking actions to re-appropriate funds to these programs which should be complete by April 24. I hope this waiting period has allowed the banks to address their backlog of applications so when funds are available, they are better prepared to act on new loan requests.

Given all this hopefully your application has been reviewed, approved and you have been contacted. If all that has happened, you should expect to be funded within the next week to 10 days. If you applied but have not been contacted, you are probably in the que waiting for the money for the loans to be replenished. If you want to check status for the PPP loan, contact your bank as they are handling these loans. If you have applied for an EIDL your application has gone straight to the SBA for review and processing. If you want to check your loan status you can call the SBA at 1-800-659-2955 or you can send an email to disastercustomerservice@SBA.gov. Note, in all these cases there may be delays in finding the status of your loan due to the large volume of applications.

If you have not yet applied and intend to do so you need to be prepared and you need to act quickly. Only 10% of the nation’s small businesses have applied for the loan programs and it ran out of money in two weeks. Whatever amount of money they put into the programs won’t last long so don’t hesitate.

What You Can Do Right Now:

Contact your financial institution to understand their application process: Depending on the bank they may be able to give you guidance on what you will need for them to process your application. This is primarily for the PPP loans as the banks get to make their own rules on how they deal with requests.

Prepare Your Financials: Use this time to pull together the financial documents required by the SBA or the bank to make a credit decision. If you are not ready when it is your turn to be reviewed and you have to go back and pull together financials you could lose your place in line.

Be Prepared to Apply: Pay attention to when congress adds money to the program and when the SBA portal will reopen. Sign-up for SBA Updates, https://www.sba.gov/updates and updates from your bank so you will be notified. When you can begin applying, do so immediately so you don’t get shut out!

If you need assistance with any of the things I have mentioned, or you just have questions contact us at 614-287-5294 or SBDC@cscc.edu.