US Treasury State Small Business Credit Initiative

The federal government is making available $10 Billion and all small businesses in the country are eligible for the money.

This is not the paycheck protection program or the economic injury disaster loan program. Both of those Covid-relief efforts have expired. This is also not a loan program from the Small Business Administration. It’s from the treasury department.

The program is called the state small business credit initiative, or SSBCI, and it works like this:

  • Your State submitted an application to the US Treasury proposing how to use the funds
  • US Treasury reviews and approves and funds directly to your State

So how does your business get access to these funds? You can go to the Council of Development Finance Agencies’ state resources map. The funds, once received by the states, will then be distributed to existing and authorized organizations that finance and support local small businesses. 

These are community development investment funds (CDFIs), minority deposit institutions (MDIs), community banks, economic development groups and other non-profits that work with small businesses in their areas.

The funds will be used for loans, grants and equity investments. They can also be used to collateralize new debt with existing banks or insure their repayments. The whole idea is to get money in the hands of small businesses that wouldn’t otherwise be able to get financing through traditional lenders because of their financial history – or lack thereof.

Certain funds are targeted specifically to minority-owned businesses or businesses located in low- to moderate-income areas. But just about any business can apply for these funds, even non-profits.

Find out the organizations that are receiving SSBCI money from your state and reach out to them.

They need to get to know you and your business. The application process will take a bit of time so you want to gather your documentation – bank statements, tax returns, financial records – and begin down that road. You should be applying for funds from multiple places.

These organizations aren’t going to come knocking on your door. But they do have money to spend. Your objective is to get them to spend it on you.

US TREASURY small business credit initiative ebook cover page with lighthouse

Need more Working Capital?

SSBCI Treasury Guide

Through this program, the Federal government is making available $10 Billion directly to States for all small businesses in the country. In our Step-by-Step guide, we explain the program and outline how to access the funds including examples of eligibility and use of funds. If you want instructions on how to submit a financing request, check out our Business Financing Application Fundamentals BEACON GUIDES.

Blue Button Strategies

Here’s our recommended strategies while you are waiting for the infamous “BLUE BUTTON” to become functional on the SBA portal for your EIDL Increase request:

Manage your anxiety. Schedule TWICE daily check-ins, once in the morning, the second in the evening.  The money’s not going anywhere, it’s not running out, and you’re not going to miss a “place in line” with millions of other EIDL applicants if you don’t submit your request within a few hours.  You can wait the day. Doing so will reduce your stress.  When you feel yourself getting stressed about not checking the BLUE BUTTON every three minutes, do the following mundane, boring, functional stuff instead:

PREPARE.  We’ve seen SBA coming back recently and requesting additional documents for the EIDL Increase requests.  YES, it’s true, we’ve seen some requests were automatically approved.  That’s the BEST CASE, obviously. Don’t assume the “BEST CASE” scenario; assume the worst case and PREPARE for the SBA request.  Here’s a list of documents we’ve seen SBA requesting to approve the EIDL Increase.  One important note: don’t assume SBA already has your documents from the list below. If they ask for it, submit it again, in an updated form (current date for your signature instead of a date from two months ago, for example).

LIST:

  • 2018 and 2019 COMPLETE Federal tax returns
  • Driver’s License: COLOR legible PDF scan front and back. If the image is blurry, do it again until it is CRYSTAL CLEAR
  • VOIDED check for the destination bank account to deposit your funds. BE SURE this is the SAME account you entered on your original EIDL application. BE SURE you don’t reverse the ROUTING number for the ACCOUNT number. Yes, we’ve seen people do that!
  • SBA Form 2202. THIS is IMPORTANT.  Have a form that is current because SBA wants to confirm if you have incurred any other debt in the name of the business entity since you applied, including existing EIDL and PPP loans or other types of financing. Remember: ONLY business debt in the name of an business entity; personal debt does not go on this form. EIDL and PPP go on the form no matter whether you are an entity or a Sole Proprietor.
  • Business Plan and Revenue Projections for 2021.  See our BLOG post about how to prepare.

Here’s what we’ve experienced at Aurora Consulting in our two plus years of assisting Small Business Owners to obtain financing, including the EIDL COVID-19 loans and PPP loans:

  1. Small Business Owners don’t want to be bothered with the basic building blocks that are boring
  2. They don’t want to take the boring time to write boring business plans
  3. They don’t want to take on the mundane task of doing some basic fifth grade math to calculate income and expenses
  4. They don’t want to bore themselves to tears by spending time organizing basic documents into a neat and orderly and presentable fashion

Maybe YOU are NOT in this bucket. GOOD.

Much of what we do at Aurora Consulting is to shepherd our clients through these basic and boring tasks.  Here’s the problem: BORING leads to financing success.

Eliminate your stress about the BLUE BUTTON by BORING yourself.  It’s much simpler than you think.

Planning and Projections for Your EIDL Loan

The request for a business plan can pop up at any time. We saw this before and during COVID. 
SBA was asking many EIDL applicants for Business Plans and Revenue Projections. Frankly, this is something you should have AT ALL TIMES if you consider yourself a Small Business Owner, even if you’re a “gig economy” Schedule-C Sole Proprietor. You can’t truly measure your success without a plan.

When Trevor was a 100% commissioned Loan Officer at a Mortgage Banking company, he had a 22-page Business Plan with Revenue Projections, and he was an EMPLOYEE.

We put together a list of questions for our clients so we can prepare the necessary information for their SBA EIDL applications.

We’ve developed questions to assist in preparing a 2021 Business Plan Summary and Revenue Projection:
SBA recently is asking many EIDL applicants for Business Plans and Revenue Projections. Frankly, this is something you should have AT ALL TIMES if you consider yourself a Small Business Owner, even if you’re a “gig economy” Schedule-C Sole Proprietor. You can’t truly measure your success without a plan.

When Trevor was a 100% commissioned Loan Officer at a Mortgage Banking company, he had a 22 page Business Plan with Revenue Projections, and he was an EMPLOYEE.

We put together a list of questions for our clients so we can prepare the necessary information for their SBA EIDL applications.

We are happy to share it with you here. Wishing you all SUCCESS in everything you DO!

We’ve developed questions to assist in preparing a 2021 Business Plan Summary and Revenue Projection:

QUESTIONS

  • What actions did you take in MARCH 2020 to adjust or “pivot” your business to survive the COVID-19 pandemic?
  • How did those actions help: have you maintained a steady flow of business, did your business decline?
  • Are you continuing those actions into 2021?
  • Have you originated new business concepts to continue your business productivity into 2021?
  • If yes, what are these new concepts?
  • How will the EIDL program assist you to maintain the continuity of your business?
  • How will the EIDL program assist you to support the “pivot” concepts you’ve created?
  • IF you never created any “pivot” concepts, would the EIDL program assist you/encourage you to do that? How?

REVENUE

  • What is the percentage decline in 2020 to your Gross Revenue from 2019?
  • What is the percentage decline in 2020 to your NET INCOME from 2019?
  • If your net income is lower, is that due to the pandemic? If so, how?
  • Without EIDL assistance, what do you anticipate to be your Gross Revenue in 2021 for EACH QUARTER?
  • With EIDL assistance, what do you project to be your Gross Revenue in 2021 for EACH QUARTER?
  • Will you incur new, different expenses in 2021 than you’ve had in 2019?
  • If so, what specific expenses and how much in dollars?

If you want more information about untangling how a business plan works, especially for financing purposes, click below for our business plan outline guide.

If any of our videos or blogs have been helpful, useful and productive, please leave us a positive review on our GOOGLE PAGE. It helps other business owners seeking vital SBA information for their business, not to mention, it’s a kind exchange of information.

Summarize your Finance Package

Summarizing your finance package can help to prioritize how your banker reviews your financing request.

We recently submitted a client’s financing request to one of the Lenders on our lending matrix.  Our Lender Rep. said, “Holy cow, you guys are on top of it with your summary. Not many brokers make it this easy to review the package.”

We made it easy because the client provided us with their financials. The financials were comprehensive. It’s a multi-million dollar corporation and we’re at the early stage of presenting to the lender. We want to show something that’s easily digestible. We want to ease  the process for the lender to give us a prompt review and tell us their interest in offering the financing.

Summarizing your financials is easy to do.  When you have a lot of line items that lead up to one type of deduction or one type of income source, simply summarize it. Drop it down to as few lines as possible so the lender can do a quick review and say,  “Okay, I see the picture here.”

The Lender doesn’t need to know the granular line-by-line details at this early stage; you want the Lender to give a fast review to gauge their interest. If the Lender expresses interest and offers a Letter of Intent for the financing, you can present the more detailed financials with your full loan application package.

For each client financing request, we write a summary statement. We present a one or two page statement describing some background on the business, the reason for their financing request, and, in bold, large font, the amount of our financing request.

Our presentation package for the initial Lender review is compact, yet complete.  The “first glimpse” by a Lender is sufficient to tell us if that particular Lender is the right fit for our client’s request, or if we need to locate a different Lender.

Watch our Financing Fodder YouTube playlist to understand what you’re up against when applying for a business loan. 

Download your “Homework”. You’ll thank us later

Stop worrying about what's required when pursuing a business loan for your small business. This list will indicate what a lender, bank, SBA, etc. will want to know about you and your small business if you're looking for a business loan. These are prudent documents that help tell your small business story. Without them, it's difficult for lenders to assess you as a risk when it comes to lending your small business money. This is NOT SPECIFIC to the SBA EIDL loan.

3 Metrics to Watch

We find business credit financing solutions for business owners.  We also find that many business owners hold anxious trepidations about the concept of borrowing money.

Yet, the need does arise for working capital to continue to grow your business success story.

Whether the working capital need is unexpected–due to an unusually large order from a customer, a seasonal downturn in revenues, or a sudden opportunity for growth such as purchasing a competitor–or a planned requirement such as equipment purchase or investing in a new marketing plan, your business will need capital to grow.  Unless your profit margins or cashflow planning have created a massive pile of cash for just such a capital expenditure, you’ll need to go outside your company to find that money.

The alternate choice to credit financing is to bring in capital from other equity sources.

Refinance your personal home or leverage your retirement accounts and bring in the required capital.  Sell off valuable equipment, ideas, collectibles.  Bring in an equity partner.   We’ve pontificated at length about the last option…do you really want a partner who may wind up telling you “how to make the pizza?

There are many reasons why choosing equity sources for capital infusions are bad for you personally and professionally.

Yet, too often this is the path chosen: equity sources.   Business owners go down this path for several reasons: time-constraints to obtain the capital; anxiety around the idea of borrowing.

Credit financing to obtain working capital doesn’t have to frighten the heck out of you.  At Aurora Consulting, we understand the worries that come along with borrowing money: “What if there’s a downturn in my business and I cannot repay this loan?”

Especially after the global meltdown and subsequent recession of a dozen years ago, lingering fears and doubts remain laced through our economy and our economic thinking like clogged drainpipes during a sudden torrential downpour.  The water has to move, and move quickly, but the remnants of various and miscellaneous flotsam and jetsam are jamming up the pipes and the rainwater backs up causing all kinds of other problems.

The same is true of these lingering doubts about borrowing money.  Credit can be a good thing and nothing to be fearful of when approached sensibly and when the credit terms are incorporated into your business planning.

Still, these worries hang on.

We’ve come up with the concept of 3 important business metrics you can keep an eye on after you’ve borrowed that needed working capital.

Remaining vigilant on these metrics can help you avoid a sudden negative revenue issue which could lead to default on credit obligations.  While it may seem obvious to you that these are the metrics ANY business should constantly monitor for maintaining profitability and continuing growth, as with all advice and observations we provide from Aurora Consulting, our real-world experiences demonstrate these ideas are not so obvious to every business owner.

What is obvious is worry and anxiety.  Thus, our presentation of these not-so-revolutionary-ideas.

  1. Profit margins: pricing and expenses
  2. ROI: products/marketing plans/infrastructure/product development
  3. Customer Retention/Construction

Monitor these important metrics by maintaining your financial reporting to the most current and efficient methods.   We often see businesses with financial statements such as P&Ls and cashflow statements that are not up to date.

A balance sheet isn’t just for your CPA to use when you’re filing your tax return!

And the ever important marketing and business plans?  Wow, we are constantly shocked when we request these vital documents from our clients to include in a financing request package only to be told they don’t have one!

Creating and maintaining these financial reporting documents is incredibly easy with the sophisticated computer applications available, even for your smartphone!

Making the time to check  in with them is another thing altogether.  We sometimes feel as if our clients present us with financial statements and they haven’t reviewed them, recently, or ever.

That’s why we suggest you at the very least monitor these three important metrics on a constant and vigilant basis. WHY?

First, it’s good for the overall health of your business.
Second, you will find you can anticipate challenges and successes before they arise.
Third, you can plan for those challenges and successes well in advance and avoid nasty surprises and cashflow chokeholds.

Finally, and best of all, you can lower or maybe even eliminate altogether your anxiety and fears of credit financing capital to grow your business.

Tough Questions from Lenders

The good news is that Banks and Lenders are opening up their coffers to provide business credit financing. The other news, that’s more anticipated than “bad,” is these Banks want business owners to answer some tough questions about preparedness for further pandemic-related challenges.

If you are applying for business financing—a loan or line of credit—that’s not Disaster Relief-related, here’s a sample from one of our Bankers on what to expect:

  • How has your business been impacted throughout the crisis?
  • How have you and your employees been affected? Your suppliers? Your customers?
  • What are your key priorities over the next 30/60/90 days?
  • How do you anticipate accomplishing these goals? What hurdles do you anticipate?

To achieve a successful response to your application, you should answer these questions with all appropriate gravitas and extreme detail.

  • The Bank wants to know that, should the pandemic-related lockdowns get tighter:
  • How have you planned to get through that?
  • Do you have cash reserves?
  • An employee-furlough action plan?
  • Do you have the ability to provide your services or products with a serious downturn in customer traffic (think early days of lockdown)?

Banks make loan decisions by assessing the risk on the credit profile of the Borrower. As with any aspect of a loan application, the COVID-19 pandemic has created another layer of risk for Banks. Your successful loan application will take that risk assessment into account as you prepare your application for submission by anticipating how to make a Bank/Lender get into a “comfort zone” about your ability to make payments on the loan as other challenges from the pandemic arise.

Download our documents checklist so you’re properly prepared. You have to be better than the lender because they’re trained to say “NO THANK YOU”.

Subscribe to our Financing Fodder playlist on Youtube.

Download “Homework”! You’ll thank us later!

Business Financing Documents Checklist

Stop worrying about what's required when pursuing a business loan for your small business. This list will indicate what a lender, bank, SBA, etc. will want to know about you and your small business if you're looking for a business loan. These are prudent documents that help tell your small business story. Without them, it's difficult for lenders to assess you as a risk when it comes to lending your small business money. This is NOT SPECIFIC to the SBA EIDL loan.

The Dreadful Disorganized Document Disaster

Our resident Chief Financing Rock Star, Trevor Curran, was a Mortgage Banker for 30 years. His specialty was helping first time homebuyers with low down payments to achieve the American Dream of Home Ownership. From the early days, with no computers, no internet, no email nor a beeper on his belt—until the day of his retirement in 2018, a mortgage loan application was all about the paper. Documents to support the application needed to be submitted, reviewed, dissected, parsed, and collated. Trevor’s clients submitted their documents in many and varied ways, including coffee-stained tax returns, crumpled paystubs pulled out of an old wallet, and badly-scanned PDFs. Considerable time was spent by Trevor and his loan processing team to put these documents into a manner acceptable for review by an Underwriter. And of course there was the pushback from clients. “Why do you need that (document)?” “I can’t find my tax return.” “The dog ate my homework.” Oh, wait, wrong story. Trevor’s response, time and time again, including in the early days when he would literally drive to the clients’ home, workplace, a McDonald’s parking lot, or the real estate office, to pickup their required documents, was, “We need these documents because the bank requires it since you’re asking the bank to lend you several hundred thousand dollars.” This obvious message was delivered in a kind and patient but firm manner. Still, it always seemed incredible, time and time again, how people could be so cavalier about their loan application requirements. “Don’t they want the house?” he would often ponder in the moments of extreme frustration. Now, as the primary processor for Aurora Consulting, Trevor’s manages the document flow and the loan applications for our business clients. When we launched this business we remember discussing how this document issue is going to be so much better because we’re dealing with serious business people. Unfortunately, we were mistaken. Especially over the past eight weeks as we have assisted over 30 businesses to apply for and receive Government Disaster Relief financing, the poor quality of document management is mind-blowing. Especially at a time like this, when the desperation of keeping a business alive requires this emergency infusion of cash. You’d think business owners and their representatives (CPA’s, mostly) would be sharper than ever to get documents submitted in an organized and prompt fashion. Again, mistaken. Moral of the story for anyone thinking they want to ask a Bank or Lender for money—whether you’re buying a house or financing a business—it’s all about the paper. Organize your documents, submit them in a clean, efficient manner, and submit them promptly. Rant over. Send us a message with how you’ve successfully managed your team to understand your high level of standard when it comes to managing your documents.

Download our Documents checklist