Paycheck Protection Program

I helped my Dad apply for the Paycheck Protection Program over the weekend. He runs a travel agency. It’s a dying business but he’s had a lot of loyal customer for years now so he’s been somewhat surviving over the last few years until now. Unfortunately, I think this might be the death sentence for his company as we know it. It’s sad, but at the same time he’s had a very good run being in business for almost 30 years. It’s about time he starts to retire and enjoy life.

I advised him to apply for the PPP to help cover payroll costs for his two employees for the next couple months. He had a lot of trouble with the application. First, he went to Bank of America who told him that the only way to apply was to do it online. Then the application online was very difficult. He’s not the most technologically gifted person but he does work on computers every day. I decided to take over to help him out.

I am a native English speaker, CPA, and I’ve run a couple small businesses on the side before and this application was pretty darn confusing. I don’t see how an average small business owner can fill this out accurately and quickly.

Probably the most alarming part of this was that there was not a standard set of instructions to help you fill out the form. You literally get instructions for the most menial things such as how to clean your water bottle after you buy it. How can an application to get thousands of dollars online not come with a set of instructions to help you fill out the form?

With nearly every small business likely applying for this loan, I can only imagine what a mess this process is for all these banks. I have no idea on the status of my Dad’s application and I’d imagine we won’t know for awhile as banks figure out how to process everything. Imagine how many small businesses are struggling right now to pay employees as they await help from the government only to be held up by this awful system. What a wreck.