New COVID-19 PPP Loan Forgiveness Guidance

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Please visit our COVID-19 resources page with more information for business owners and employees.

PPP loan forgiveness application and instructions are available

On Friday, May 15th, the Treasury and Small Business Administration released an application and instructions for Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loan forgiveness, available here.

Please note that the SBA has also stated that additional “regulations and guidance to further assist borrowers” on their responsibilities are still forthcoming.

The SBA application and instruction give guidance on questions PPP loan borrowers have been asking for:

  • Is the loan forgiven based on the pay period or pay date? The application instructions state that you’ll be able to choose either the pay date or the pay period (called the alternative pay period). In either case, the covered period is eight weeks, 56 days.
  • How exactly will the full-time equivalent (FTE) be calculated? The application instructions give two options for the borrower.
    1. For each employee, take the average number of hours paid per week, then divide by 40 and round the total to the nearest tenth. The maximum for each employee is capped at 1.0.
    2. This option is a simpler method that assigns a 1.0 for employees who work 40 hours or more per week and 0.5 for employees who work fewer than 40 hours per week.

With this guidance from the SBA, the Nextep team is working to create the necessary reports and payroll information you’ll need to apply for PPP loan forgiveness. This information will be available soon in the COVID-19 Resources section of your Nextep account. We’ll let you know as soon as it’s available.

The PPP was created to help businesses affected by COVID-19 make payroll, mortgage, lease, and utility payments. A portion of the loan could be forgiven if used for payroll, mortgage, and lease payments.

For our Nextep clients, if your company received a PPP loan and hasn’t completed the COVID-19 relief questionnaire, log into your Nextep account and click the banner at the top of the page. You can also find this questionnaire in the COVID-19 resources section of your account. Log into your Nextep account here.

We have much more info about the PPP and CARES Act in our blog. Take a look and reach out to us if you have any questions!

To find many more resources on COVID-19, check out our resources page.

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