By Alan R. Sasserath, CPA, MS
Over the last week, some of you received two emails from me with the subject “The Next Phase.” For those of you that didn’t receive those emails, please click the link here. You can see how our messaging is becoming more and more clear as the economic challenges surrounding the COVID-19 virus have gotten more serious. This email is no different.
One of the topics discussed in the emails was the importance of cashflow. Most of my conversations with clients today have been about – cashflow. I cannot stress enough how critical it is that tough, cost cutting decisions be made NOW, and you put yourself in a position to get through what we believe will be a huge cash crisis in the coming weeks. Many of you know me and know that I am not an alarmist. I am sounding the alarm here, because I don’t believe that everyone is taking this seriously enough. I think people, in general, believe this is serious, but I don’t see the action I would expect in all cases.
We, like many others, are waiting for the Federal Stimulus Package (“Stimulus Package”) to come through. When it does, we have people on our team ready to rip it apart, understand it and figure out how to get it working for our clients. We have already gone through our client list and started sorting the typical data needed for loan packages to be ready if/when there is a loan provision in the Stimulus Package. Just like we have already been working to apply for SBA Disaster Loans for many of our clients, we expect to do the same under the Stimulus Package. That assumes a loan program comes through in the package as has been discussed.
You cannot count on the Stimulus Package to bail you out. You must act now. Once the Stimulus bill passes the Senate, it will get reconciled with the House bill and then onto the President for signature. That will probably take another 24-48 hours from Senate approval.
Once it is signed into law, how long does it take to get those dollars deployed into the economy and does that happen quick enough for it to make a difference to you? I don’t know the answer to that and neither do you. My point is that you need to take control of your cashflow situation now. If I am wrong and they can deploy the cash in record time, then I can live with that. I cannot live with being put out of business because I didn’t take action on the tough issues that I didn’t want to attack head-on.
Let us know how we can help. If you aren’t preparing a loan package for the SBA Disaster program or putting together the information required with most loan packages for the expected loan program with the Stimulus Package (three years of business tax return, three years of personal tax returns, personal financial statement, etc.), there is a good chance that you should be.
We are all in this together. We are here for you. We will get through this together.
Thank you for your time.