COVID-19 RELIEF AND RECOVERY
OPTIONS AVAILABLE FOR SMALL BUSINESS OWNERS
IF CORONAVIRUS AFFECTS ABILITY TO PAY BILLS
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TCBusiness.com
Coronavirus is having a significant
impact on many small businesses and
no one knows how long or how hard the
economy will be affected. If you are having
trouble paying your bills due to a reduction
or a complete stop in revenues or
higher than usual expenses related to COVID
19, here are eight options to consider
if your business can’t pay its bills.
Keep in mind there isn’t a playbook for
this situation. No one knows how long
this crisis will last and options are changing
rapidly. Stay in touch with your local
economic development agency or the
Florida Small Business Development Center
at Indian River State College to remain
updated.
LOOK INTO SHORT-TERM
FINANCING
For some businesses, a loan may help
them get through the immediate cash
crunch until other forms of small business
aid come through. For others, it may
help them continue operations while they
restructure (a restaurant switching to takeout
and delivery, for example, or a brewery
switching to making hand sanitizer).
Find out whether your business is able
to access any of the following forms of
financing:
• Small Business Administration loans,
including the SBA Economic Injury Disaster
Loan Assistance program and/or the
SBA payroll protection program
• Low-rate credit card offers, including
balance transfers
• Lines of credit or term loans.
Financing is generally best leveraged
when you have a clear plan for how it will
help you make money. But these are unusual
times and some businesses will find
it helps to use financing to keep operations
going during a crisis.
CROWDFUND
If your business has loyal customers,
consider asking them for help. Let’s say, for
example, you have a popular restaurant in
an area where people are not traveling or
going out to eat. Your fans may support
you by buying a coupon for a meal in the
future or even donating a meal to someone
in need. You won’t know if you don’t ask.
Here are a few crowdfunding platforms
to check out:
• Kiva is offering 0% loans up to $15,000
with a grace period of up to six months.
• Mainvest is offering a $2,000, 0% loan
for some brick-and-mortar businesses
which will use the site to raise capital.
• GoFundMe offers guidance for small
businesses looking to use its platform to
crowdfund during coronavirus.
ADD DELIVERY AND/OR ONLINE
OPTIONS
Sites like Shopify, Squarespace or Go-
Daddy make creating a website and taking
orders online easy. Many business owners
can get their website online by the end of
the day. Bonus points if you get your kids
who are at home with school closures to
help you.
• Update your online presence to let
people know that you’re still open to the
public
• Create/update your Google My Business
listing with updated hours and make
a post that says, We’re still open!
• Update your social media accounts
like Facebook and Instagram to let people
know that you’re open for business.
For restaurants who want to focus on
delivery and take-out:
• Get on UberEats, Grubhub, DoorDash,
etc.
• Add a drive-through option, even if it is
just cones in a parking lot with you taking
orders outside.
NEGOTIATE WITH YOUR CLIENTS,
SUPPLIERS AND VENDORS
Your suppliers and vendors are well
aware of what is going on and may be
able to work with you to negotiate lower
payments or longer payment terms for a
period of time. It helps to have good business
credit, but in times like these, lenders
will often make exceptions.
They will want to keep your business in
the long run, and may be flexible about
deferring or accepting reduced payments.
If you have clients who are not experiencing
a significant disruption to their
business, don’t be afraid to ask them for
more work or ask them if they can pay you
sooner. You might offer a discount if they
pay faster, for example. Another option is
to consider invoice factoring or financing
to get paid faster.
MAKE LOWER CREDIT CARD
PAYMENTS
While it’s good financial advice to pay
credit cards off in full to avoid interest,
there are times when making minimum
payments can help your business get
through a time of tight cash flow, and this
may be one of them. If you go this route,
make sure you understand the interest
rate you’ll be charged, and be very careful
to use those credit cards only for essential
business expenses. Also, understand that
high balances on credit cards that report
to the owner’s personal credit may lower
your credit scores.
It’s also important to note that if you
don’t make your minimum payment on
your credit card, you will be charged a
late fee and interest. And if you have a
business credit card, your interest rate may
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Michael Bernard’s consulting experience
comes from his work with several international
accounting firms in their management
consulting departments working
with Fortune 500 companies throughout
the United States. He has also worked
for several local and regional accounting
firms as both a manager and principal in
charge of their consulting operations in
the South Florida area before opening his
own management consulting company in
Miami, Florida.
BY GERRI DETWEILER
/TCBusiness.com