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Congress reached a deal on a new $900 billion stimulus package just days before Christmas. The president has now signed it and stimulus checks are on their way to many Americans.

The deal comes as the pandemic surges from coast to coast, and after several months of no additional financial help from the government for struggling Americans and their businesses.

A key component of the law, and very welcome news for businesses, is the word that taxpayers will be allowed to deduct costs covered by their Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loans. The resolution on PPP loan expenses & tax deductibility will ease some frustrations for businesses in the middle of year-end tax planning.

The stimulus package also provides more funding for a new round of PPP loans, stimulus checks for most Americans, and an extension of federal unemployment benefits, among other provisions.

GJM’s Bob Bobek, CPA co-presented a webinar in partnership with the Employers’ Association’s Bob Bethel, SPHR, SHRM-SCP on December 28. They took a closer look at what’s in the stimulus package and what it means for your family and your business. Bob Bobek also covered the latest guidance from the Small Business Administration (SBA) regarding the forgiveness questionnaire for existing Paycheck Protection loans at or over $2 million.

If you were unable to attend the webinar, you now have access to the recording. You can also access other resources in the GJM COVID-19 Resource Center. 

As always, you're encouraged to reach out to your GJM team with any concerns or questions.

Established in 1996, Gilmore Jasion Mahler, LTD (GJM) is the largest public accounting firm in Northwest Ohio, with offices in Maumee and Findlay. Locally owned, GJM offers cloud-based accounting and provides comprehensive services including assurance, business advisory, tax, risk advisory, healthcare management and outsourced accounting. The Firm’s professionals specialize in industries including construction & real estate, healthcare, manufacturing & distribution and utilities.   

With a flurry of recent developments related to pandemic aid for businesses, as well as the coming change in leadership in our nation’s capital, we think it’s important to provide some perspective, insight and information to help our clients, and all businesses make the decisions they face as the new year gets underway.

$900 Billion Stimulus Package

The Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2021, signed into law in late December brings more relief for businesses. Here is a recap of some important facts:

• Allows tax deductibility of expenses paid with forgiven Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loan funds, an issue that had been of great concern for businesses
• Establishes that Economic Injury Disaster Loan (EIDL) grants and SBA 7(a) loan payments paid by the SBA are not taxable income
• Ends mandate to provide Emergency Paid Sick Leave (EPSL)
• Continuation of additional payments of unemployment insurance
• Continuation and expansion of PPP:
• Original PPP reopened applications for first time borrowers or borrowers who have returned loans due to lack of guidance
• List of eligible participants expanded to include more nonprofits
• EIDL grants of $10,000 are no longer required to be deducted from the PPP loan forgiveness amount

Second round of PPP loans made available

•  $284 billion, targeting smaller businesses and those more negatively impacted by the pandemic
• Businesses must show a 25% decrease in revenue in one of the four quarters of 2020 as compared to the same quarter in 2019
• Loan dollars can be used to cover more expenses including some operation costs, worker protection and property damage
• Application form is now available and the SBA portal may begin accepting applications as early as Monday, January 11, 2021

PPP Forgiveness:

SBA to issue a new one-page loan forgiveness application for loans under $150,000

Employee Retention Tax Credit

The new stimulus package also extends and expands the Employee Retention Credit (ERC) which is designed to support businesses keeping employees on payroll during the pandemic. The ERC has been extended through June of 2021 and makes it available for PPP loan borrowers.

More Resources

GJM Stimulus Package Webinar Recording (December 28)

GJM Assurance partner Bob Bobek, CPA co-presented a webinar on the new stimulus package on December 28^th in partnership with The Employers’ Association. You can watch the webinar and access the slides in the GJM COVID-19 Resource Center.

GJM Tax Policy Uncertainty Webinar (January 14, 2021)

The transition to the Biden administration and to a democratic majority in the Senate has some feeling uncertain about potential tax increases in the months ahead. The recent unrest at the Capital Building has added to the uneasiness. We are hearing from some clients asking if they should take aggressive measures soon to protect themselves and their businesses from potential tax increases on the way. GJM Tax Partner Charlie Heid, CPA will host a brief, informal webinar “Coffee with Charlie” on Thursday, January 14 at from 3-3:30 pm to help answer questions and alleviate concerns. The half hour webinar will include a short presentation followed by a Q&A session.

The new stimulus package and other measures will surely help businesses in the months ahead. Should you have any questions or concerns, please connect with your GJM team. As always, we are here to help as your trusted advisors.

Established in 1996, Gilmore Jasion Mahler, LTD (GJM) is the largest public accounting firm in Northwest Ohio, with offices in Maumee and Findlay. Locally owned, GJM offers cloud-based accounting and provides comprehensive services including assurance, business advisory, tax, risk advisory, healthcare management and outsourced accounting. The Firm’s professionals specialize in industries including construction & real estate, healthcare, manufacturing & distribution and utilities.

We’re welcoming some new staff to GJM this fall, which gives us the chance to introduce our newest team members. They include Caleb Schaafsma, who joined GJM in early September as an audit associate. We hope you enjoy this Q&A. Welcome to the team and to the GJM family, Caleb!   

Q: When did you start with GJM? September 8^th, 2020

Q: Why did you choose the accounting industry? I enjoyed the accounting courses I was required to take at BGSU and decided to switch my major to accounting.

Q: What do you like best about accounting? The balance that most of the work has, which assists me in finding errors. Most accounting themes just “click” for me.

Q: Are you from the Toledo area originally? If not, where are you from? I have lived in the Toledo area for over 12 years, but I am originally from Grand Rapids, MI before that period.

Q: What do you like about living in Northwest Ohio? Friends, family, and the culture.

Q: Where did you go to school? BGSU

Q: Anything you’d like to share about past work history? I’ve been a member of the Ohio Air National Guard for over 7 years, currently at the rank of Staff Sergeant. During this time, I’ve been deployed 2 times, once to Guam and once to Estonia. I have another deployment this fall.

Q: Do you have any pets, hobbies, family? One pet, Maximus Decimus Rolfes-Schaafsma or Max.

Hobbies are: spending time with my wife, video games, watching movies and tv shows, airsoft, Pokemon Go, scuba diving when I can, shooting guns, playing board games with friends, volunteering, and trying new things that seem interesting.

Family: My wife, Britteny, who is a teacher, my parents, and one brother who manages a roofing supply store in Indiana.

Q: How do you like to spend your free time?  With my wife and playing games with my friends.

Q: Favorite book? Favorite movie? Favorite book is World War Z and movie is possibly Thor: Ragnarok or Shawshank Redemption or The Green Mile or Black Hawk Down, but I love so many movies that it is very difficult to choose, if you can’t tell.

Q: Are you involved in any community organizations, do any volunteer work? Not yet, but now that I’m out of college, I plan to get involved in some. I’d really like to get involved with the USO somehow and Flag City Honor Flight.

Q: What is something people may be surprised to find out about you? I’m a Green Bay Packers fan, due to my dad being born in Wisconsin.

Established in 1996, Gilmore Jasion Mahler, LTD (GJM) is the largest public accounting firm in Northwest Ohio, with offices in Maumee and Findlay. Locally owned, GJM offers cloud-based accounting and provides comprehensive services including assurance, business advisory, tax, risk advisory, healthcare management and outsourced accounting. The Firm’s professionals specialize in industries including construction & real estate, healthcare, manufacturing & distribution and utilities. 

As small and mid-size businesses around the country and the world work to stabilize in the wake of the deadly COVID-19 pandemic, the economic upheaval caused by the coronavirus crisis brings a wake-up call. Just how prepared was your business for such a devastating event and how would your company or organization fare should disaster strike your technology infrastructure?

Such a “disaster” can cause significant disruption in operational and/or technological process capabilities for a period of time for businesses, which in turn affects the ongoing operations of the company and can, in fact, threaten its very existence. That’s why all organizations should be considering disaster recovery, which involves a set of policies, tools/applications and procedures to help enable the recovery and continuation of critical technology and systems following a disaster.

Some examples of potential disasters:

• Natural disasters like floods, tornadoes and hurricanes
• Infrastructure break-down (i.e. utility disruption, pipeline bursts)
• Human error or threats (i.e. cyber-attacks)

According to global IT services provider phoenixNAP, statistics show about 93% of businesses without a Disaster Recovery (DR) plan in place that suffer from a major data disaster are out of business within one year.

As consumers and business operators, we’ve seen an increase in attacks in which companies are locked out of their systems or data was held for ransom. Such attacks can be costly. On average, businesses lose over $100,000 per ransomware incident due to downtime and recovery costs. As these attacks increase, so should your focus on the importance of data back-up and recovery processes and controls. Without sufficient back-ups and defined processes for recovery, companies run an increased risk of delay or error in financial reporting. phoenixNAP says about 96% of companies with proper backups and Disaster Recovery plans in place were able to survive ransomware attacks.

Disaster recovery can be considered a subset of what is considered “business continuity”. Business continuity involves keeping essential aspects of your business functioning when significant disruptive events occur. Disaster recovery focuses on the IT or technology systems supporting your critical business functions.

What Is a Disaster Recovery Plan?

A Disaster Recovery plan is simply defining the strategy for recovering critical technology resources to ensure the continuation of critical/vital business processes in the event of a disaster. 

As most organizations are very reliant on information technology to conduct business, it’s critical to have a plan in place that can be easily implemented to minimize down-time. This plan defines the key processes for recovering critical technology platforms and telecommunications infrastructure within a specified timeframe. 

Tips for Creating a Disaster Recovery Plan

Identify Your Team

Establishing a Disaster Recovery Team (DRT) is a critical initial step in establishing a DR plan. The DRT should be a cross-functional team consisting of IT leadership and other individuals as needed who are responsible for carrying out the tasks outlined in this plan and providing expertise needed to recover from a disaster. It’s also important to involve key business stakeholders who would be involved in helping manage the downtime and recovery and ensure alignment with overall business continuity.

Create an IT Inventory

Ensuring that the organization has a real-time and up-to-date IT asset inventory listing is important in order to focus on the Recovery Time Objective (RTO) and Recovery Point Objective (RPO) for critical systems/applications. An IT asset inventory lists all key hardware and software (i.e. applications, servers, databases, etc.) and their relationships with one another. RTO is the goal for how quickly to restore technology services after a disruption, based on the acceptable amount of down-time for the specified technology. For example, a recovery time objective of 48 hours with local accessibility for payroll services means that the payroll application must be up and running within 48 hours as well as locally accessible. RPO is the goal for the point at which to restore data or information after a disruption, based on the acceptable amount of data or information loss. For example, an RPO of four hours for your financial reporting application means that the application data must be backed-up every four hours so that no more than four hours of data entered into the application is lost after a disruption.

Get Your Plan in Writing

Creating and documenting a plan involving these objectives is key to building out a realistic DR plan. Your organization will likely find during this process that there will be gaps between the current IT infrastructure and the determined recovery objectives. That said, it’s critical for your organization to work through these to ensure that the plan can be carried out as needed for the fluid continuity of the business.

What Else to Consider

Other important items to keep in mind when creating a DR Plan include:

• Determining channels for communicating disasters and next steps to your employees
• Obtaining stakeholder buy-in on the plan and its execution in order to ensure that the plan can be followed through on if necessary
• Testing and practicing your plan to help you find and correct issues, as well as enable more accurate and efficient execution 

With these simple actions, you’re on your way to having a plan. COVID-19 reminded us all that catastrophic events do happen. The businesses with a Disaster Recovery plan in place are likely to be the ones to weather IT outages. Now’s the time to pull together your team and establish your plan so should disaster strike, you’ll be ready.

If you have questions creating or cleaning up your DR plan, Gilmore Jasion Mahler’s (GJM) Risk Consulting Team can help guide your business in building out that plan, determining the gaps and testing your DR plan. To start the conversation, reach out to Director Matt Hoverman at mhoverman@gjmltd.com, Manager Tim Schloz at tschloz@gjmltd.com, or Senior Associate Reid Mankowski at rmankowski@gjmltd.com.

GJM Senior Associate Reid Mankowski contributed this blog. Reid joined the GJM Risk Consulting Team in 2019. Reid has significant experience in testing and leading IT general control and business process SOX testing for large and medium size companies, primarily in the manufacturing industry.

Established in 1996, Gilmore Jasion Mahler, LTD (GJM) is the largest public accounting firm in Northwest Ohio, with offices in Maumee and Findlay. Locally owned, GJM offers cloud-based accounting and provides comprehensive services including assurance, business advisory, tax, risk advisory, healthcare management and outsourced accounting. The Firm’s professionals specialize in industries including construction & real estate, healthcare, manufacturing & distribution and utilities.

Kelly Childress has settled into her new role as an administrative assistant at Gilmore Jasion Mahler. While COVID-19 has made things interesting to say the least, she's gotten to know the team. Here's a chance for you to get to know her a bit better. Enjoy this Q&A.

Describe your role at GJM: I support our Consulting and Assurance team

When did you start with GJM? December 2^nd 2019

Why did you choose the accounting industry? It wasn’t so much the industry I was looking to get involved in, it was more finding the right company fit. I wanted to be a part of a company with a reputation of good customer service, family values, work life balance, and community support. GJM encompasses all of this and more.

Are you from the Toledo area originally? If not, where are you from? I grew up in Genoa and then moved to Downtown Toledo in 2019. I am in the suburbs now, making my way back to downtown.

What do you like about living in Northwest Ohio? There is always something to do, there is no reason to be bored in this city.  And even though we may have road construction nonstop, the traffic is still nothing to complain about.

Anything you’d like to share about your past professional experience? My history includes banking, nonprofit work, and IT office management. The accounting world is a whole new ballgame for me.

Do you have any pets, hobbies, family? Fitness is a passion of mine. I’m certified to teach a variety of fitness classes. I also recently did my first NPC competition and am looking forward to doing another. 

How do you like to spend your free time? I love to golf, although I don’t very well. I also enjoy a good concert, festivals, and live for college football.

Favorite song or music? I enjoy all kinds but am a country girl at heart.

Favorite book or movie? I like any light hearted, feel good type of entertainment.

Are you involved in any community organizations, do any volunteer work? My philanthropic history includes serving on the Northwest Ohio Susan G Komen Race, including chairing the event in 2012 and 2013. I’ve also been active in Junior League of Toledo, serving as President 2017-2019. Further, I served with Harbor House for over 10 years. I’m currently looking for the next endeavor to get involved in. I think most likely it would include something with autism.

What is something people may be surprised to find out about you? I am a legal Baroness. It was a title gifted to me, but as any Bravo fan knows, if you have a title, you shall be referred by it.

Established in 1996, Gilmore Jasion Mahler, LTD (GJM) is the largest public accounting firm in Northwest Ohio, with offices in Maumee and Findlay. Locally owned, GJM offers cloud-based accounting and provides comprehensive services including assurance, business advisory, tax, risk advisory, healthcare management and outsourced accounting. The Firm’s professionals specialize in industries including construction & real estate, healthcare, manufacturing & distribution and utilities.