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If your business hasn’t yet applied through the Small Business Administration’s (SBA) Paycheck Protection Program, you’ll likely be doing so soon. Here are 6 recommendations on the application process from GJM Partner Bob Bobek. Bob has helped many businesses apply for the program in recent days and recommends you keep these tips in mind:

1. Sit down with a trusted advisor and make sure that the Paycheck Protection Program is right for you. There are other programs that may be a better fit for your business.
2. Use a loan calculator. GJM has created a simple calculator for our clients to plug in their numbers and know for sure which program is best for them. Check with your advisor to see if they have a similar tool or reach out to GJM for assistance.
3. Prepare. Make sure you have support for all items included in your loan application (Last year’s tax return, payroll data, etc.).
4. Maximize your loan draw. Make sure you’re getting the most benefit possible for your business.
5. Talk to your banker to make sure you understand exactly what they need and how they would like to see it. Keep in mind the banks are all trying to figure this out, too. Some banks may ask for items that other banks aren’t asking for. Each has its own application process. Most banks are processing more applications for these PPP loans than the total number of loans they process in a given year. 
6. Follow through. Now that you have your application submitted, start a dialogue. Find out how the loan will be processed, what loan documents will you need to sign and when you can expect to receive funds. Remember, once you receive your funds, the 8-week forgiveness period will begin. Its critical to keep communication open with your bank and your advisors. 

You can access information on the Paycheck Protection Program and many other resources designed to help your business navigate the pandemic in the GJM COVID-19 Resource Center.

Bob Bobek is an assurance partner with over 35 years of public accounting experience who works with privately-owned companies across multiple industries, with a concentration in construction and manufacturing.

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 our country faces the COVID-19 crisis we want to take a moment to bring you up to date on some of the steps Gilmore Jasion Mahler is taking as a result. We would also like to share some information on some resources for businesses, should you need them.

Ohio Governor Mike DeWine has announced a loan program to provide economic assistance to companies due to the slowing down of business in Ohio. It may be available to help your business provide funding for payroll, past due accounts payable and other working capital needs. Typically, such a loan program will have a very low interest rate and up to 30 years repayment schedule. Also, in the unfortunate event that furloughs or layoffs are necessary during these challenging times, impacted employees should qualify for immediate unemployment compensation relief.

Here are some helpful links for businesses seeking information in both Ohio and Michigan.

http://jfs.ohio.gov/ouio/CoronavirusAndUI.stm

https://www.michigan.gov/coronavirus/0,9753,7-406-98178_98179---,00.html

While there has been talk of the IRS possibly moving back the April 15 tax deadline, as of now there is no official word on if that may happen so GJM is currently working under the assumption there is no delay in the tax deadline. We expect to receive further guidance from the US Department of the Treasury this week and will promptly let everyone know.

As we are writing this, our offices remain open, though we have encouraged our staff to work from home if possible for the next three weeks. Should you need to drop off tax documents, GJM offices will be open during our normal business hours for you to do so.

We will continue to monitor COVID-19 developments here in Northwest Ohio and around the nation and share further information with our clients and partners as needed. Please feel free to reach out to your GJM team with any questions or concerns.

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 services and provides comprehensive services including assurance, business advisory, tax, risk advisory and healthcare management. 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.

Business financials can get complicated. Overwhelmed by a sea of numbers? A team of Gilmore Jasion Mahler accountants recently walked area businesspeople through the top 5 questions to ask when reviewing your financial statements. They discussed each major section of a financial statement and provided helpful tips on what to look for or ask about. “Chamber U: Understanding Your Financial Statements” was offered in partnership with the Toledo Regional Chamber of Commerce. Gilmore Jasion Mahler presenters included Steve Miller, CPA, Caitlin Bainter, CPA, Michael Brough, CPA.

The five key areas of focus:

1. The Report

• audit
• review
• compilation
• agreed upon procedures

2. The Balance Sheet

3. The Income Statement

4. Statement of Cash Flows

5. Footnotes

Top five takeaways:

• Make sure you know what type of service you are receiving
• Review debt agreements to see what service is required
• Review debt agreements for affirmative and negative covenants
• The statement of Cash Flows gives a clear vision of the health of your business
• Consider whether your basis of accounting is appropriate to meet the needs of your business

Steve Miller, Caitlin Bainter and Michael Brough are part of GJM’s Assurance team, working with businesses across the region to provide trusted guidance.

Gilmore Jasion Mahler, LTD (GJM) has announced some key promotions and new staff members that strengthen the Firm and its leadership team. The promotions are effective January 1, 2019.

Judy Anderson and Matt Cavanagh are promoted to partner. Anderson, a Toledo native and graduate of The University of Toledo has been with the firm for 11 years. She has over twenty years of experience in public accounting and in the healthcare industry. A member of Gilmore Jasion Mahler’s healthcare and outsourced accounting group, she works with many of the Firm’s healthcare clients providing practice management and consulting services.  

Cavanagh, a Bowling Green native and BGSU graduate, joined Gilmore Jasion Mahler in November of 2005. Also a member of the Firm’s healthcare team, Matt’s focus is healthcare services. His expertise is in ambulatory surgery centers, outsourced accounting, practice management and modeling.

“Judy and Matt are already valued members of our leadership team,” says Gilmore Jasion Mahler Managing Partner Kevin Gilmore. ”Their hard work and dedication have strengthened our healthcare specialty and the Firm as a whole. I’m thrilled to see them both reach partner level.”

The Firm also announced some other key promotions. Partner Nikki Clement has been named managing partner of Gilmore Jasion Mahler’s Findlay office. Partner Mike Brough will lead growth efforts for the Findlay office. Nikki Clement's focus is the utilities industry. She specializes in accounting for regulated utilities.

Mike Brough works across a number of industries including manufacturing & distribution, government, and nonprofit operations.

Steve Miller is being promoted to senior manager. Both Ryan Avery and Ryan Emerson are promoted to supervisor and Nick Jackson is promoted to senior associate.

Earlier in the year, Diane Stretten and Mary Jo Pitzen were promoted to senior manager. Andrea Jennex moved up to supervisor in the GJM Findlay office. Ben Lochbihler was promoted to manager and Corey Selhorst, Lauren Grana and Clay Barron were all promoted to senior associate.

The Firm also brought on well over a dozen new employees in 2018 to further strengthen GJM’s administrative team and client service. They include Elijah Blackburn, Alyssa Essert, Alexandria Frances, Courtney Haas, Nicole Hartranft, Jennifer Henning, Dana Herr, Thomas Keyser, Jessica Knepper, Dylon Lause, Wendy Long, Tim Merkel, Madeline Mielcarek, Caleb Neeper, Joe Osentoski, Tina Rochowiak and Logan Sager.

“I couldn’t be happier with the staff we have in place headed into 2019,” says Gilmore. “When you have great people, great things happen. I’m excited to see what we can accomplish at a team.”

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 services 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.