If you aren’t aware, the Federal Government is trying mightily to give you and your restaurant money. Lots of money as a matter of fact. It’s unlikely you missed the onslaught of advertising trying to convince that you too can benefit from the Employee Retention Credit (ERC) program.
But, as always, you’re super busy and you’ve already gotten a ton of help from the Payroll Protection Program (PPP) and maybe even the RRF, which means it’s unlikely they’ll give you any more support.
Well, I’m stoked to tell you just how wrong you are!
When I was approached about submitting the paperwork for the ERC, I was skeptical since I had already received two PPP loans and an SBA emergency payment during the height of the pandemic. Boy was I ever wrong. The Rail Media has a small core team of just three full time people and when our accounting partner told me we were eligible for nearly $30,000 I almost fell over.
So, We Embarked on the Application…
Honestly, it was really easy, because our payroll company had most of the reporting required available online. In fact, my total time investment in the process was about two hours. Not a bad return given that our final total was almost exactly the projected $30k.
When those checks arrived, I couldn’t have been happier to know that we hadn’t missed out on this fantastic federal program.
As I said, The Rail is a small operation consequently, so we received a much smaller return than most restaurant operators are entitled to based on their staffing. In fact, the accounting team we used for our program says that their restaurant clients are getting an average of $140,000 as their return. Now, I don’t know a single operator that couldn’t benefit from an extra $140k in your bank going into the winter months.
More about ERC for Restaurants
To review, the Employee Retention Credit program allows restaurants a tax credit of up to $26,000 per employee. The credit covers the last three quarters of 2020 and first two quarters 2021.
The calculation does depend on other money you have received, but more than eclipses the money you already received, as our example demonstrates.
We received nearly $120,000 in PPP loans, but still were credited $30k for retaining our team during the heart of the pandemic. No doubt your restaurant will get even more back — much-needed relief!
Unfortunately, there are still a ton of eligible restaurants who haven’t taken advantage of this program. In a survey we ran, we found 92% of restaurants had a huge sales loss in 2020 but only 60% have filed an application for ERC.
That’s a lot of money left on the table. If you’re still unsure, there are two ways we can help:
We’ll run a free ERC audit of your restaurant
Watch our ERC for Restaurants Webinar
Join Us for Our ERC for Restaurants Webinar
The hardest part is getting over the inertia surrounding the application. To that end, we are hosting a webinar on January 31st at 4pm ET that will help you better understand the process and ease any of the concerns you might have about moving forward.
While we can’t guarantee you the amount you’ll get back from the ERC program, we can assure it’ll be more than if you do nothing. And don’t worry if you can’t make it live; we’ll have a recorded version to watch on-demand after.
If you want to learn more, before we host our webinar, I am happy to have a one-on-one conversation with any of you that need more information to get underway.
Let’s Face it…
…money for nothing is a rare occurrence in our industry. You have to work yourself to the bone for every penny you deposit and then most of that many goes to others. This is a rare opportunity to cash in on a program where the entire reward is yours.
So, fill out form below if you want more information right away or drop me a line via email at aij@therail.media or call me at 877-291-7838 x103 and I can walk you through the process to get you started.
