We've been getting a lot of local and state-specific questions about whether or not a business will qualify and how that criteria works, so there's two main criteria that qualify the business for the employee retention credit program.

Technically there's actually three, but there's two core ones that are easier to determine. The first one is basically pretty cut and dry if you can prove a reduction in revenue from year over year compared to 2019 to 2020 or 2020 to 2021, so that's just based on your accounts and it's usually pretty easy to determine.

Now for businesses that didn't have a reduction in revenue that's where it gets a little bit more esoteric because it's dependent on the state and local mandates and how the business was impacted, where they operate, whether they're in multiple counties, states or cities, etc.

That can also determine eligibility but one factor that's important to understand is that for multi-location businesses technically if one location qualifies for this program that should technically make the rest of the locations eligible too, so if you're in several different states or counties and they had different types of shutdown mandates or indoor capacity restrictions then all those factors could potentially create eligibility for the entire organization.

Now another thing to consider is any operational changes that your business made - things like if you had indoor capacity restrictions or meeting limitations like switching over to more virtual calls, etc. Likewise, tons of businesses across the country have experienced some form or another of supply chain disruptions or delays to the regular course of business that they are operating in, so as you can see there's a lot of variables that will depend specifically on what happened internally in your state and your business.

So what we would highly recommend is at least going through a free 30-second eligibility quiz that we have linked below - essentially that will help you determine your initial eligibility and if there are any questions that remain or if you're not entirely sure whether or not you qualify based on the specific circumstances your business experienced, then we can connect you with an accounting specialist firm that will be able to give you specific and tailored advice to your business based on the states you're operating, the type of industry, the operational impacts you guys had, and ultimately help you determine the estimated refund amount that you would qualify for.

So if that would be helpful feel free to reach out. Go through the FAQs below and just send us an email or feel free to call or text and we're happy to answer any initial questions you have and then go from there.

Also, if you want to shorten the timelines down from the current turnaround time from the IRS which is currently between somewhere between 6 to 9 months, but could potentially be 12 months or more by the time you're watching this, we have another resource that we can connect you with that can bring that timeline down to 2-4 weeks if you need an advance against the credit that's coming back to you in the near future.