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good morning and welcome to all of you that are on the special business briefing for the hospitality economic resiliency grant the north dakota department of commerce and gndc are proud to bring you this information and hope it is helpful when at making the applications please be sure and share this information with all of those that are available sean if you would start good morning everyone and thank you for joining us this special business briefing will cover the requirements and guidelines for the hospitality economic resiliency grant but first let me introduce lieutenant governor brent sanford and he will welcome you here today lieutenant governor thank you sean thank you maria thank you commerce department for putting this program together again to continue with the success that you had with the economic resiliency grants first first uh program that we rolled out during this coven during these cova times and with with special with a special focus this time on the hospitality industry we all know that that this has been very difficult for restaurants for bars for for entertainment facilities for for theaters for movie theaters etc and hotels and and all the different hospitality businesses in in these times when you have when you have less visitors you have you have challenges for moving around you have different different uh levels of shutdown orders and mass mandates etc that are coming out locally and and in the the customers are have have challenging times wondering where they can go how much they should be eating out etc how much they should be going out and and so anyway this is very challenging times and we hope that that uh um you can feel the gratitude coming from the emergency commission from from the budget section from the governor's office from commerce that we we want we're here for you hoping that this can help to stay open to move forward continue through this challenge these challenging times and and again commerce has been has had a successful program that's been going on for the last months on economic resiliency grants and because it was able to work out and help help folks help individual businesses and organizations for for those investments that were made that we wanted we wanted to refocus money towards hospitality specifically and so that's what that's what this will help you with obviously the bank north dakota will be on the call as well and listening and and they've got two of the programs out that are that are coming to a close that are interest forgiveness and also the the uh pace loans the coveted pace loans recovery program and so we've got programs for businesses we hope that this helps you in these challenging times and um thank you for keeping your head up and forging ahead for north dakota so with that thank you sean thank you commerce thank you all of you in the hospitality industry for participating today thank you lieutenant governor sanford and and your unexpected guest that joined you for just a moment there at the end appreciate that yes now my dog's quiet so that's how that goes well good morning once again everyone and thank you for joining us today my name is sean kessel and i'm the north dakota interim uh commissioner of commerce on behalf of the north dakota department of commerce in partnership with the greater north dakota chamber we welcome you all to our special business briefing on the hospitality economic resiliency grant we're going to try to answer your questions we're going to review the application and we're going to announce the exact date and time commerce will begin accepting online applications for the grant for those of you listening please share this information about hospitality economic resiliency grant to anyone who is unable to join us today a recording of this call is available at the ndresponse.gov website if your questions remain unanswered please email us at businesshelpcovet19 at nd.gov as i mentioned today our agenda will be to review the hospitality erg overview and clarify any questions that you have for us we'll also show you how to prepare submit to submit an application and walk through the application process and then eric spencer from gndc will provide some closing remarks for a quick recap from our last briefing on what is the hospitality economic resiliency grant the hospitality or h our hospitality erg or herg herg as we call it it's a federally funded business support grant federal dollars were provided to each state to use where they saw the greatest need in response to the covet pandemic the hospitality erg is intended to support main street businesses across north dakota the hospitality industry continues to be the hardest hit by the pandemic and with the agreement of the emergency commission which is chaired by governor burgum and the north dakota legislative leadership commerce has been entrusted to distribute almost 54 million dollars to help restaurants cafes bars breweries theaters and professional production companies to remain viable and open and serving customers hotels with restaurants bars coffee shops and or banquet and meeting space may apply for the grant using the operational expenses from those specific operations the receipts must clearly show this connection for example food costs or staffing and limited service hotels without a dedicated group space or a restaurant unfortunately are not eligible for these grants complimentary breakfasts would not qualify as a restaurant eligible expenses must have been incurred on or after march 27th of 2020 and no later than the date of the application please remember there's no appeals process for the erg or the herg grant programs providing all documentation requested an appropriate justification for each expense item will ensure your best chance of success for the grant program and a quick note about the erg program we no longer are accepting applications for that program and the funding there is no funding for additional rounds so move on to some additional eligibility requirements for the hospitality erg a grantee must be a restaurant or a food truck to include food services and drinking establishments that derive a minimum of 51 percent of their sales from prepared food and must certify that 75 of those sales were derived in north dakota and they have to have a current food established license a bar or a lounge with a current on sale liquor license issued by the appropriate legal entity that derives a minimum of 51 percent from on sale sales an entertainment venue to include movie drama or music theaters and facilities used to host community and private events that derive a minimum of 51 percent of the revenue from either rental or admissions and a production company that provides technology and audio visual services to meetings and events and must certify that 75 percent of their sales were derived in north dakota applicants must self-certify that they meet the requirements and will comply with current north dakota smart restart protocols it's important to note that non-compliance with these protocols will result in the repayment of grant funds now we'll move on to some ineligible so who is ineligible government owned facilities that do not generate more than 51 percent of revenue from private events in-home caterers and food establishments without an appropriate license retail food groceries or gas stations who do not derive a minimum of 51 percent of their sales from prepared foods religious organizations and lodging facilities that do not have event spaces or restaurants now we'll move on to documentation applicants are responsible for providing sufficient documentation for all costs justification for why these items are eligible and proof of payment documents must be clear legible and of high resolution for docs not generated by accounting software like word excel quickbooks pdf or account or other accounting software must include a proof of payment like a quarterly tax report or a copy of a bank statement credit card statement or a print from an accountant certifying accuracy hand-written documents are not allowed you must show a detailed description of each expense they must be clearly identified how and when the costs were incurred the applicant is responsible for indicating which cost category an expense falls into and a receipt showing proof of payment must be itemized to show all the expenses include a total dollar amount the date of the purchase the vendor name and contact information and it must tie back to the applicant and the business location showing proof of payment and payment method shipping costs must be itemized and taxes must be itemized and taxes are not eligible for reimbursement now we'll move on to receipts legitimate receipts must include itemization an item description or a picture a total purchase price the date the verification of payment in full and evidence it came from the vendor such as letterhead eligible receipts shows the proof of payment the if it's an invoice it must show that the amount was paid in full and a zero balance must be shown on the invoice screenshots showing the required information are not accepted receipts for the item from the distributor or supplier which refer back to the invoice or estimates are provided accompanied by proof of payment or cancelled check or credit card statement or receipt or a bank draft those are eligible receipts but an ineligible is a receipt showing the applicant as the vendor i want to repeat that the applicant cannot be the vendor on a legend or on a legible receipt or an eligible receipt excuse me if any of the required information of the above is missing or if the receipt is in any way editable the applicant must provide additional transaction information such as a canceled check a credit card statement a bank draft or an email which provides the missing information so in the next slide we'll show you what a canceled check looks like to make sure we're all on the same page now we've blocked out some information here but when you provide it we must be able to see the endorsement uh the cancellation stamp uh and front and back side of the canceled check the next slide will show an invoice so again on the invoice make sure that you identify what light item goes with what receipts when you have an invoice such as this you may have made purchases that are not eligible for the hospitality erg and it would be helpful for you to circle the line item as you enter it we'll go over that a little bit later in the application process the paid stamp that you see at the top is only allowed if there's a zero balance on the bottom if the invoice shows an amount due we would need supporting information showing that the invoice was paid and the last thing i want to mention on the invoice is sales tax is not allowed it's not a reimbursable expense so the next slide we're going to go over some questions that you've asked and try to to spend some time answering them if you have questions after today's business briefing please email us at businesshelpcovid19 at nd.gov and we'll provide a specific answer to you so the first questions are related to utility bills can we upload all the utility bills on the same line no the answer is no you have to submit each utility bill individually along with accompanying proof of payment and it needs to be on a separate line item so if you submit a utility bill we also need a council check or a credit card statement something of that variety to show proof of payment the next question is will the utility bill from a previous month qualify to show we have paid the expense no you need to upload an accompanying both sides of a cancelled check a bank statement or a redacted credit card highlighted to show that the amount has been paid the next question was are internet services charges cable satellite tv eligible expenses and the answer is yes they are so we'll go on to the next slide and it's regarding payroll the hospitality erg does pay for operational expenses and the one of the questions we received was can funding go towards wages of lost hours due to early shutdown and the answer is no we can only reimburse paid hours another question was for payroll will a copy of the employee's check printed from quickbooks work for a receipt and the answer is yes because we do need to see names that are uh on payroll so make sure that you provide us a list of the employee names in addition to any payroll documentation that you provide on the next slide we'll talk about food service and beverage the first question is if all prepared food and drink establishments are qualified to apply what about breweries and wineries and the answer is yes breweries and wineries that have a minimum of 51 percent of the revenue they receive come from prepared food or drink served on premise are eligible the next question was what happens if we receive grant funding but seating capacity guidelines are not followed and the answer is north dakota smart restart protocols and all executive orders details must be followed non-compliance with these protocols will result in repayment of all grant funds we have some additional food service questions can i receive grant money for all bar staff salaried from march 17 through the grant submission and the answer is operational costs including payroll for a bar for a bar staff excuse me must occur on or after march 27th of 2020. that's an important date march 27th of 2020 is the first day that we can begin reimbursing for operational expenses related to this grant the next question is can businesses that aren't specifically hospitality but used as a gathering place in a small town such as morning coffee at the elevator or at a gas station or the car dealership qualify and the answer is the intent of this grant is to support hospitality businesses who have lost revenue due to covet 19. therefore other gathering places would not be eligible the next questions were on documentation the first question was is there any possibility for an extension if additional measures are advised and the answer is yes 24 hours will be provided to turn around all documents i want to make a couple comments related to this please make sure that your email is set up to receive emails from commerce and that they don't get inadvertently screened into your junk mail it's advisable to review all of your email folders including your junk mail folder every day after you submit your application so that you can turn around and respond to any emails that you may receive from commerce the next question is if a utility is paid by auto draft and reflected as paid in a subsequent month's bill may we upload both as proof or will you require a bank statement credit card bill etc also is a clear check sufficient for rent or is a rent invoice required as well these are good questions the answer is corresponding documents such as a cleared check or an invoice is sufficient as long as it's included with a bank statement the next question was regarding ownership the question was please provide clarification on if there are multiple owners and locations the answer is you may only fill out one application and will be eligible for up to five thousand dollars for one eligible location up to fifty thousand for two eligible locations and up to seventy five thousand for three or more eligible locations if you receive a grant for more than one location you cannot spend more than twenty five thousand dollars per location an eligible location must meet business eligibility requirements as listed on our website at be legendary dot link backslash h e r g and it's defined by the customer facing marketplace so you you can list all your locations in which your ownership is fifty percent or greater regardless of whether the business has a separate ein applicants must list each business under this guideline and will be awarded accordingly to the twenty five thousand fifty thousand and seventy five thousand maximum rule so here's some really important information that i'm sure you've all been waiting for because some because of some of the hard work by the north dakota information technology department and some commerce staff members the application window will open on friday november 20th at 10 am central standard time the application window will stay open unti friday december 4th at 5 pm central standard time once the application window closes at 5 pm central standard time on december 4th you can no longer submit applications please be prepared to submit your application as soon as possible because they will be reviewed on a first come first serve basis now i'd like to turn over the floor to trisha miller tricia will walk you through the application what it will look like and some tips on how to fill out the application trisha thank you sean and good morning everybody today we're just going to run through some screenshots of the application and at the end i'm going to do an application through a test portal site and again i just want to reiterate it will be a test portal and you are not to grab the url at the top in hopes that you can have access into the into the platform to submit your application um the first screen all right so where are we going to have the application login again um to reiterate what sean had mentioned for the link um there's a b legendary dot link forward slash herg page and this is housed on the nd response website um there'll be a button on that landing page of all the information for the herg and um there'll be a button there that you can click that will go live at 10 o'clock on friday once you click that you're going to be brought to the platform of the application um where you can go and and submit your new application if you were a previous applicant in the erg program you can use your same login information from that round if you are new applicant you will see a sign up button where you can register for the new program once you have signed in again if you are a returning applicant you can select the create application button if you are a new registration applicant meaning you have not registered previously you will also need to follow the verify email button and prompts and also complete that part of the registration and i do want to make a note about this in the erg grant when people registered they needed to verify their email so that's an important step if you are a new registrant to the to the system that you do follow those steps and those protocols what will happen is you'll get an email back that will ask you to verify your email so that the system recognizes you once you create your application once you click on the button to create an application you want to want to enter in your business name and it should match the legal name which is exactly to what you file on your taxes you'll also enter in your tax identification number if your business has an ein number that should be used if an ein is not available then the following are allowed state tax id tribal tax tarot or social security number for those sold proprietors the next screen you will enter in all your information for your business the physical address must be the physical address of your business the mailing address is where the check will get mailed if awarded you're going to be asked several questions your business must be located in north dakota you must be registered to do business in north dakota and you must be allowed to conduct business in north dakota there'll be several questions on this form that you'll need to answer again to reiterate the rule um that sean outlined earlier about 25 000 for one eligible location up to 50 000 for two and anything over two you're up to 75 000 for the eligible locations again not to exceed 25 000 per location and then also where your ownership is 50 or greater regardless of a separate ein and this will be listed it's underneath the facilities tab of the application and here is where you will list all of your eligible locations through this option the next screen that we're going to talk about is where you add your expenditures what's very important is is that you list each receipt item on separate line items do not combine receipts from multiple expenses on one line item you may need to upload the same receipt for multiple line items if that is applicable to your to your case for those line items the other part i want to call out on this slide and we'll go through a little bit more too when i do the live application on there to show you you'll you're going to notice a total receipt amount a qualifying portion of purchase amount and a non-qualifying portion of purchase amount um and i think we outlined that here the total receipt amount that is the dollar amount of the full receipt the qualifying portion of the purchase amount is the dollar amount that you would like to be reimbursed for that total receipt and again the non-qualifying portion would be things like sales tax that's not allowable when entering in your supporting documentation for your expense please note the supporting document file types that are allowed are jpegs pdfs docs and excel s files they made they need to be less than 20 made when you're uploading or the system could pop it out and they won't they won't appear in your application it may be blocked once you've entered in all your line expenditures please review your line expenditures before you move on from the screen you will notice your award amount max at the top you'll see that there which aligns with the previously discussed protocol on the multiple businesses so this screenshot correlates with um a previous i entered in two locations and so therefore my maximum award amount that i'm qualified for is up to 50 000. you will then continue on with your certifications you will have to know if your business was profitable not more than 90 days delinquent prior to march 2 march 1st of 2020 business is in good standing in the state of north dakota your business is not delinquent on federal estate taxes and that you have incurred a negative financial impact due to clover 19. you also are going to have to verify that nothing you are expensing in the herg was approved for in the economic resiliency grant which was the first set of funding that commerce ran one of the other new areas is you're going to have to certify that your business meets one of these four business type requirements and sean outlined these a little bit earlier but you do have to verify that you at least are one of these four you can do multiple but you have to at least verify that you were one of the four and again here's an outline of those protocols okay then you're coming coming to the end of your um business obligation section um you're going to want to certify that all the information is true and accurate and that you also read and agreed to abide by the smart restart guidelines at this point you're going to want to review your application and in the fir in the erg round we um had a lot of questions about how do i print my application what you will do is you will be at this point of reviewing your application you would need to do a file print from your browser or you can right mouse click on the desktop of where you're at in that application and print your application if you wanted a hard copy print at that point then the next step is you would submit and process your application all right so now i think what we'll do is we'll pop over to i'm going to stop sharing and share another screen and we are just going to put in an application through the test database again and just so you guys can have an understanding and and the proper protocol of entering one in all right we are back again i just want to reiterate um to not copy this portal address down um this is a test database and um if you were to do this later and think that you've submitted your application it would not be in the live platform again that will go live at 10 o'clock this friday um and it will have a separate login and it will be located on the the legendary link that we provided earlier at the beginning part where you want to sign in on your home page of this you're going to be brought to a page like this on the portal that's going to outline the program at this point you're going to want to click sign in and the reason that you're not seeing a sign up or a new registrant button here is because i already have one so those applicants that have applied in the previous round they are can use their same sign-in information if you are new to this um you will have a sign up button on here where you can move forward with that so we are going to continue on and i am going to sign in okay then at this point what's going to happen is you're going to be brought to this page and then you're going to click the button that says create application okay you're going to be brought into this this screen where you're going to begin typing your business and we are going to okay again this must match your legal business name that you claim for your taxes um what will happen is after your application is approved what happens is it goes through a tin match through our office of management and budget and we check it against the federal tax system and so if your legal business name does not does not match your tax identification number um it would get kicked out and then we would have to find you know get in touch with you um to make sure that we have that proper information so that we can get your check processed from this point you'll be brought to that screen where i mentioned earlier about entering in the the physical addresses and mailing address of your business so here it's going to ask for your contact title um and when you're doing this i mean if you're having a representative someone else from your agency maybe it's an hr person um you know i'm not sure what that would be you could put their title in here okay it would also ask for your telephone number it's going to ask for your relationship to the business okay it's also going to ask you for the number of employees at the physical location as of january 1st of 2020 and then the number of employees currently at your location today then it's going to ask for your physical address of your business and again this is the address of your business so we need to have that no p.o boxes will be allowed on here p.o boxes are allowed they're on on the other hand on the mailing address again um this is where your check is going to get mailed so make sure that you're verifying that um we had a few in the previous application round that had some wrong information in the mailing address so just wanted to note the mailing address is the one where your check will actually get mailed to if if your physical equals your mailing you can just click same as physical address and it will autofill for you and you can move on to the next screen okay so here is where we're going to get into some of the application sections it's going to ask is this business located in north dakota yes it is is your business in your home no it's not what is the registering entity for your business i'm registered with the secretary of state you have many options in here just to choose from if you are a tribal business do you participate in the 477 i don't need to answer this it's not a required field you'll notice that there's no red asterisk next to this this is not applicable to me so therefore i can skip this question is this business registered to do business you can see that there's a red asterisk this is a required information yes i am is this business allowed to legally conduct business in north dakota yes i am what type of business am i um maybe i'm a partnership what portion of your funding is from public funding sources all partial or none here's where you can enter in your industry makes code and there'll be several out here the the level two code is not required if you are if you're wanting to come through here and find out what your level two code is you can do that as well but it is not required all right on to the next page again here is where you're going to want to list those facilities now it entered the first one in from my first business section where i entered the information on that business if i have multiple facilities in here you would add location and you would enter in all of those same information for that second facility and maybe i'm in another town and then i'm going to click complete then you will notice that you have two facilities or two locations noted here you continue to enter the multiple locations outlined in the guidance above until you have listed all of your facilities that you need to that you need to list in your locations at this point you click next this is the next part where you add your expenditures um you need to list each line item on separate line items or each receipt i'm sorry and you do not combine the receipts for multiple expenses on one line item i do want to note that if you have multiple facilities or locations by those expenses when you are adding your expenditure it's very important that you note that in your description as to which location that this is that this receipt item is for it will help us determine that 25 000 not to exceed 25 000 by location rule the maximum award that i'm qualified for is 50 000 and the reason this system knows that is because i had two locations again not to exceed 25 000 per location so what you're going to do is you're going to want to add an expenditure you're going to come in here and me and i maybe you want to do my payroll costs and again you're going to want to like be more detailed and you can say this is for the and then the vendor or their source i mean this could really be i mean i know we talked about you can't be the vendor of source but if it's your payroll you would put that you know you would put that in here expenditure type you can see on here we have an outline payroll benefits operating expenses so we're going to select payroll here the purchase date is not required date but you can add a date in here if you need to so maybe you know i want to put in here let's do september 30th we'll just count it for the month of september the total receipt amount will be what you're going to claim for this so maybe this would be 24 000 the qualifying portion of this purchase is what i want to be paid for okay and maybe 1 000 of this is not take this back let's do this at 25 thousand and the qualifying is one thousand this is where you're gonna wanna note make sure you're clear on here and don't accidentally think that this is the amount that you wanna get paid for it is the middle amount the qualifying portion dollar amount of the line item from the receipt okay and then you're going to click continue from this point it's going to ask you to upload a document to that line item okay and um again we do have it noted in here it's just not showing right here but you will notice the different file types that are allowed on here so you're gonna click choose files okay and let's see here i'll just add a document in here it's a word doc and i'm going to hit complete and then you can see that you can continue to add every single line expenditure as you go for your application but again key thing is to make sure that if you have multiple locations to make sure that on the detailed description of that line item that you are noting which location that goes to once you've completed adding all your expenditures you click next and here's where you're going to have to go through uh several questions of some certifications you want to certify that your business was profitable on march 1st or on my business or that my business was a startup in operation prior to march first and is projected to be profitable within 180 days of march 1st of 2020 business was not more than 90 days delinquent on any loans prior to march first business is in good standing in the state of north dakota business is not currently delinquent on federal or state taxes my business incurred a negative financial impact due to covert 19. i agree my business was closed as a result no i did not close my business voluntarily closed yes my business was forced to lay off employees no my business closed due to executive orders no and again those are all pertinent to whatever your answers are to your business the next set of certifications is that you read and understand the requirements regarding the improvements that are eligible for the herg and for the application you submitted complies with those expectations i certify that i have the authority to submit this request on b half of the named entity you must also certify that you have not submitted a hospitality economic resiliency grant application for any other business entity within the past 30 days the system there will be checks and duplications coming through so please note that on a registered applicant at the beginning there will be checks on duplicates that are coming through in any of those that are done so will be cancelled i certify that an understanding that my by accepting herd funds and all records regardless of physical form relevant to the herd funding are subject to audit an examination of the state of north dakota or or its designee so they may require to be paid the herd funds within 72 hours if they find that some of these understandings and it comes back that it was falsified the last question on this section is nothing that you are requesting you have to verify if you were a previous grant um recipient from the erg program nothing that you're requesting through the herg program the hospitality erg was approved in that erg round one if it was you cannot expense it at this time again this was the new question i outlined earlier the businesses must certify that appropriate requirements are met for their business type please agree to all that are true to your business okay so i said i was a restaurant i'm going to say no to these additional ones and again you can have multiple but you must agree to one of the four all right at this point um you will um just verify your obligations that you're gonna you're certifying that every information that you provided in the previous screens are true and accurate you read and agree to abide by the smart restart guidelines and then there's a link on here to go back to the indie response website to verify what those protocols are i certify that i will provide receipts when asked to document eligible expenditures and you're going to click next again here is that reminder on the review tab that you can actually print this application this is giving you an overview of everything that you have listed and it's very important that you note this because of your line numbers that are on here we had a lot of questions about i'm not sure what that line was when you were asking for information this would be a good way to have this on file after you've submitted your grant application so to just print you can actually right mouse click and click print here from your browser option and print yourself and have a copy of it before finalizing okay so you're going to come to the end of this and you're going to click submit it's going to have one more verification for you to review your hospitality grant that it was accurate if it wasn't you would hit cancel and you can go previous to get to other screens but at this point i'm feeling good about this and i'm going to hit submit at this point then we've been notified that you have submitted your grant application and then you will have correspondence that will come back and forth from commerce letting you know the the stages of where you're at and you also can verify that on your home screen um by clicking the home um you can see different things up here and what they mean by that all right i am going to log out of this and again please do not copy the portal address up here this is a test database and again the live link will be coming out on friday and i will stop sharing this and sean i will bring it back to you well thank you trisha i really appreciate that comprehensive review of the application uh hopefully that has helped answer some questions and people become a little bit more familiar with what the expectations are uh when you make your application when that window starts on friday at 10 a.m central time once you've submitted your application if you have questions about it make sure that your id number and your business name is listed on any emails that you send in as it appears on the application and again the email address to send those questions to is business help covid19 all one word at nd.gov so we hope that this information has been helpful and we will communicate updates through our website ndresponse.gov and our social media channels it's important that you follow us at commerce nd on facebook and twitter at department of commerce on linkedin and commerce north dakota spelled out on instagram you can sign up for our newsletters at the link provided commerce.nd.gov backslash news backslash sign up news releases backsplash if questions remain again please send them to business help kovid19 at nd.gov and make sure you include your id number and your business name on that email now please remember you know we're hoping that this grant is applicable to you and it'll be applicable to literally hundreds of others so please remember that it might take some time for us to get back to you on a timely basis but we do have an faq that might answer some of your questions that's published on on nd ndresponse.gov i really want to thank you for attending today thank you for being north dakota smart thank you for the privilege of supporting you during this trying time and to wrap up our briefing today i'd like to turn it over to eric spencer with the greater north dakota chamber for some closing remarks eric thank you sean you're welcome well this is eric spencer the president and ceo of the greater north dakota chamber and on behalf of the greater north dakota chamber and the north dakota department of commerce i want to thank you all for tuning in today as was mentioned earlier a recording of the recording of this uh of this session and the materials from today will be available at ndresponse.gov click on coven19 and then the business link below that it will also be linked to at ndchamber.com again thank you for your time and have a safe day thank you all for joining this ends the special business briefing on the hospitality economic resiliency grant