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ladies and gentlemen welcome and thank you for joining today's web conference an in-depth walkthrough of the certified platform for prospective firms please note that all participants will be muted for the duration of this event your however welcome to submit written questions during the presentation and these will be addressed during Q&A to submit questions in writing please select the participants menu at the top of your screen enough to spend no to all presenters if you're logged in using the web-based application you can use the notes function on the lower right hand side of your screen and address your notes to all moderators should you require technical assistance send a note to the ATP CAS operator or call our help desk at one eight eight eight seven nine six six month one eight please remember that you'll get the most out of this event by being logged in on the web and now with that I'll turn the call over to von trend director of the 8a program please go ahead thank you to give hi everyone I'm so excited we are ready to launch a new disaster at sba.gov for our AAA application process now I am excited and as you can tell but thank you so much today for joining us on this Thursday afternoon to learn about service I went and certified and an overview of the system and then we going to show you how to go in and register a lot and all this wonderful information using the new system so I'm really looking forward for you to have a great user experience the numbers give to Stephanie grocer who has been a tremendous help she's from the u.s. digital service team from the White House and she's also we see a time that does on the training all the trainings been done without her help Thank You Stephanie thanks so much fun so we actually wanted to start today's training by showing you some resources that we've made public and we've had the call moderator actually share with all of you this URL so you'll be able to access the site as you know ADA initial application goes live next Wednesday November 15th if you're eager to pretend you could use these materials now to get started so that you could go ahead and submit your application on the 15th and so the first thing I wanted to highlight was in the middle section what we've watched is a Quick Start Guide and that basically is a short document that takes you through how to do basic tasks within the certified system so here you see what that looks like and so that will help you just kind of get started and then if you need additional help we have a help desk and that email is available on the same knowledge base page which is held at certified at sba.gov and so as we go through your application if you need assistance people are standing by there to answer questions the second bullet in that middle column is called application checklist SBA previously had elbows checklist for the a day process this one replaces the previous chart left is a very in-depth shark list that goes through every potential document that you may have to upload throughout the process including some remaining forms you'll see soon that the new certified system replaces most previous forms so the tenth is 1010 I and II 413 all of those no longer exists no they've all been converted into online questionnaires with six sessions within the online application and so this checklist actually walks you through each of those sections and what documents you'll potentially need to upload for each section and so as you're preparing you can collect the documents that apply to you and then save them in our naming convention which is document name underscore year so for example W to underscore 2015 and should have those all saved and ready to upload so that when you log in to certify to start your ADA application you don't need to log in and out multiple times as you collect documentation finally I want to mention that on this page also on the left side we have a list of our trainings and so in previous training so if you miss or want to hear again this training or mr. previous training you can click on the previous trainings and I to watch the webinars which we've saved and recorded and have transcripts of available on this site the last thing I'll mention before I turn it over to Joyce price who's going to walk everyone through that in depth on how to go how do you actually submit an application and certify the last thing I want to mention is that we developed this website as an agile iterative process that means that we didn't build in every single functionality and there may be a couple glitches here at there the system will work and it's going to be we've had first come in to tested and they've really really enjoyed using it but any suggestions you have on how to improve the site we're going to be making launching improvements every two weeks after the launch date of November 15th and so there's a third column in the what's new column there's a line here that says we want to hear from you and then there's a link to send us your suggestions so as you apply if you have any recommendations to make the process or the website easier for our future firms go ahead and submit them there and we will put those in our backlog so our engineers can get to those and with that I'll turn it over to joy price so you can do the in-depth walkthrough of it a initial application on certified thanks Effie and I also echo your excitement this has been a wonderful process thus far and firms tuning it today I hope you really understand just how great this process is going to be for you moving forward so what we are going to cover our call today are a few things and we really would like for you to pay attention to the visuals of this because this is a total hands-on environment and you'll want to orient yourself with how to click and where to click so the things that we're going to cover today are one how to create an account in the certified system how to log into the certified platform we're also going to come around begin and submit an initial application and we're going to discuss how to interact with FBA analysts when additional information may be requested so if you think of questions go ahead and write them in the chat box and we're going to address those as we go through the process so let's begin and you are seeing these certified sba.gov homepage here which is going to be the launching point for logging into the system but I wanted to call out another website that you may or may not be familiar with as a firm and that is sam.gov we're just going to touch on this very briefly and let you know that in order to do business with the government you have to register in the Sam gov also you have to make sure that you have a verified profile here before you can continue in certify and this is Stephanie I'm going to be giving easy to the tips throughout and so one tip I have is if you're registering and spam on one day like let's say next Wednesday you probably won't be able to submit your application for certify that same day because it sometimes it takes am more than one day for your account to be added so just because you submit your information and sound for your accounts doesn't mean you're active yet you have to wait for your profiles to become active in order to apply so certifies nice SB now we're going to go ahead and jump into the actual application process of the certified at sba.gov for first timers you're going to log into the section that says get started right here this orange button on the right side of the screen and then we're going to go ahead and create an FBA a certified FBA account which requires your first name last name email akka and also as I'm typing that then I would like to inform you that it is helpful if you type in your email address both time if you fail to type in the correct email address and you get a confirmation it's going to be sent to the wrong address so that's going to require you to complete this step all over again next we are at the password session this is also a place to pay close attention because we use something called pass phrases and not just pass words so you can't just have one two three four five if you can't have a cat you can have dog kept password it's a little bit stronger than what you're normally used to and that's to protect your information in the platform so we have provided here on the certified website as you go through this page some helpful tips to include when you think about making your password and we also have this passphrase strength meter here that will show you the password you should aim for a strong password before you continue in the process so I'm going to show Pond typing at this point so you can see the type of level of detail that we prefer when doing your password and again I would have tied this so that I make sure that there's no mistakes and it's a Stephanie always adds that no hyphens are necessary but you can't have them if you want the locals don't need a special character it works with just four random words as you can see Joey put in four words these hyphens and an exclamation which is fine but some people have a hard times into the different logics and other passwords are used to but if you just remember just four random words together we'll get you drew this right so yeah and a great point that mean we just want to make sure that you have a strong password so however that works for you by all means move forward so I'm going to accept the terms and conditions here which you can also see as well the disclosures in terms that we require on the site then I'm going to click to make sure that I'm not a robot and a CAPTCHA comes up that asked me to select all squares of vehicles now your cache is going to be a little bit different it's not always the same but you're going to click through all of the images that have a vehicle just make sure there's no hidden vehicles in there creeper all right I'm going to do another one to the bike town as a vehicle all right all right so we were able to select and access the system now I'm going to go and create an account all right Thank You Joey it says I'm going to get a verification link to my email address in the next 48 hours the system has been working pretty quickly so far so you don't have to wait about 48 hours you can actually log into the system now matter of fact I'm going to go into my email address to make sure that it's there but if you don't see the email you want to make sure that you add certify and fda.gov to your contact list and then you also want to check your spam or junk mail folder alright okay so we can see that I have received the account signup confirmation so I'm going to click the link that says activate my account and now take it back to the sign-in screen you all right we have moved into the next stage of processing which is another reason why you need to have your stamp of data before you access the system we weren't kidding with you it's a very serious thing so you want to make sure that you've got your data we require your Duns number your 10 number and your intent all information that you would be able to retrieve from your Samko file and if you have any questions about what a Duns number is a pin number or an aunt end we have helpful instructions on the right-hand side of the screen as you see my mouse and that's going to tell you Oh my pin number is my ein or my pin number is my social security number so the next process is that we're going to actually go in and use the data that I have it's a dummy data for the purpose of this training but you will use your own data when you are going through this process while Joey is doing this I'll just say that we recommend that firms updates if you already have a Famicom what's a several months or a year ago that you're going to use that's no problem but FDA analysts will be looking at the Sam information which will be migrated onto your certified profile and so you'll want to make sure that's up to date so that your information on Sam doesn't contradict information you're going to be inputting into certified and so and certified so it's going to show analyst with the snapshot of your Sam data the moment you press apply as well as the most recent Sam data as you're in the sort of the nine-year a day program right thanks Stephanie so I don't know if you saw what I did but after I put in the dunce obtained in the antenna I actually went ahead and press connect data what that does is it pulls my fam gov profile and it makes sure that it links to the right business so I'm going to just verify that the information is correct again I'm Joey not William so this is just dummy data for right now but for the purpose of our presentation this is correct and Stephanie brought up a good point about making sure that your data is up-to-date and Sam and here's a reason fed up of what why when we go to select business-type you're going to have to choose whether your firm is an LLC corporation escort partnership or sole proprietorship and if you have changed your business type at all through the process of operating your business but you did not change that in sam.gov there's going to be a conflict between the information that you report and the information that we require so for the purpose of the training today I'm going to go with an S corp if you make a mistake here try not to shout its churches or correct business if you choose the wrong one during the registration process the lungs business structure you'll also have to email the help desk at how about certified at sba.gov to have it changed on the backend yeah also we do something that will touch into a bit later called skip logic so making sure that you select the appropriate business type is important because we require certain documents for certain types of businesses so making sure that you select appropriate business we'll make sure that you use the appropriate documents and again we reference the application checklist that is in the $35 base so we can help you can prepare your information as a and if anyone's trying to to use our system right now this is a training environment and so I would recommend just pay attention to the steps we're doing if we're going to record it as a webinar and then next Wednesday November 15 a day applications will be live the certify site is currently up and available for other applications such as laws be ed will be an MP also mall MPP but next Wednesday is when the initial application will be ready for firms to start filling it yes that's a great point this is not myth this is a step-by-step guide for you once the software is released but the intention for our time together now is not to walk with you through the process we have some some algorithms that we're going to use to help refill applications and it's going to speed up things on our side and we really want you to pay attention while we'll go through the process try not to log into the system just yet and also try not to follow us step like that because we've got some some tricks up our sleeve that make it go a little bit faster so this disclaimer popped up and again we're just going to expect it but we're going to review it just to make sure we know our rights and responsibilities of using the platform all right I'll click OK and it says you have successfully been associated with the organization there's a little lad all right great so you can see on your screen now that you have successfully been associated with the organization again there's more details here about my organization and Sam gov when I click on this plus one second we've got up a white screen I just want to make sure that everything we're saying the vigil for you guys I'll just mention that if you already have a certified accountant obviously you don't need to create a new account and certify you'll be able to use your existing certify account all right good we're back and ready to roll so what I was saying was that the data on your fan belt profile is pooled into certify and when you click on the more details section here it also has additional information like your various points of contact now the analysts use this information to make sure that we're contacting the appropriate people in your organization so again it's important to make sure that you have the updated information if people have exited your organization and your contact needs to be replaced make sure that you are able to update that within Sam gov and I would suggest putting into sam.gov and then doing it 24 hours for the system to register so this is the screen that happens once we've associated the organization and for the purpose of our training right now we're going to go and get started on our 8a initial application what pops up next is a disclaimer screen we want to read that again make sure we are aware of our rights and responsibilities under the program and then we'll just hit accept and we are getting ready to start inputting information all right you're seeing what's called a questionnaire here this is the general assessment well if it is actually is are the eligibility questionnaire and on the left side of the screen you can see all of the various sections that you're going to be responsible for filling out within this portion well if you are not familiar with the initial 8a application process one of the changes that we're making is moving things from paper-based and forms to actually having questions within a flowing questionnaire so what you're going to see is I'm going to input data and as an importing data as Stephanie has any comments that you like the ship process she's going to be speaking but you'll see me go through with input questions as I mentioned we use a process called skip logic so it requires you to input an answer for each stage of the process it also requires you to input a any documents that are required in that bit so I'm going to go through and complete this section very quickly and Stephanie's getting comments by all means you can jump in sure so joey said is the eligibility sessions the first session of six sections but the firm will be filling out and so it automatically takes you first to the eligibility section just so you can judge yourself if you answer for example when it says are you a citizen if you say no I'm not a US citizen it's going to give you a warning that says hey citizen you must be a US citizen to apply and so the system is still going to let you move forward so we put eligibility first so that firms to realize that they're not eligible don't have to you through the rest of the application and that's why they're doing this section first you'll see that when you finish this section and there you can see an example of a warning that it gives you but the system is not going to deny you an SBA analyst needs to deny you and we'll show you how the case gets assigned to enough states once you actually submit the application when you're done with all six sessions you answer certain questions searchers ways they will say and you'll see this a little bit later you'll see a box that comes up that starts please upload the documentation in the certified system we make it so you can only upload documents within the questionnaires themselves there is a document repository where you could see everything you've uploaded but you can only upload documents again in response to specific questions and that helps the analyst kind of go through the application and see what documents are addressing what questions okay what you key out is a review of the answers that I selected within the eligibility section of the questionnaire i feld my responses and also the opportunity to change by our classes again if you want to make sure that your application goes to seamlessly make sure that you are inputting the correct information on your application so I'm going to hit submit all right now I've got to success that the 8a basic eligibility section is complete and we're taken to a screen that you'll become very familiar with throughout the process and this is your application overview now the sections of the application are basic eligibility business ownership individual contributors character potential for success and control and you're going to go through this and fill out various questionnaires and upload documents that result and answer is being populated here I'm going to go next to the individual contributor section inside the individual contributor section you'll see is the opportunity to start your individual application now but for some of the firm's that are tuning in so this training you may not be the only person that's required to submit information for your business some of the other individuals that might need to add their information would be another disadvantaged individual if applicable a spouse of a disadvantaged individual so for example if you own a business and you are filing for your you are applying for your business in you're also have a self then they have to submit their information as well and then there are other individuals that might be required to update depending on if they're in your organization and those are individuals owning at least 10% of an application firm directors managing members partners and officers of the applicant for asset firm so I'm just going to show you what that looks like if you add another person you is a drop down box happens and you'll just type in their name and you're going to type in their email address and then you'll click the button underneath this it's going to say an invitation to collaborate I'm not going to do this now but because we're going to we're going to streamline this this was promised a bit but one thing to note about the collaboration is that the individuals that are given the right to apply they're going to be the only ones that see their specific answers and their specific documents and uploads but the owner of the application is going to see whether or not the person has completed affection so just to be clear the person that's initiating the application will be able to see the status of their individual contributors but they won't be able to see the information of the contributors and we recommend that you actually ask the eligibility section we recommend you start by sending out the email addresses to those individuals who also need to fill out their individual contributor questionnaire so that they could be working on theirs while you're working on your application and you don't waste any time they're going to be this it's very similar you're gonna see in a minute the individual questionnaire where that looks like it's the longest one of the six and not all the questions but a lot of them are required for disadvantaged individuals or spouses or temperatures and so you'll want to make sure again that they they get those those emails right away so that they could start taking logins to certify and then fill out their information as well very explicitly I just also this one is just one point about disadvantaged individuals just so everyone knows a day is a nine year program and disadvantaged individuals can apply one time in their lifetime and so if they're if someone is signing up as 51% ownership of your company who is a disadvantaged individual that will be there one time use of debts that they're disadvantaged status for the 8a program all right so we've seen the individual contributors the starting point I'm going to actually go back to the dashboard and show you another section this is going to be your application dashboard it's going to show the various applications that you have in process and also links to other opportunities that will soon come later it's going to show you the type of applications so this document is in the initial phase it's a draft and then later on you'll see submission date expiration date decision in action but we're going to click on the 8a initial application link and one of the benefits of the application is that you can upload documents directly into the system and I'm going to show you a section where that's actually required and that's going to be the potential for success again if you have any questions throughout this training make sure that you write them down and we will at the end of the time together we're going to go through some of the questions and make sure that we answer those for you also just remember you out love access to that certified knowledgebase all right so potential for success we take a look at taxes and you'll see if I try to move forward in the process without adding it it's going to say attachment is required so for this one it says I need to upload the last three years tax returns including all schedules and attachments so I'm going to click the added required documents and I'm going to go to upload since I don't have any documents in my back unit library at this point a new firm apply would wouldn't have any so i'll click upload you see this this box drops down and again there's a reminder of the file name convention so for example file under school year also while we are here talking about documents it's important to note that only PDFs are accepted by the system and only PDF under 25 megabytes are accepted by the system so as you think about the documents that you're applying in you're compiling in your checklist just to make sure that you are converting this to PDF format and that's the size of the document is under 25 megabytes also please don't password protect any files in the past firms have done that but certify is a very very secure system so there's no need if you do have to project something by mistake that state animal designs your case will just ask you to reload at with yes you don't need password protection and we actually have this platform there's a virus scanner as well to protect you but we make sure that you upload documents through the platform because we found that email can be inherently risky and and sometimes your data is not encrypted so we have created this process in this platform to protect your pis so i'm going to move forward and choose the PDF file and that PDF file is going to be a tax return from 2016 so here you see that there's a last chance for me to go in and make changes to the name of the document so that I can comply with the naming convention of file name under school year thankfully my tax return has already filled out this way you can also see that there's a drop-down box to select a document type which is important because when reviewing your application as an analyst there they need to make sure that they can find the appropriate information for for the question that's being asked and so this is a failed phase to make sure that the documents that are uploaded corresponds to the appropriate question you'll also see the date that I have here for the upload and there's a comment box so I can say for example I can say this is the second year and your second year in business which I mean it's that's neither here nor there at this point but if you have a specific comment that you like our analyst to know you can upload it there so I'm going to go ahead and press upload and you can see that the document has been added to the system the type reflects the the document there's a date and also has my comments so I'm going to go ahead and click continue and I'm going to just populate this revenue section with more information and if the document doesn't have a year associated with it you could either put the year that you wrote it or you could say n/a if it's really not applicable at all all right I'll hold on here again I'm going to try to bypass the system by not attaching the file that's requested and you'll see that again the attachment is the quadrant so again just the stress before you go through the process make sure that you gather your own documents so we're going to add the required documents here which is requesting a year in balance sheet and the profit and loss statement this has been booming so I'm going to add both profit and loss and I also want to add the balance sheet okay now for this question you see that right away they've been assigned as both balance sheet but in the drop-down box you can see I can actually select between the two items that have been act so since I upload the profit and loss statement first I'm going to go ahead and associate this file with the profit loss statement and then I will click upload and then the documents are there also well we realize that this process might be too much for one sitting so every time you hit the blue continue button the application actually saves your information up to that point so if you needed to you could walk out the system go about your day and then complete the application at a later time and at this point I'm going to move forward and I promised that we would we would make this a bit quick for you so I'm going to go and upload and pre-fill information um I just want to mention that there's a second way to upload documents when you saw the document upload box you can either upload a file from your computer or you could choose to use your document library so if you want to reuse the document that you previously uploaded then you could just click your document library choose a document from there and then associated with that question and that will be especially helpful for when we launch annual updates for a day firm so 8 a firm's if you're new to the program which you are have to renew their eligibility every year during the nine year program and so instead of having to reload the same document for if you need that same one you can associate your case your previously uploaded files one more thing I want to mention is that you see that there's these questionnaires that used to be formed there are still a few forms that haven't been digitized yet and those mostly are the forms for specific groups like tribally owned companies or Hawaiian Alaskan Community Development Corporation's those forms are still all required for you to actually print out fill out and then scan in if you go to the application checklist it has a list it includes all of the forms that you would need to actually print if applicable another example is the fingerprint form if you are in a category of folks who have committed a crime with certain parameters then you'd have to click that see your print form get it filled out going to taken at your local police station and then scan that in nothing will be required to be mailed in to FBI anymore everything is electronic even for the forms that are remaining so we are in process of Auto filling the application right now so that we don't need to show you the rest of the platform so we'll just take us a minute to autofill that form so you will be able to see what happens once you actually submit a document but I will say that I know one question we received in the notes was if there's a template for the profit and loss statement and for all of the documents that have to be uploaded there are no templates to date for any of them that is something that we'd like to do in the future potentially provide examples of what certain things look like but there are no templates right now but if you google certain terms that could help you figure out what what to upload and you could always also contact the help desk if you don't know how to answer an application you're going to see once we submit the application that as soon as you submit it you are going to be assigned what we call a POS which is a business opportunity specialist at SBA and so those analysts will be assigned to your case and once it's assigned you'll actually be able to message that person within the certified platform at any time with any questions but before you press submit you'll see the messaging feature on your certified platform but it's not activated until you're actually assigned to ISTEP the next one goes back to the financial statements to whoever asking about a templates of financial statement I would recommend that you hire an accountant you don't have one many of the application comes into our office they don't follow those gasps GAAP the general accounting acceptance principles so if you are not you don't know what it is or you're not I would recommend that you hire someone to help you with that because we do look at that and if we are not able to determine based on your financial statements having a lot of balances it doesn't make sense to us then it could be one of the reasons could decline for potential stuff is that we don't know we understand your financial situation so I encourage you know you understand the financial statements or how to prepare that we recommend that you get assistance our research partners also out there to help you as well but you'll have to hire an accountant but there are resource partners they're able to help you with the completing of financial statements you one so along with under said with if you need help filling out your application there's one other form that still exists is called the compensation paid form and so if you do pay someone to help you fill out the form the application that used to print that form of whoops and then submit that that shows who you hired and how much you paid them and it will not to qualify you from the program in any way it's something that SBA tracks to make sure that no one's taken advantage of as they go forward correct and one more I want to answer one more question which is if a firm started their application in BDM is but it did not submitted yet this person a filled our file so the documents be available in the document library and unfortunately they will not be available in the document library however if you did submit an application and and then and then you withdrew it said in your files would be migrated to the new system and they would be there but if you haven't submitted it yet then they're not going to migrate it over so just add on to what Stephanie is saying about so if you have submitted applications through feed on my ex and then you have uploaded the documents and certify but if the different sites that is not the certify gsa.gov this is the one that says I got sdh / 8 a desktop so that is the website where you upload your supporting documents if you got if you would do or that decline total documents like Stephanie said when you reapply next time it will be transition over to the new server sba.gov system as of you know November but for those application in the past if your applications in the process right and we have a 2d application we're processing it and we set away the additional information please continue to use that website the original uploading one the certified the sba.gov slash eight a desktop right that's the system where you just upload your documents to go into the new system and upload your document that will cause create confusion so now we have all of the sessions completed and so Julie will continue showing you digging through the process yeah so I'm going to show you a section that is the dashboard we're just going to back out of the application overview for a second if there ever comes a point where you need to delete your initial application you can do that from the dashboard so you would hit the delete button I'm gonna point to note is that if you delete your application your documents will still be saved in your profile so there are many reasons why a firm may may choose to delete their application but we feel will have your documents on file in case you choose to apply again also if you have documents that you want to apply for other business opportunities with both with the federal government we're going to jump back into the application and as you can see all the sessions have been completed the next step once things are completed is that you're going to go to the review and sign portion of the application you're going to wait for to load and once it does you got a click on the checkbox here again another rights and responsibility disclaimer and then you'll click accept okay so the application has been successfully submitted and that means that a point - okay I just want to note that we had three firms come in last week to test the application using state documents and it took them between an hour and 25 minutes in an hour and 45 minutes to go from creating their account through the press submit just to give you guys a sense and that it will take obviously longer to collect your documents and to associate the right ones for each question they were just uploading a fake one each for each time and you get a backing to upload that just to give you some sense of how long it's taken from so we've brought in just to do user testing before launch alright so now you can see that our program participation status is in pending my colleague megan is actually going in and logged in as an analyst to make sure that we can be accepted by the FDA for processing and you'll be able to see the next stage of the application I have this kind of that dashboard of the overview here and I'll mention that we do have notification set up in the system so that when SBA contacts a firm about your case progressing you will receive not only a notification within the system but also an email notification letting you know just sign in to certify because an action has been taken you okay we are going to just double check here to make sure that we are in process and I'll also mention um we're having some behind the scenes just go ahead and approve the case and go sign it but that overview page where you saw it was pending if you want to check your case status at any time you would just go to that overview page to see if the cases in screening property and if it's approved decline and reconsideration and so before firms have to call FDA to find out what their case does now you could do that any time of the day or night just by logging into the system thanks a while we're waiting for this to populate I'm just going to show you a few features of the applications within your 8a application there is a firm Documents area and also a messages area now the messages is intent to email to conversations with the SBA's back and forth the idea is to drive communications to inside the platform and not be the through email again that is to protect your PII and also to make sure that you are getting the latest information as it results in your system and in your application so we have firm documents which is also going to be the place where you have your information that you've uploaded thus far as you can see on the screen here a little very shortly but I have my tax return profit loss valve chief all those the information that I shared before and then you could click on them to access and download those again you see that my comment section is active and the comment is retained and you can actually see archived documents as well I will point out of that within the certified platform there is no deleting of document so what that means is when you remove a document you will not have access to it in your application but it is archived for SBA purposes so just it's important to double check that you're uploading things that are appropriate we love pictures of your children but if you delete that because you uploaded a school photo by mistake we won't be able to that actually it won't necessarily be white so I wanted to show you the the firm documents area which is going to be a great place for you to to check you all right okay so also be messages platform I know I touched on it briefly but when you spend messages you can actually do rich text editing so if there is a message that you copy and paste from word you're able to copy and paste and retain some of the formatting so as an example I'll just send a text message all right and then message as the subject and then I hit Send and you'll see right away you'll start to get a in box so to speak and you'll see information from you and anyone else that's participating from the FBI and then go back to all messages and there's a clickable ability to go there so the next thing that I want to show you all the platform is well just a recap we've gone through and we created an account we've submitted to the input our initial application documents and it's submitted for processing so I want to jump and there's actually a notification show you the notification bar that shows a message was sent by the FDA supervisor one and it's just a response from the person that identity so as you can see messages live in real-time and we have a new message it pops up in your notifications all right so we we submitted our application and I'm going to go back to the overview here but what does it look like if you submit your application and it gets returned for one reason or another I want to show you that so on your dashboard as we've mentioned previously you are going to be able to see various status updates also if your application is sent back from the analyst saying that required more information you're going to see a Senate that says updates needed and you'll be able to log into the initial application and see on the right-hand side a new box that pops up that says the FDA has requested some additional information you will also be able to see the sections of your applications that were have been returned for edits you'll be able to go in login and click in the boxes to see what areas needed more information and there's also going to be this information details and the messages associated okay also if your application has been declined there is a update that will show you that your application has been declined as well as a letter that shows why the document has been rejected I just want to make a note to the declined comment so if the associate administrator business developers declined your application the system will this will generate a special email of application right so you get a notification in your Outlook logical an email saying that your application has been declined it will not contain the decline letter but you will need to log in to a certain size to look for that decline letter and find a while years they have been declined and on the decline letter it was tells you you know for reconsideration you need to submit syz the key point here I want to make is that that notification in your out in your email box starts the 45-day so if the adde sends an email and has make he or she mixes down her final decision and it was just declined and the system will send the notification to you on a Friday afternoon that starts the 45 days notice all right also when your application has been declined you'll notice that there is a another box here that says reconsideration and this is going to when you click it it's going to allow you to attach any of the documents that were requested by the FDA so that they can make it a new determination about your application I just as an example I'll show you very briefly this decision letter and the level of detail that's involved which gives you a lot of helpful feedback on how to respond to the decision letter and what determinations went into making that recommendation so the letter is very detailed in the sense that it helps you know what to do and how to respond so I just want to pause to just mention the timing of the different processes just to take a step back when the firm submits the application SBA has 15 days to screen your case and those 15 days they will love to see if all the documents are there that are needed for them to be able to process their case if it's like very very incomplete they'll just send that back to the firm and say go ahead and like try again with like all these different things and it's resubmit when you're ready if it's mostly theirs and they'll send you a what they call a 15 day letter through the certified system and so you'll get a note saying hey in these various sections like eligibility control sighs we need you to make this list of changes and so you'll be able to go in those sections that SB identifies to basically make your edit the EULA 10 days to respond to that message and then at that point they'll be able to confirm whether or not you can move on to processing and so once your application is substantially complete you'll move on to the second processing phase SBA has 90 days to process your case and at the end and sometimes if you have additional questions and that's what Joey was showing you when you talk those ad hoc questions come back at the end of each card you would get an email notification saying please like I know you answer some questions during screening but I need you to provide this additional documentation now during processing so I think complete your case and so they have a longer time during processing to actually go through and make sure you're eligible for the case if you make during the screening phase there is no reason like the whole application will be unlocked for you to basically edit anything but SBA will tell you the sections that you need to edit with their letter so say you only need to make changes in X Y and C if you haven't to make changes in other sections that they didn't say should change first of all there's no reason you should do that because those sections were fine but if you decide to do that anyway you should message back yay saying hey I made the changes you wanted but I also changed this in this session for whatever reason because they could see what you did before and after and assess that you are just totally transparent about why you're changing your answers so that they don't question answers that got changed while in this back and forth so that's one recommendation that we have but so we have a 15-day screening the 90-day processing into the 90 days so only unlock certain questions that still have remaining changes but you won't be able to make changes in sessions that they didn't send back so it's a slightly different process in both cases but you don't need to worry too much about that because the system is very intuitive and it walks you through what changes you need to make through your notifications tab and through a note on the page so that will be very easy to see what you do and then you you of course resubmit it to FBA and then after you saw excuse your approval or declined in there 45 days if you were declined to submit your reconsideration request an SBA will get back to if your reconsideration was approved or denied I want to also point out that I mentioned at the beginning but I just want to reiterate that we have an application checklist on this knowledge page that we send out to the group this application checklist will make your lives much much easier if you look at it and you go ahead and gather all your documentation and save it in the correct aviation legend before you get started on the fifteenth or whenever you're ready to apply you don't want to be in there and have to log in and out every time you need to find a document so really look at that application checklist and a few questions again go ahead and contact help at certified on SV gov but this knowledge page page has a how can we help you section which we've had many many questions and answers that we've previously received about ducks so go ahead and utilize that box as well as that Quick Start guides to help you go through the process and just to add on to Stephanie about this certified network space we have been providing training to our resource partners I speak tag SBDC for who are familiar with certified so they will be able to help you as well so if you are ready to apply through certified and need help applying you can go to one of their local offices and they will be able to help you and sit down with you and go through the application process because they have been trained and also the district offices as well let's change the trainer to the district offices research partners however one limitation of this is that there are limitations I mentioned that there are this with an agile process and so we we haven't been able to do every single thing that we want to do yet but we're as I said we're going to launch features every two weeks in MVP that the first product that we're watching next Wednesday and I'm not sure when this will happen but one thing we do not have is the ability for a firm to give permission to a third party to complete the application for them in fact it's required that the firm owner is the one that sets up their certified account by law here and so what you can do if you want to hire a third party is have that third party sit with you and help you during those two hours a default to application to make sure you're doing it right however we want to start that that's not necessary for you to do this you don't need to pay someone to help you walk through enough some firms pay a lot of money to have a firm do this but Resource Partners again are there to help you and so is SBA but I wanted to point out that one limitation we also had a question about contributors and how will you know that the contributors had finished filling out their application the certified system will tell you when the contributor has or hasn't filled it out and if they haven't it will even tell you please click here to send another reminder email to your contributor because you can't submit it until they're done and so the system will walk you through and make it really clear when they have or haven't filled them out but you but you are required to put in all those required emails so that they do you fill it out if you forget to list your spouse for example and then you submit your application and it's clear that you're married throughout your application SP is going to get back to you and you'll have ten days to have your stuff at that point fill out their spouse application so it's much easier if you just do it and don't do it don't wait to do all the extra contributors and so after you submit your application one other question we got was if you have the wrong EIN number how do you fix that you'd have to go into Sam to fix that if you have the wrong giu number I want to mention just one quark of the system that we're hoping to improve but I just want to call it out and that is in the questionnaires if you so it will say complete for each section and you cannot press the MIT for your Apple two science in it until each section is complete so let's say you complete every section your valid approximate and then you realize that you put the wrong you answer one question wrong and so you want to go back in to one of the sections and edit one question at the top of that section at that point that section is going to say incomplete until you actually go through each page of that section and review the answers again and then complete that section and because we again we have skip logic and so if you change the answer to one question it could impact what you fill out later on we know that's annoying for some of the longer questionnaires so we're trying to fix that for the future but for now if you're getting an error and you don't know why it's not complete it will say incomplete because you made an edit and you have to go through the rest of them we also recommend when you're in the questionnaires to use the left side navigation of the questionnaire rather than pressing back if you want to get to a previous question within that questionnaire you okay we have one more thanks for hanging in there with us we have one more feature of the application process that we really love to show you very briefly if you notice on the application dashboard here previously the status was in processing what processing means that it's over to the FDA and to reviewing the information but sometimes it may be required that they return it back to us as a firm therefore they return it back to you at the firm to make more information or to add updates so now the document is in return status and I'm going to click on the dashboard here and you'll see that this is all complete but what's changed now that if the longer process is in it's in return to us we have a ability to review and sign again so a Stephanie was mentioned that Stephanie mentioned earlier there are times where the system is lost and you are able to make edits those are the times that is with the FDA but when they send it back when they send it back that when you can make the requested changes that they that they've required and you'll know what's been asked of you because the SBA analyst will attach a message so I'm just going to go ahead and move forward with review and sign I want to hit the accept button again for the disclaimer that pops up the assertion that pops up on the screen and I'm going to hit accept and then our application has been resubmitted and in fact the pending status so we really think that the key highlight here is that if you ever need to know the status of your application you can always check your dashboard your your dashboard is going to show you the latest status and if you have any questions about your application you can send messages and we will have a copy of this training in the certified knowledgebase as well as additional training material and QuickStart guides to help you complete the process there are many factors involved but we really feel confident that this system is going to help a lot easier for you and it's going to be very rewarding once you complete it and get a successful return application or it successfully completed application okay I'm just going to take one minute to just pop through just a couple questions I saw come up I want to stress someone asked if if the owner will be able to see the information see and review the information contributors submit the answer is no we want to protect everyone's personal information in the past the firm owner has to collect physical form the other people filled out and that was a huge violation of people's privacy and so now those contributors will fill out their information directly and certify and no one can see it except for SBA the contributors also will not be able to see the owners information just as the owner will not be able to see the contributors information regarding when third parties will be able to access certified to help firms we do not have a date for that I'm not sure when it's going to happen probably not before the end of the year that's going to be a tricky issue for us to look into if you have only been in business for two years someone asked if you only have two days of taxes and you still apply yes you just submit the two years that you have if you've been in business for less than two years one of the questions asks about that and directs you to fill out a waiver and so obviously you still need to have revenue if you've been in business for less than two years but you you still need to fill up you are profitable you still need to fill out that waiver because otherwise you need to be in business for two year and profitable and I just want to correct one thing I said earlier in this spoke that if you if you had applied in BDM is but you did not complete the process you actually weren't actually not my variant initial AB documents from B DMA yes resonate that is correct so if you complete an application in video AF and you see them as weak it does not have a good ability to upload anything so you will have to apply instead of that and start over again yes and then finally regarding attaching documents firms do not have the ability to attach documents to messages and they also do not have the ability to upload documents within their document library the only place firms can upload documents is within the questionnaires so I just want to really really emphasize that you also should not be emailing your FBA outside of the certified system just to protect your own PII this is a lot of personal information you'll be submitting and we want to protect it so do not use your email and just upload documents again within the questionnaires and that's how they'll be organized and so it will walk you through which document to attach in response to which question and after every question is a detailed section explaining more about each questions so if you don't understand a question I encourage you to please read the detail underneath each question to help you answer it or if there's a comment box it will tell you in the detail section what to put inside that comment box so I know we are over time so I think we're going to end it there but if people have additional questions for us or comments if you go to that knowledgebase website in addition to that help desk help at certified at SD gov if you have soft or ideas for us we have a suggestion box as well under the third what's new column it says we want to hear from you send us your suggestions and so go ahead and click that link to send us any suggestions you have in a few of technical questions as you're applying or with any of the materials then go ahead and contact the help desk and what the hell we just want to say a huge thank you to everyone for and today we really want we look forward to serving all of you and we hope that find this experience really positive so thank you again well thank you to our speakers Winkle the audience for joining us today this call has concluded you may now disconnect