Only 60% of restaurants that applied actually received funding for the popular Restaurant Revitalization Fund program (RRF), due to a failure of Congress to replenish the kitty with leftover PPP money, as was envisioned. (A substitute Restaurant Revitalization Tax Credit bill is currently languishing.) After the SBA disbursed the last of the funds in November of 2022, you might think that all was said and done on the topic; but in fact, recipients of those funds still need to report to the SBA that the money was indeed used according to the program’s rules.

There were three SBA reporting dates: December 31, 2021; December 31, 2022; and a final report date of April 30, 2023 — which is fast approaching. The RRF eligible expense period, however, allows costs from the very beginning of the pandemic, February 15, 2020, clear through to March 11, 2023. The two year-end reporting dates were intended as just a progress report of what the recipients had spent so far in eligible costs.

The great news for most businesses was that if all the RRF funds were allocated to eligible costs before the first reporting date, no additional reporting was required. If not, then the business needed to come back the following year and report a second time. At this point, most restaurants have (hopefully) already submitted their final report.

However, for those who missed the first two reporting dates; or somehow didn’t expend all the funds before the end of 2022; or simply did not understand how to report properly; or didn’t realize what a wide date range of eligible expenses they could use… there is one shot left at a final report to the SBA, or they risk having to pay back the funds.

This blog post (with a 20-min video walking you through the process) is our suggestion of how to translate the info you already have in your bookkeeping software into a format that will easily conform to the Restaurant Revitalization Award Portal requirements.

Spoiler alert: the process takes more than 5 minutes. It can easily take an hour or more. The actual entering of data into the SBA RRF portal is the part that only takes 5 or so minutes.

Our recommendation is to download the free Restaurant Revitalization Fund Tracker from the American Institute of CPAs (AICPA) website (as with their PPP Forgiveness Calculator, you do have to register for an account, but there’s no charge). However, instead of entering each individual transaction on the form (as it’s designed for you to do), our suggested shortcut is to take the information you already have in your bookkeeping file and enter each category as one line — then subtract all the non-RRF grants and assistance received, so that you’re not double-dipping.

As mentioned earlier, the RRF period runs from February 15, 2020 — the very beginning of the pandemic — to March 11, 2023. So we suggest you run a Profit & Loss for your company for the period of February 15, 2020 all the way through March 11, 2023 (or February 28, 2023 if you’re doing this before March 2023 is reconciled), and use those numbers to report what has been spent so far. Then enter the non-RRF grant funds as negative numbers on the same Expense Tracker tab, so that they net against each other. The result will be the data you submit to the SBA at restaurants.sba.gov once you log in to your portal.

I recorded a video illustrating the whole process back in December 2021 — the one big difference is simply the ending date of the report you’ll run.

Here are the steps:

Step 1 – download the AICPA RRF Tracking Tool
Step 2 – enter the name of your company in the Summary tab, cell A9
Step 3 – enter the RRF amount in the Expense Tracker tab, cell C6
Step 4 – run your Profit & Loss from 2/15/2020-2/28/2023 (or 3/11/23 if you’re doing this in April 2023)
Step 5 – export to Excel and save to your RRF file folder
Step 6 – on the Expense Tracker tab, enter summary amounts from the Profit & Loss for Payroll, Rent, Utilities, Food & Beverage, Maintenance, Supplies, Covered Supplier Costs, and Business Operations Expenses

Tip: skip Mortgage Payments, Debt Service, Outdoor Seating Construction, and Depreciation, or ask your accountant for help with these, as they are usually on the Balance Sheet or in the Non-Operating Expense section of the Profit & Loss, and are therefore harder to DIY.

Tip: Business Operations Expenses are all operating expenses that are not already accounted for in one of the other categories.

Step 7 – IMPORTANT: enter all the non-RRF grants and financial assistance as negative amounts on the Expense Tracker tab — this is to prevent any double-dipping
Step 8 – go to restaurants.sba.gov and log in
Step 9 – enter your name, address, EIN, phone, and email (if this information is not already there)
Step 10 – enter the amounts from the Summary tab — Note: you cannot enter more than the total RRF grant, so you may need to reduce one or more of the categories so that you don’t exceed the total.
Step 11 – if you have allocated all the RRF funds, certify as such — you will not be required to repeat this progress report next year; if you have not allocated all the RRF funds, you will be able to “Save” but not “Submit”.

You have until March 11, 2023 to allocate all the funds (aka spend them on eligible expenses), and until April 30, 2023 for final reporting. If it turns out you didn’t have enough eligible expenses from 2/15/20-3/11/23 using Profit & Loss Operating Expenses, then take some time to work with your accountant to determine if you have debt service, mortgage payments, capital expenses for outdoor seating, or depreciation that counts toward allowable costs.

In all cases: make sure to subtract all other grant income from expenses so you are not double-dipping!

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