Hello everyone !

Being an entrepreneur myself, I deemed it useful to bring together here everything I found in terms aids and reflexes to adopt in order to save what can be saved from your business during the health crisis linked to the COVID-19 epidemic.

Summary of the article on video, interview with Margot

I had the chance to speak live with Margot, human resources manager and HR consultant. In this informative exchange, you will find all the points covered in this article, as well as additional information!

To find Margot on LinkedIn, click here! Don’t hesitate to ask him additional questions!

This post is therefore reserved for business leaders, craftsmen and freelancers who, in general, take all the risks, financial, family and health.

By the way. A thought for all the freelancers, entrepreneurs, micro-enterprises, craftsmen, self-employed and business leaders at the head of VSEs and SMEs who have always had to put the management of their employees (contrary to what we want make us believe) and their professional projects, before their family, their friends and their own health, and who in case of difficulty, have until now never been able to benefit from aid or anything in their lives. They often have health problems due to stress, overwork and poor lifestyle.

In addition to the dramatic health and human consequences, this crisis risks leading, through a domino effect, to an extremely serious economic crisis throughout the world.

Currently, on the business front, several problems exist, and the main ones are as follows:

• Some companies may continue to produce or deploy their services, but their customers – generally B2B – no longer have the means to pay.
• Some companies can no longer continue to produce, despite customer demand, because there are no employees available or restocking.
• The entire, mainly real economy is slowed down, to the benefit of certain models linked either to health or to pleasure (Netflix, TV, delivery, etc.).

On a more political level, this crisis raises several issues, including:

• The question of globalization.
• The question of Europe.
• The question of health being paid “on a piecemeal basis”, rather than on a fixed price basis.
• The widening medical gap between the “gropers” and the conformists.
• The question of the French social model and redistribution.
• The gap between those who have the “talent” to gain power, and those who do not, but who would have had a talent for governance and planning.

We could debate these questions for hours, but before remaking the world, here is first an overview of what can be done to save the furniture on the side of entrepreneurs, because with the current crisis, many companies will go bankrupt.

Beyond these aid measures put in place by the government, the question arises whether or not we should continue to fight, or if it is not better to cut everything, stop everything, so as not to burning more money and leading to even more debt.

In other words: Are you one of the entrepreneurs who has every interest in taking a break so as not to generate more losses, or among those who must fight because they have a small chance of survival?

This is a question that deserves another article, which we can address together if you wish, do not hesitate to let me know in the comments!

To return to aid, a more pragmatic problem, I will try to go from the simplest, urgent and quickest, to the most complicated and retroactive... I advise you to follow this process to overcome the obstacles one after the other without any problem. .

I will continue to update the post as announcements come out.

Step 1. Postpone bank deadlines

It’s simple, French banks are committed to defer the repayment of business credits for up to 6 months, free of charge. So you just need to send a message to your bank to request it.

This is therefore the first and simplest step to take, in order to start saving money, and put out the fire.

In addition, the banks will examine with particular attention the individual situations of their merchant, professional, small and medium-sized business customers, impacted in the most directly exposed sectors of activity and will seek in particular the solutions best suited to their financing needs. short term.

In other words, with a little diplomacy and argumentation, you can ask for additional cash flow and help of all kinds.

Be clear, concise, and kind in your request.

Defer taxes and social charges

All direct taxes and social charges (URSSAF) can be automatically postponed for 3 months, without any penalty. Beyond that, information will be communicated on the follow-up to be taken.

To do this, you must log in to the site Urssaf.fr, and carry out the procedures online. But the best thing is to delegate all this to your accounting firm.. It's his job.

Concerning self-employed workers subject to URSSAF, the monthly deadline of March 20 and April 5 will not be deducted. Pending future measures, the amount of this deadline will be smoothed over subsequent deadlines (April to
December).

Try tax remission

In addition to deferring a tax debt, you can try, in the most difficult situations, to request a remission of direct taxes (profit tax, territorial economic contribution, for example).

Obviously, all this is subject to an individualized examination taking into account the situation and financial difficulties of the companies.

VAT, on the other hand, is not affected by all of these measures; it will have to be paid.

Postpone water and electricity bills

You can immediately send an email to your water and electricity supplier, to ask for an amicable postponement request, with a payment in installments without penalty.

An order signed by @EmmanuelMacron prohibits the suspension, interruption and reduction of the supply of electricity, gas and water to small businesses affected by the #COVIDー19. These companies can spread their invoices over time without penalty pic.twitter.com/gMXgFoQnlO

— Bruno Le Maire (@BrunoLeMaire) March 25, 2020

Postpone or suspend service providers

Let's get along well. Everything that you can resolve and which relates to the continuity of your activity, or at least to what concerns the pre-Covid period, try to get rid of it by fixing it if possible. And this for two reasons :

• On the one hand, because you are legit
• On the other hand, because you have no interest in falling out with your suppliers and service providers for the post-crisis
• Finally, for a virtuous overall macro-economic reason: if you turn off all the taps when you could still maintain a trickle of water, you yourself cause your own loss along with that of others.

Once you have settled or spread out the debts that could be settled, without overdoing it, you now need to contact all your service providers that you don't really need during confinement, either because you have completely suspended your activity, or because you have reduced it, and the usefulness of this or that service provider during a reduction in activity no longer makes sense (example: tablets of order for restaurants).

With these service providers, it is therefore necessary agree on what can be done: simple postponement or ideally temporary suspension of the service, with contract delay if long-term commitment.

Here is a list – which will be updated – of remarkable start-ups linked to foodtech which have publicly communicated their intention to automatically suspend or postpone their fees:

• Tabesto : the order terminal service provider, which even offers to support you in the procedures to postpone the leasing of your equipment. Hats off.
• Zelty : cash register software which announces that your subscription is completely free, if you make less than €700 excluding tax per day, per restaurant, and -50% on your subscription for others. Great gesture!

Other service providers with whom I have negotiated directly have given me discounts and shifts, it is up to you to negotiate on a case-by-case basis. I prefer not to list them because they have not publicly announced their measures.

If you know of services that have publicly announced measures, do not hesitate to share them in comments.

Postponement or cancellation of rent: you have to try everything

From a legal point of view, if your activity is completely interrupted, the recovery (and only the recovery) of rents and charges is suspended from April 1, 2020, and for subsequent periods of cessation of activity imposed by the order.

When activity resumes, these rents and charges will be subject to deferred payment or installments without penalty or interest on late payment and adapted to the situation of the companies in question. In other words, the law does not say that the rent will be suspended, but simply postponed, and that you will have to come to an agreement with your lessor, in good understanding, on possible discounts.

From there, several cases exist:

• If your activity is maintained but degraded, the situation will be studied on a case-by-case basis, with kindness depending on your economic realities. In other words, tune your violins with your lessor…
• If your activity is completely suspended, your landlord should logically suspend your rent or significantly reduce it, but in reality, nothing obliges him to do so. Here again, it's up to you to discuss with him, in good understanding, the best way to do things so that he doesn't drag you into bankruptcy. These are the kind of moments in history where we can see who has a part of benevolence in him or not.

Currently, as I write these lines (end of March), a standoff is between certain institutional landlords and certain restaurant brands. The latter came together to denounce the attitude of certain landlords who absolutely do not wish to cancel rents, despite the ban on opening.

Indeed, some lessors cite the fact that the take-out and delivery activity can be maintained, which clearly justifies the payment of the rent, even if delayed. Except that in fact:

• The takeaway business has clearly plummeted, there's no point in hiding, there's not a soul left outside...
• The delivery activity, for those who practice it, is enormously commissioned, and does not have at all the same profitability (sometimes no profitability at all…) than the take-out and on-site activity.
• Finally, maintaining activity depends on the goodwill of the teams who, depending on the degree of general anxiety, are sometimes too afraid to go out to work.

In short, it's not easy to be a trader these days. Whatever happens, try to see if you can get closer to this collective in order to defend your rights. With them, the logic is: no authorization to open, no rent. And it holds up.

In conclusion, on this point, you will have to follow what is done elsewhere, take the temperature with your lessor, try at least to negotiate a discount, and if you have an institutional behemoth in front who is not very talkative, or a private owner who is not very empathetic, you can contact a law firm to protect your interests.

If lawyers are motivated by this type of case, they should not hesitate to come forward!

As such, generally speaking, I heard about the Bold solution, it looks great in terms of support, to see.

Check if you are eligible for €1,500 aid

The State, the Regions and certain large companies have set up a solidarity fund to help the smallest businesses most affected by the crisis.

You will be able to benefit from this assistance from March 31 and at the latest until April 30, 2020 by making a simple declaration on the DGFiP website, and providing your estimate of the loss of turnover, a sworn declaration and your RIB.

An additional €2,000 can be granted in the event of very serious difficulties (inability to pay debts, and refusal of a cash loan by the bank).

But be careful, to claim aid of €1,500, here are the conditions to respect:

• The workforce must be equal to or less than ten employees;
• The activity began before February 1, 2020 and there was no declaration of
  cessation of payment on March 1, 2020;
• The turnover excluding tax at the last balance sheet is less than 1 million euros;
• For liberal professions, the taxable profit for the last closed financial year is less than 40,000 euros.
• This aid is intended for VSEs with fewer than 10 employees, self-employed people, microentrepreneurs, liberal professions who have been subject to administrative closure OR whose turnover has decreased by 50% between March 2019 and March 2020.

To request it, click here:

https://www.impots.gouv.fr/portail/

Additional aid of €2,000 for VSEs

— Added on APRIL 14, 2020 —

This aid is in addition to the €1,500 that we mentioned just before. This is the help that Margot spoke to us about in the video interview on April 13. The conditions for obtaining are exactly the same as for the aid of €1,500, to which are added:

– have benefited from aid of 1,500 euros;
– have at least one employee;
– be unable to pay your debts within 30 days;
– having been refused a cash loan of a reasonable amount since March 1, 2020 from a bank where the company is a client or having received no response from the bank for at least 10 days.

To obtain it, you must request it from the services of the regional council of the place of residence, no later than May 31, 2019, with the following supporting documents:

– a sworn declaration attesting that the company meets the conditions provided for and the accuracy of the information declared;
– a succinct description of its situation, accompanied by a thirty-day cash flow plan, demonstrating the risk of cessation of payments;
– the amount of the loan refused, the name of the bank which refused it and the contact details of their contact at this bank.

New aid of up to €1,250 paid only to artisans and traders

— Added on APRIL 14, 2020 —

New financial aid, paid by the CPSTI (Council for the Social Protection of Independent Workers), and which can amount to 1,250 euros, also supplements the aid of €1,500.

This aid will in fact correspond to the amount of supplementary pension contributions paid by craftsmen and traders based on their 2018 income and could go up to 1,250 euros. It will be paid automatically by Urssaf and will not require any action from the independent workers concerned.

Finally, this aid will be exempt from tax as well as contributions and social contributions.

Try to obtain a loan guaranteed by the State via the BPI

Until December 31, businesses of all sizes, whatever their legal form (companies, traders, craftsmen, farmers, liberal professions, micro-entrepreneurs, associations and foundations having an economic activity), with the exception of real estate partnerships, credit establishments and management companies. funding, will be able to ask their usual bank for a loan guaranteed by the State to support their cash flow.

Self-employed people can benefit from several support measures such as assistance from the Solidarity Fund and the postponement of social and tax deadlines. They can also obtain state-guaranteed loans.

📲 All measurements ➡️ https://t.co/yLjnJflZja #VALP #COVID19 pic.twitter.com/4qNf4DFpYM

— Bruno Le Maire (@BrunoLeMaire) March 26, 2020

This loan could represent up to 3 months of 2019 turnover (25%), or two years of payroll for the specific case of innovative companies or companies created since January 1, 2019.

No reimbursement will be required for the first year, and the loan can be amortized over a maximum period of 5 years.

To request this, here is the procedure to follow for companies employing fewer than 5,000 employees:

• You apply for a loan (or several loans, grouped into one application) from your bank. Please re-read the conditions below regarding the amount requested. Be consistent and realistic.
• After examining the company's situation (eligibility criteria in particular), the bank gives pre-approval for a loan.
• As soon as you have this pre-agreement, go to the BPI website to retrieve your identifier which you will communicate to your bank.
• In case of difficulty or refusal, contact Bpifrance at the following address:
  supportentrepriseattestation-pge [at ] bpifrance.fr

State-guaranteed loans have been available since this morning for all businesses affected by the health crisis. They can reach 25% of annual turnover.

📄 What steps can you take to benefit from it? ▶️ https://t.co/On4B1ph0nN @Bpifrance #COVIDー19 pic.twitter.com/Umf3DhaFwv

— Bruno Le Maire (@BrunoLeMaire) March 25, 2020

+ info here:

• https://www.economie.gouv.fr/files/files/PDF/2020/dp-covid-pret-garanti.pdf
• https://www.bpifrance.fr/A-la-une/Actualites/Coronavirus-Bpifrance-active-des-mesures-exceptionnelles-de-soutien-aux-entreprises-49113

Implement partial unemployment

There, we start to get into the hard part.

First of all, what does the principle of partial unemployment (or partial activity, or technical unemployment) put in place for the Coronavirus health crisis consist of?

If you decide to put all or some of your employees on partial unemployment:

• You must, as an employer, pay compensation equal to 70% of the gross salary (approximately 84 % of the net) to your employees placed on partial (or technical) unemployment. Employees on minimum wage or less are compensated at 100%.
• In exchange, as a company, you will be fully reimbursed by the State, for salaries which amount to 6,927 euros gross monthly, i.e. 4.5 times the minimum wage (there is some margin).

You can benefit from this measure, whether you are in a TOTAL shutdown of your activity or simply in a REDUCTION of activity and therefore of workforce.

In other words, if you have, for example, a restaurant that also delivers meals to your home, and you are able to continue to provide the “delivery” part, then you can put part of your workforce on partial unemployment (notably those most linked to the “on-site and take-out” part), and only keep the bare essentials which can ensure the “delivery” part, therefore a well-chosen workforce of possible delivery people, cooks and order preparers if applicable. Obviously provided that respect health measures (teleworking in the case of the tertiary sector, social distancing and hygiene equipment in the case of a restaurant).

This applies for example to Drive, from a famous fast food brand.

In the opposite case, relatively rare, if your activity is NOT impacted by the crisis, but by nature, it cannot deviate from the prevention rules linked to hygiene, you have the right (not to say the obligation) to put your employees on partial activity.

The request can be submitted here:

https://activitepartielle.emploi.gouv.fr/aparts/

Some important information regarding the arrangements planned for this exceptional situation:

• You have up to 30 days from the day you placed your employees on partial activity to submit your request online, with retroactive effect.
• State services (Direccte) will respond to you within 48 hours. The lack of response within 48 hours constitutes an agreement decision.
• And normally, you must first consult the social and economic committee (CSE), but exceptionally, the opinion of the CSE may intervene. after the
  placement of employees in partial activity and be sent within 2 months from the request for partial activity. If you don't have a CSE yet, there's still time to take care of it.
• The duration of this partial unemployment can be up to 12 months.

At this point, a question burns on your lips. Should we continue the activity or suspend it completely? What do we have the RIGHT to do, and what is our INTEREST in doing?

Do I have the right to place all or some of my employees on partial unemployment?

If your business is not affected by the total opening ban, the question arises as to whether you still have the right to close. Well if you close, you have to be able to justify that your company is indeed faced with a “reduction/suspension of activity linked to the economic situation or a supply problem”.

Indeed, if we carefully read the recommendations made by the government, the state of mind of the decrees is the following: confine the populations as much as possible, while minimizing the economic impact.

I grant you, these are two contradictory objectives. Difficult to chase two hares at once. But in the meantime, some companies will not be able to justify a total shutdown of their activity if behind it, it turns out that there is objectively a demand for their products and services, which can be ensured by respecting health rules.

This is the case with food businesses, which are absolutely important during this period.

Is food delivery via UberEATS and Deliveroo really that essential? Not necessarily, although apart from “pleasure” orders, many customers order because they have no cooking skills or equipment.

Furthermore, on an economic level, for the good of the nation, it may be difficult to justify, when it comes time to do the accounts, a partial unemployment of your entire workforce, if you could continue to work and look good.

If there is no reduction in activity, you risk receiving a refusal from DIRECCTE. But if there is a drastic, even enormous, reduction, then you can ask to close your establishment.

However, a problem persists for the specific case of restaurants offering home delivery, particularly via delivery platforms. In this case, it is extremely difficult to make your file examiner understand that:

• Yes, you may have an increase in the share of deliveries, and this could even mitigate the drastic decrease in your activity
• But no, you have no economic interest in paying for this, because delivery, for many restaurants, remains a bonus and communication, but not a way to generate substantial profits, because it is extremely expensive, and it sometimes requires excessive human resources to ensure the pace, for a game that is not necessarily worth the effort!

This ties in with what I explained previously in the part which concerned rents, and if you would like more explanations on this subject, go to my article dedicated to home food delivery.

This problem therefore leads us to the following question…

Would it be in my interest to put my staff on partial unemployment?

And I complete the question so that it is well interpreted: knowing that fighting while remaining open would be totally counterproductive?

This is particularly the case for certain pastries, which are more akin to “pleasure” businesses than to utility food businesses, and which therefore, forced to remain open, are facing a drop in activity such that this maintenance is done at a loss.

Also affected are restaurants and businesses which can still provide take-out (which I strongly advise against for health reasons!!!) and delivery, with what this entails in terms of costs.

The balance of benefit / health risk / social problems / organizational mess / quality of service can quickly be completely to the disadvantage of profit. So what to do?

The answer to this question is currently extremely vague.

What I advise you is to imagine the different scenarios and choose the least worst.

In the event of a continuation of the activity, we should try to minimize the number of employees chosen by drawing up a list of “safe” collaborators with whom you have interacted and who are motivated to follow you.

Several reasons can motivate them, among others:

• loyalty to the employer brand
• your charisma as a manager to train them to take on this type of challenge (many who “asked” to stay at home later regret it because they become depressed, and begin to admire others)
• a bonus
• the fear of not finding a job post-bankruptcy, post-crisis, post-financial crash, post-extraterrestrial invasion…

Still keep a few reservists informed in advance, that you will be able to “exit” from partial unemployment, in the event of defection, and respecting the periods that you defined in the implementation of partial activity.

Also note that you can put employees on partial or partial unemployment! Basically, half-time at work, and the other part of the time partially unemployed. This can be a very good solution to limit damage and diversify the risk.

But what if your employees don't want not come ?

For fear of getting sick, and simply out of a desire to take advantage of the aid? A priori, they should go on paid or unpaid leave, but not on partial unemployment, because partial unemployment is carried out at the initiative of the employer, on objective criteria, and intended for a group of employees.

Furthermore, an employee cannot place themselves on partial unemployment, and conversely, they cannot refuse to be placed on partial unemployment. Finally, a work stoppage takes precedence over partial unemployment. At the end of the shutdown, the partial activity system takes over.

But again, it will depend on your speech, your relationship with your employees, your ability to reassure and motivate them, their means of transport, and the current context. If, for example, the virus mutates and kills everyone, obviously, it will not be the same context at all, and it will be understandable if employees no longer want to come to work!

If you have decided to continue the adventure: send by email and display the hygiene precautions

This is an important condition so that you can continue to work without contaminating everyone on the one hand, and so that you can reassure your employees whom you have decided to keep at the front and prevent them from invoking the fact that preventive measures were not taken.

For example, in the case of a home food delivery company, here are the key official measures to be posted, sent by email, Whatsapp, Viber, SMS, MSN Messenger or even ICQ, and enforced. My remarks are in italics.

a) Establish contactless delivery:

• A meal recovery area must be set up by the restaurant, separate from the kitchen, in order to ensure contactless collection of the meal by the delivery person.
• The delivery person leaves his bag open and the restaurant staff places the meal directly in the bag; In fact, most delivery men do not do this, especially since some do not have bags but delivery trunks, in this case I suggest putting the bag on the "intermediate" table and stepping back, then authorizing the delivery man to collect the bag. In my case, I placed this "buffer" zone directly outside the restaurant in front of the front door so as to block the entrance, and no one is allowed to approach or touch the door. 'entrance. Obviously, some geniuses find ways to make mistakes, you will have to remember to disinfect the door handle each time as well as the outdoor table as much as possible;
• When the meal is delivered, the delivery person alerts the customer of its arrival (by knocking or ringing);
• The delivery person leaves immediately or leaves a distance of at least 2 meters from the door, before the door is opened by the customer. The objective is not to cross paths.

b) Establish barrier gestures:

• Barrier gestures must be remembered at all times: wash your hands very regularly, cough or sneeze into your elbow or into a tissue, use a single-use tissue and throw it away, greet without shaking hands or hugging.
• Ideally, have masks (one per 4-hour shift) and charlotte for cooks and order preparers.
• Any symptomatic person (fever or feeling feverish, cough, difficulty breathing) should not go to their workplace ;
• Bags containing meals must be properly closed (I hope you have your set of staples planned!);
• When waiting in front of a restaurant, delivery people ensure compliance with the safety distance of 1 meter between them ; Avoid crowds by reminding delivery people to wait outside at a certain distance.
• Particular attention should be paid to cleaning and disinfecting all surfaces and utensils in contact with food. If you like I will soon do a complete tutorial on cleaning and hygiene.

Here is the official list of measures to display:

https://www.economie.gouv.fr/coronavirus-guide-des-precautions-sanitaires-livraison-repas?xtor=ES-39-[BIP_COVID-19]-20200326-

Conclusion: hang in there

It is in times of crisis that we recognize the valiant. Whatever your decision, hang on, try to save what can be saved, limit the damage, and in the worst case, try to recover your points on the green carpet.

Entrepreneurs, just like couriers, grocery store employees, medical staff, public officials, etc. are either on the front line struggling. You will therefore have to hang on, have the courage, and know how to relax too.

Also remember to eat well, sleep, and supplement if necessary. Find my two posts on this subject: the best diet to have during this period (and in general, in fact…), And what food supplements and vitamins to take to strengthen yourself.

Good luck to all !

Sources

More info here:

• https://www.economie.gouv.fr/files/files/PDF/2020/Coronavirus-MINEFI-10032020.pdf
• https://www.economie.gouv.fr/files/files/2020/coronavirus_faq_entreprises.pdf
• https://www.economie.gouv.fr/coronavirus-soutien-entreprises#
• https://www.legifiscal.fr/impots-entreprises/coronavirus-aides-entreprises.html
• https://travail-emploi.gouv.fr/IMG/pdf/covid19-dispositif-exceptionnel-activite-partielle.pdf