The Saskatchewan Government is bringing back a financial support program for small businesses across the province.
The Saskatchewan Small Business Emergency Payment (SSBEP) program was originally put in place for small businesses who saw their income significantly curtailed or had to close due to COVID-19 public health orders. It will once again provide financial support, this time for the period of December 1st, 2020 to December 31st, 2020.
Funding, the province explains, will be a payment of 15 per cent of their monthly sales revenue, to a maximum of $5,000, based on the greater of November 2019, December 2019, or February 2020 sales revenue. When it comes to seasonal businesses, it will be 15 per cent of the average monthly sales revenue for full months that the business operated in 2019.
Businesses must also meet certain eligibility requirements. They need to be a small or medium business of 500 or fewer employees, have a permanent location or allocate a portion of their income to Saskatchewan, was either operating or eligible to operate on October 31st, 2020, would be forced to close or significantly curtail operations over the month of December due to public health orders and plan to reopen when the public health restrictions are lifted.
The SSBEP program initially launched April 13, 2020, was extended for May 2020 and provided 6,485 businesses more than $32 million in support the province claims. This month of support is estimated to cost $8 million.
Applications will open for this round of SSBEP on December 7th, and the deadline to apply is January 31, 2021.