Kaseya CARES for MSPs Navigating Legal Legwork Amid Coronavirus

A new program from Kaseya, Kaseya CARES, aims to help partners through the COVID-19 crisis. It’s a scary time to own a business. Thanks to the global coronavirus pandemic, economies around the world are plummeting, businesses are tightening their belts or closing their doors altogether and channel partners have their fingers crossed that they were in a good enough position before the world even heard of COVID-19 that they’ll be able to weather the storm.

The CARES Act

After weeks of uncertainty and panic among American business owners, Congress passed the CARES Act on March 30. The $2.2 trillion bill is meant to bring relief to mainly small to midsize businesses, loaning funds to help them keep the lights on and avoid layoffs. But like any legislation, there are miles of bureaucratic red tape to navigate and mountains of legalese to try to understand. Taking advantage of the relief act isn’t as easy as just signing up for the loan. There are multiple factors every business owner has to tackle one by one, and some areas are nothing but gray. There are employment taxes, provisions around net operating losses and funding of benefit plans. That’s all over and above the actual forgivable small business loans, where qualified businesses can take advantage of the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) to pay ambiguous “utilities” and cover payroll.

The Paycheck Protection Program

Friday, April 3, was the first day that businesses could apply for PPP, and it’s clear the financial system is still racing to catch up to the legislation. Not all banks accept applications for the program. Some place restrictions around who can apply. And the federal guidelines surrounding the loans are still so murky that some banks, such as JP Morgan Chase, just flat out couldn’t launch their lending process on time.

On the Thursday nightprior to the application period opening, Chase sent notices to customers that warned, “Financial institutions like ours are still awaiting guidance from the SBA and the U.S. Treasury. As a result, Chase will most likely not be able to start accepting applications on Friday, April 3rd, as we had hoped.”

It’s clear that SMBs in every sector will need help navigating the bill, refining and pivoting their business plans and best practices, and accessing funds to keep them going. In the channel, many vendors, distributors and master agents are rolling out programs to help their partners through this crisis.

Kaseya CARES

Kaseya’s Alexandra Letts

Kaseya CARES aims to do just that. The company carries a large legal staff with tier one auditors and boasts a global network of legal firms and investment firms. Led by general counsel Alexandra Letts, Kaseya is doing much of the legal legwork for its customers. In addition to webinars, reference sheets and workbooks, Letts’ team is working in real time to answer questions MSPs have about their loan application process. Letts says that in the end, Kaseya CARES is all about providing clarity.

“We brought in BDO, one of our accounting and past partners, to break down piece by piece what their interpretation of different clauses of the laws are,” said Letts. “So they could fill out an application that we think would be accepted by those lenders under the PPP.”

But navigating the CARES Act is only …