Late last week, the Small Business Administration posted interim rules and the application for employers to complete when seeking forgiveness of their Paycheck Protection Program (“PPP”) loan. This guidance, which for many businesses comes almost at the end of the 8-week covered period for spending PPP funds, provides employers with many of the answers we have been waiting for since the CARES Act was passed in March.

Of course, that means that this guidance may be too late for some of us to correct actions we already took when we first received the PPP funds. But there are some strategic decisions that you can still make if you act quickly.

The basics of the loan forgiveness have been explained in more detail and in layman’s language in the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s Guide to PPP Loan Forgiveness, which I highly recommend that you download. But here are some basic forgiveness criteria that we have been waiting on: