Collaboration to Help All Small Businesses with PPP Forgiveness

Who: Mark Cuban; Jill Castilla, president and CEO of Citizens Bank of Edmond; and Teslar Software have collaborated to help small businesses, non-profits and sole proprietors across the country manage the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loan forgiveness application.

What: The website, PPP.bank, is a free resource built by Teslar Software that any PPP loan borrower can leverage to get an estimate of the forgiveness for their PPP loans and to generate a PDF application to share with their lender. To keep applicants’ information secure, this site does not have a database. Data that is entered will not be kept, shared, sold or archived.

Why: The forgiveness application is a cumbersome, 11-page document, and business owners need assistance with the process now. The National Federation of Independent Business reports that more than half of business owners expect all expenses to be forgiven from their PPP loans, and 27% say they expect three-quarters of the loan to be forgiven under current guidelines. This free site can help them prepare while they still have time to navigate the new territory.

Jill Castilla, president and CEO of Citizens Bank of Edmond, has been invested in the PPP lending process since providing early-stage ideas to Congressional leaders and the Small Business Administration (SBA). Mark Cuban first took note of Jill’s efforts on CARES Act funding when Citizens Bank of Edmond announced it was establishing an overdraft program for customers waiting on their federal stimulus funds. He leveraged his social capital to support Citizens Bank of Edmond and to challenge other banks to adapt similar customer-support programs. 

It led to multiple collaborations between Jill and Mark to help Americans navigate the complexities of the CARES Act federal funds to support small businesses, and to include the latest PPP.bank site that establishes a forgiveness calculator while digitizing and easing the 11-page SBA application.  

“Our mission is to help simplify and ease access to the critical resources our national leaders provided through the CARES Act to support America’s small businesses during this difficult time," Castilla said. “PPP.bank is a practical and secure tool that is available for anyone to use to navigate the lengthy PPP forgiveness application. There are no charges and no data collection – we get nothing in return as this is simply the right thing to do.”

“PPP.bank allows business owners to more quickly move beyond the complicated, bureaucratic PPP forgiveness application and stay focused on what matters - keeping people employed and their doors open,” said Mark Cuban. “Better yet, we hope it helps the Small Business Administration take the next steps to simplify their application.”

Joe Ehrhardt, CEO and founder of Teslar Software, added, “It’s important that we do everything we can to support Main Street’s revival after this trying time. Bankers are working to prepare for the forgiveness process, but in the meantime, borrowers are worried and need help. The site we developed and created together is an answer to that gap. By offering business owners an easy, automated method to calculate their forgiveness status, we can help bankers and everyone else involved in rescuing America’s small business owners.”