On state subsidies in practice

On Habré for a long time there are articles about the state subsidy of 327,000 rubles for starting a business. The last topic , which, as one user of Habr correctly noted in the comments, looks more like an advertisement than a detailed review of the stages of receiving the subsidy and pushed me to write a report. I will say right away that I have been “receiving” this subsidy for several months already: weeks of going through all the bureaucratic stages, the decision of experts to send a business plan for processing and the logical conclusion of this “circus” is the refusal of the financial commission to provide the subsidy.

Introduction

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I will not describe in detail the process of registration, obtaining the status of the unemployed and other stages, which are already described in some detail in the above post. It is only fair to note that in the district and district Employment Center (hereinafter referred to as “TsZN”) I met really friendly people, until the matter reached the experts and the financial commission of the Department of Labor and Employment. I will begin immediately with the features of writing a business plan, skipping the most obvious sections, and conclude with a description of the work of the financial commission.



So, after getting the status of an unemployed person, you are driving to the county CZN and sign a preliminary document, according to which you agree to receive a state grant. An employee of the center gives you a hands-on structure of a business plan and recommendations for writing. Also, you are given guidance on consulting this program. Honestly, I didn’t make anything of value from this consultation, because I had previously studied the differences between LLC and PI and the types of taxation, but they don’t tell about the specifics of writing business plans for innovative projects.



Since my project involves not only the provision of web services, but also the production of related products, I thought that it would be the hardest for me to describe the production part to non-specialists.



As it turned out, nobody is interested in the innovativeness of the project, so that it was possible not to bother with the production part. It is easier for the commission to review the business plan of the stall with a shawarma, rather than a project that forms a niche in the IT field. I am quite serious, because the most important thing for the commission is that you have perfect financial planning for three years ahead. What is included in the “financial planning” section will be described a little later.



The issued structure of the business plan is the standard for this commission. If you change anything, the expert will make a conclusion on the need for processing with the wording: “This structure of the business plan is allowed, but to understand the financial commission it should contain sections: ...”



Go.

Business plan

1. Summary

Everything is simple, the section contains basic information of all sections of the entire business plan (idea, numbers, etc.)

2. The essence of the proposed project

The same as the summary, only in more detail and without numbers.

2.2. Personnel Required for Business

As you may already know, you will be obliged to hire a person with a salary of 11,000 rubles, even if you do not need anyone, and you are able to implement the project yourself. The applicant must be from the category of persons experiencing difficulties in finding employment (having many children, university graduates, disabled people). You have the opportunity to hire a person at the end of the year for the 11-12th month of your work, but in this case the contract with the Department of Labor and Employment will be automatically extended for another year, with all the consequences, since the employee must work with you at least year.

For example, I had to invent a programmer’s position with the hope that in 11 months I really would need it. Not a courier to hire, at the end of the day.

3.1 Brief description of the production technology

The most important thing is to paint in as simple a language as possible. The details are superfluous here, because there are financiers sitting in the commission who understand nothing in IT or in the production of something. When I was writing a business plan, I thought this was the most important section. For this, I even had to go to another city and coordinate the section with the plant that will produce the products. Now I understand that it was possible not to describe it in such detail, for there are financiers in the commission, not technologists.

5.1 Brief description of the market. Potential clients

Recommendations to the business plan of this section tell us that marketing research with graphs and figures is required. An intelligent marketing study with graphs and figures is already drawing the lion’s share of the amount of this subsidy, as well as for several months of work. After having poemoted for a while, I just scored on this recommendation and made it my own way.

At the beginning, I described the general audience (age, gender, marital status, income level, etc.) of the service and consumer of the products, and then described the scenarios in which cases they buy my products. Speaking about product consumption scenarios, I applied a similar approach to the development of user interfaces, where user portraits are created and their actions on the site are described. Of course, your products may differ significantly from mine, where this approach may not work.

6. Legal support of activity

The second most important section for the financial commission after the “financial plan” section, because this is probably the only thing they understand. When I sent the first version of the business plan, I received an answer from an expert asking me to add this section, despite the fact that it was already there. Moreover, there was a subdivision of tax policy. They probably wanted this section to be “fatter”. The funny thing is that the recommendations to the business plan clearly state that you do not need to copy the well-known facts from textbooks and the Internet. Well, just asking, I thought, it means you need to add information from Wikipedia and other fresh sources. I copied information about the benefits of individual entrepreneurs and the selected tax policy (STS). I don’t know, maybe they check in this way whether you understand the differences in the forms of ownership, which is quite funny, especially considering that you’ll simply not come from the street and send them a business plan, at random choosing a form of ownership.

6.2 Tax Policy

With the subsection of the Tax Policy the same story - copying the latest official data, despite the fact that these taxes are indicated in the financial plan. I will list the taxes that I specified in this section:

1. Tax on income in the simplified tax system - 6%

2. Payment to the PFR (Pension Fund of the Russian Federation) - 26%

3. NDFL - 13%

4. FFOMS - 3.1%

5. TFOMS - 2.0%

6. FSS - 2.9%

7. FSS NA - 0.2%

6.3 Licenses and permits

If you do not plan to open a tobacco shop or sell alcohol, most likely you can write that no license is required. Just in case, I recommend checking whether mandatory product certification is required. You can find this information in the list approved by the Decree of the Government of the Russian Federation of December 1, 2009 N 982 as amended by the Government of the Russian Federation of November 13, 2010 No. 906.

7.2 Staffing

A section that hints at the inadequacy of the commission and the whole procedure. I doubt that by choosing an individual entrepreneur and working alone, you will hire more than one person, and then only by coercion of the same commission. However, it is necessary to copy the staffing table, even if there are only two columns in this table.

7.3 Selection criteria for hiring employees

The most important criterion is that the applicant be from the category of persons experiencing difficulties in finding employment (having many children, university graduates, disabled people).

8. Project Risk Assessment and Prevention Methods

Considering that the subsidy is given to an unemployed person, i.e. to those who are not able to find a job on their own, the name of the section causes a smile.

We make a table of three columns: risk, probability in percent, warning method. As I was told, the more you write here, the better. Re-enable imagination if it is not yet broken.



I also asked: “Is it worth creating the“ Development Prospects ”section, to which I received a positive response from the CZN employee and decided to write, because I thought that this would allow the commission to understand in which directions the future would move. Now for some reason it seems to me that these additional symbols in no way contribute to the positive decision of the commission, if not vice versa.

9. Financial plan of the project

The peak of the idiocy of the program as a whole. Those who still have a strong intention to participate in the program - get ready.

9.1 Estimated project costs for the use of the Subsidy

I have a laptop, an Internet connection and a place of work, I write the project code myself, and my friends made beautiful illustrations, so I decided that it would be more expedient to spend the entire amount of the subsidy on the production of products associated with the service. I want it to be high-quality and beautiful products that would cause positive emotions from its use by consumers. I will not say that I plan to set up production of something super-technological, but I also do not plan to make souvenir products in the form of any trinkets and the like. Unfortunately, I can not yet reveal the secret and tell what I plan to produce, but I can only say that I painted all 327,000 rubles for the production of this very product. This does not include the box, the interior of the box, its design and related instructions,

it is only the product itself. Of course, at 327,000 rubles, to put it mildly, you do not clear up and there was no question of establishing any independent production or hiring of skilled workers. It was about joint participation in the design with the plant and the production of the plant in the early stages of business development. I searched for a manufacturing company that could perform the required complex of work for quite a long time, because the production of my product involves several stages and it is not possible for these companies to perform these stages for various reasons: it is either too high a price for an individual production stage or too long distances between manufacturing companies. After I still found the right company, and we discussed all the nuances, I was able to write an estimate for each stage of production.



As soon as I completed this section, I thought that this was already a victory. It was not there. The financial commission didn’t like the fact that almost all the estimates, with the exception of additional details, are listed for one manufacturer’s company, even though the production of the planned products is described in great detail in the production plan, on which I worked for so long, and after reading that, it becomes it is clear that this is not the production of fridge magnets, it is a more complex production, which with such a budget cannot be done independently. And about how the directors of possible manufacturing companies looked at me with these 327,000 rubles and speak awkwardly.



Finally convinced that there was something wrong with this program, I decided to go back to basics and look at the cost estimate.

A sample of the budget, which is made by this financial commission, consists of office equipment (two laptops and a printer), furniture (table, chair, wardrobe), rental of premises for two people and “advertising” (business cards and an external pillar) ...



I post this document so that you can see for yourself.



By the way, if you spend, even a small part of the money, on what is not written down in the estimate, even if it seems useful to you, you risk being accused of misuse of the city of Moscow, and you will have to return the full amount of the grant. . This is spelled out in the contract that you sign.

It seems that the contract was made up of a handful of financial tycoons from a small “bank”, whose whole business is to control the “largest” financial flows. The very notion of a subsidy, after its issuance, provides for its full and absolute write-off from the balance sheet accounts of this commission. Where to return to whom?

9.2 Financial Project Forecast

Another surprise. Your financial forecast should be calculated for three years in advance.

In principle, there is nothing complicated if you have already considered the production of the product. It is enough to multiply by the number of the planned implementation by months and take into account all taxes. But this is on condition that you plan some kind of production. If you plan to create any online project, then it will be much more difficult to count something here, especially three years ahead. I don’t know what advantages they give to innovative projects when they need to make a financial plan here three years in advance, while the contract itself has been in effect for 1-2 years.

9.3 Cash Flow Plan

This subsection once again proves the inadequacy of the commission. Here it is necessary to take into account absolutely all outflows and cash inflows, net cash flow and a couple more space points. This means that you have to register all payments, all profits, payment of taxes at a certain time and much more, as regards spending and receiving money from the account. Make this plan to again, three years ahead! Nobody will give you a sample filled with at least a couple of items of the table, and the worker of the Central Labor Unit will not be able to answer questions simply because of a lack of knowledge in the financial field, so think for yourself.

In general, the cash flow plan, as I was told, is actively used by banks, where the credit committee makes decisions on granting loans. I agree that there this approach makes sense, because the loan amounts are quite large - hundreds of millions. It is also necessary to make a plan for the movement of funds in the amount of 327,000 rubles.

Business plan and decision making process

These are all points considered in the business plan. Now about the procedure for checking and making decisions by the financial commission. My first version of the business plan was rejected and an expert response was sent with recommendations. Recommendations on adjusting the business plan paid attention only to the legal, organizational and financial part of the business plan. By the way, the expert who checks the business plan is generally not clear where. He himself is an individual entrepreneur who conducts an audit commissioned by the Department of Labor and Employment. It remains to be seen whether a data confidentiality agreement exists between them. Judging by how this program works, it is quite possible that a business plan with your ideas can go hand in hand.



After I added the necessary subsections, in accordance with the recommendations from the expert, I was refused without giving reasons. And what exactly is wrong, no one explained to me. The CZN employee does not consider the business plan, he only forwards the decision of the commission of the Department of Labor and Employment, and it is impossible to contact people from the financial commission who make the decision, therefore the answer to the question what is wrong is not possible.

Conclusion

The conclusion is disappointing. Supporting small businesses and innovative projects in practice does not work. Maybe someone managed to get a subsidy, but all the articles of success stories on Habré about this program are limited, for some reason, by listing the general procedures for obtaining unemployed status, etc., without describing the details. In principle, as an employee of the Center for Health Care told me, after the new year I can once again take part in this program and submit a business plan, but for this you need to know what to change and not look for a needle in a haystack, besides, you will have to go through again testing and go for all sorts of references, because their validity is one calendar year.



Personally, I will have no more business with government offices.

You may save your time and nerves and spend it on developing the project itself, or you will have an extra guide on writing a business plan to participate in this program.

What's next?

Actually, the Earth has not stopped, I continue to work on the project, and is aimed at participating in the popular venture investment of the famous American project. After participation, I plan to write an article about it, and at the same time compare the mechanism of state support and public investment.



Thank you for reading to the end.