About government subsidy in practice

For a long time articles on the state subsidy of 327,000 rubles for opening their own business have appeared on Habré. The last topic , which, as one Habr user correctly noted in the comments, looks more like an advertisement than a detailed overview of the stages of receiving a subsidy and prompted me to write a report. I have to 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 the experts to send a business plan for processing and the logical completion of this “circus” is the refusal of the financial commission to provide the subsidy.

Introduction

I will not describe in detail the registration process, obtaining unemployment status and other stages, which are already described in some detail in the aforementioned post. It is only fair to say that I met really friendly people at the district and district Employment Center (hereinafter referred to as the “employment center”), until it came to the experts and the financial commission of the Department of Labor and Employment. I'll start right away with the features of writing a business plan, skipping the most obvious sections, and end with a description of the work of the financial commission.

So, after obtaining unemployment status, you go to the district employment center and sign a preliminary document, according to which you agree to receive state subsidies. An employee of the center gives you the structure of a business plan and recommendations for writing. They also give you a referral for consultation on this program. Honestly, I didn’t get anything valuable from this consultation, since I had previously studied the differences between LLCs and private entrepreneurs and types of taxation, but they don’t tell about the peculiarities of writing business plans for innovative projects.

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

As it turned out, the innovation of the project does not interest anyone, so that you could not bother with the production part. It is easier for the commission to consider a business plan for a shawarma stall, rather than a project that forms a niche in the IT field. I am in all seriousness, 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 bit later.

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

Let's go.

Business plan

1. Summary

It's 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 a resume, only in more detail and without numbers.

2.2. Personnel required for entrepreneurial activity

As you may already know, you will be required 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 (large families, 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, however, in this case, the contract with the Department of Labor and Employment will be automatically extended for another year, with all the ensuing consequences, since the employee must work for you at least year.
For example, I had to come up with the position of a programmer with the hope that in 11 months I would really need it. Not to hire a courier, after all.

3.1 Brief description of production technology

The most important thing is to describe in as simple a language as possible how this is done. Details are superfluous, because there are financiers on the commission who understand nothing in IT or in the production of anything. When I wrote a business plan, I thought this was the most important section. To do this, I even had to go to another city and coordinate the section with the plant, which will produce products. Now I understand that it was impossible to describe in such detail, because financiers, not technologists, sit on the commission.

5.1 Brief description of the market. Potential clients

The recommendations for the business plan in this section tell us that marketing research with graphs and numbers is required. A sensible marketing research with graphs and numbers already draws on the lion's share of the amount of this subsidy, as well as for several months of work. Emoting for a while, I simply 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 the consumer of the product, and then described the scenarios in which cases my products are bought. Speaking about product consumption scenarios, I applied an approach similar to the approach in developing 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 activities

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 a response from an expert asking me to add this section, despite the fact that it already was. Moreover, there was also a subsection 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 there is no need to copy the well-known facts from textbooks and the Internet. Well, if they ask, I thought, then I need to add information from Wikipedia and other fresh sources. I copied information about the advantages of individual entrepreneurs and the selected tax policy (STS). I don’t know, maybe in this way they check whether you understand the differences in ownership, which is pretty funny,

6.2 Tax policy

The same thing happened with the Tax Policy subsection - copying the latest official data, despite the fact that these taxes are indicated in the financial plan. I will list the taxes that I indicated in this section:
1. Income tax with the simplified tax system - 6%
2. Payment to the Pension Fund of Russia (Pension Fund of the Russian Federation) - 26%
3. Personal income tax - 13%
4. FFOMS - 3.1%
5. TFOMS - 2.0 %
6. FSS - 2.9%
7. FSS NS - 0.2%

6.3 Licenses and permits

If you do not plan to open a tobacco shop or sell alcohol products, most likely you can write that no licenses are required. Just in case, I recommend checking if 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 choosing an individual entrepreneur and working alone, you will hire more than one person, and that only by coercion of the same commission. Nevertheless, you will have to copy-paste 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 should be from the category of persons experiencing difficulties in finding employment (large families, graduates, disabled people).

8. Project risk assessment and prevention methods

Given that the subsidy is issued to an unemployed person, i.e. to those who are not able to find work on their own, the section title evokes 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 the imagination if it has not yet broken.

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

9. The financial plan of the project

The pinnacle of the idiocy of the entire 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 subsidies

I have a laptop, 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 related to the service. I want this to be a high-quality and beautiful product that would evoke positive emotions from its use by consumers. I will not say that I plan to establish the production of something beyond the technological, but I also do not plan to make souvenir products in the form of all kinds of trinkets and the like. Unfortunately, I can’t 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 insides of the box, its design and related instructions,
this is only the product itself. Of course, 327,000 rubles, to put it mildly, are not going to clear up and there was no question of establishing any independent production and hiring of qualified workers. It was about joint participation in the design with the plant and production of the plant at the first stages of the development of the business. I searched for a manufacturer company that could carry out the necessary complex of work for a rather long time, because the production of my product involves several stages and it is not possible for different companies to complete these stages for various reasons: this is either too high a price for an individual production stage, or too large distances between manufacturing companies. After I finally found the right company, and we discussed all the nuances, I was able to draw up an estimate for each stage of production.

As soon as I completed this section, I thought that it was already a victory. There it was. The Finance Commission did not like the fact that almost the entire estimate, with the exception of additional details, was drawn up for one company of the manufacturer, even though the production of the planned products is described in great detail in the production plan, which I worked on for so long, and after reading which, it becomes it’s clear that this is not the production of fridge magnets, it is a more complex production that cannot be carried out independently with such a budget. And about how the directors of possible manufacturing companies looked at me with these 327,000 rubles and was embarrassed to speak.

Having finally assured myself that something was wrong with this program, I decided to return to the roots and look at a sample estimate.
And the sample estimate made by this financial commission consists of office equipment (two laptops and a printer), furniture (a table, a chair, a cupboard), rent of space for two people and “advertising” (business cards and an external pillar) ... I

’m posting this document to you could see for yourself.

By the way, if you spend, even a small part of the money on what is not written in the estimate, even if it seems useful to you, then you risk being accused of misuse of funds from the city of Moscow, and you will have to return the full amount of the subsidy . This is stated in the contract that you sign.
It seems that the contractmade up a handful of financial tycoons from a small “jar”, ​​the whole business of which is to control the “largest” financial flows. The very concept of subsidy, after its issuance provides for its complete and absolute debit from the balance accounts of this commission. Where to return to whom?

9.2 Project financial forecast

Another surprise. Your financial forecast should be 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 planned implementation by months and take into account all taxes. But this is provided that you are planning some kind of production. If you plan to create some kind of online project, then calculating something here will be much more difficult, especially three years in advance. I don’t know what advantages they provide to innovative projects when they need to do a financial plan for three years in advance, despite the fact that the contract itself is valid for 1-2 years.

9.3 cash flow plan

This subsection once again proves the inadequacy of the commission. Here you need to take into account absolutely all outflows and cash inflows, net cash flow and a couple more space points. This means that you must register all payments, all profits, tax payments at a certain time, and much more with regard to spending and receiving money from an account. Make this plan again three years in advance! Nobody will give you a sample filled out at least for a couple of points in the table, and a work center employee will not be able to answer simply because of a lack of knowledge in the financial field, so think for yourself.
In general, the cash flow plan, I was told, is actively used by banks, where the credit committee makes decisions on granting loans. I agree that this approach makes sense there, because the amount of lending is quite large - hundreds of millions. Immediately you need to make a plan for the movement of funds in the amount of 327,000 rubles.

Procedure for checking a business plan and making decisions

These are all the points discussed in the business plan. Now about the verification and decision-making procedure by the financial commission. My first version of the business plan was rejected and an expert response with recommendations was sent. Recommendations for adjusting the business plan drew attention only to the legal, organizational and financial part of the business plan. By the way, the expert who checks the business plan, in general it is 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 whole program works, it is entirely possible that a business plan with your ideas could go hand in hand.

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

Conclusion

The conclusion is disappointing. Support for small businesses and innovative projects in practice does not work. Perhaps, 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 unemployment status, etc., without describing the details. In principle, as an employee of the employment center told me, after the new year I can once again take part in this program and submit a business plan, however, for this you need to know what to change, and not look for a needle in a haystack, in addition, you have to go through again testing and travel for all kinds of inquiries, because their validity period is one calendar year.

Personally, I will not have more business with state offices.
You may save your time and nerves and spend it on the development of the project itself, or you will have an extra guide on writing a business plan for participating in this program.

What's next?

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

Thank you for reading to the end.