This is a quick guide for Claiming your Montgomery County Online Sales and Telework Grant.

We are not the authority on this process.  We put together this guide to eliminate some confusion that people had regarding this grant, however this is not to be a definitive guide on the process.  If you were awarded a grant, please be sure to read everything that you weren’t sent and clarify any questions with the county to ensure that you do not miss the deadline for claiming your funds for the Montgomery County Online Sales and Telework Grant.

And please let us know in the comments below if we missed anything or if you find any errors in this post.

What you need to know

  • Notices were sent out on or about December 7th, 2021, according to our clients who all received the email that day
  • The grant website was updated to say that “Applicants will be notified of their status (and next steps if they were approved for funding) by December 15, 2021)”
  • If you applied and haven’t received an email, be sure to check your spam/junk/clutter/other folder for an email with the subject “Online Sales & Telework Grant award notification”
  • There is no timeline given for when the funds will be disbursed.

You have 30 days from the date of notice to claim your funds.  We received our notice on 12/7/2021 which would make the deadline on or about January 6, 2022.

Online Sales & Telework Grant award notification

The email is as follows:

Montgomery County Government is pleased to offer to disburse a grant award from the Montgomery County Online Sales & Telework Grant Program to your business.

This grant is based upon information provided in the application, including proof that the applicant is registered in the Discover MoCo business directory, was established prior to March 9, 2020, is currently operating in Montgomery County and is in Good Standing with the State of Maryland.

You have been approved to receive an Online Sales & Telework Grant in the amount of [Your Award Amount].

If you have already received funding from the County for another grant program or other vendor services and have previously registered with CVRS and no changes have been made to your address (or if applicable, your ACH payment method), you do not need to take any further action at this time – your payment will be processed.

If you have not previously registered as a vendor to receive payment from the County, you must be registered as a Vendor in the County’s Central Vendor Registration System (CVRS) at www.mcipcc.net within 30 days of this email notification in order to receive your grant payment.

Registration should include the legal name, address where the check will be mailed, and Tax ID # of the applicant as filed with the IRS.  If you are a Sole Proprietor (business taxes are filed under your personal Tax ID Number or Social Security Number and applied under a trade name or your name), please select “Register (individual)” option to register.  Finally, please make sure to upload a current W9 and select “Montgomery County” when applying.

Congratulations on your grant award, and for more information on COVID-19 Resources for Businesses, please visit https://www.montgomerycountymd.gov/Biz-Resources/covid19/index.html

Claiming Your Grant Award

Your next steps in claiming your grant award will depend on if you have previously registered with the County’s Central Vendor Registration System (CVRS)

Those who have previously registered with CVRS

From the email:

If you have already received funding from the County for another grant program or other vendor services and have previously registered with CVRS and no changes have been made to your address (or if applicable, your ACH payment method), you do not need to take any further action at this time – your payment will be processed. 

If you’re already registered with CVRS, you’re all set and there is nothing more you need to do.

Those who are NOT in CVRS

From the email:

If you have not previously registered as a vendor to receive payment from the County, you must be registered as a Vendor in the County’s Central Vendor Registration System (CVRS) at www.mcipcc.net within 30 days of this email notification in order to receive your grant payment. 

If you’re not in CVRS you have a bit of work to do to become registered and receive your grant payment

Registering with CRVS

Registering with CRVS is not a particularly arduous process, but the interface is a bit clumsy and confusing in parts so we added some screenshots below to help.  You may want to attempt this process using a computer as opposed to doing it on a tablet or phone.  Although there is a “Launch Tablet Site” we didn’t try that option.

First head over to https://mcipcc.net/main/homePage.php and select appropriate option for your business. If you file taxes under a taxpayer ID (TIN) for your business, you’ll want to select “Register as a Vendor”, however if you file under your personal social security number (SSN) you’ll want to select “Register as an individual”

The screenshots below are for registering as a vendor.  You can click on any of the screenshots to get a larger version.

 

Step 1

Start by selecting “Register as a Vendor” or “Register as an Individual”

Step 2

Enter your legal business name and tax information.

You will also need to enter your primary National Institute of Governmental Purchasing (NIGP) code to define the products/services that you provide.  It may be helpful to use the OPM Commodity Search Engine to find your code as it’s a little more user-friendly than the CVRS lookup.

Step 3

Select your type of organization and state od registration.  You may also want to fill out any additional information on this page.

Step 4

Enter your address and phone number.

Step 5

Enter your contact information

Step 6 – Pay attention to this step!

Confirm all the information on this screen and be sure to upload your W9!  If you need a copy of the W9 form it can be downloaded from the IRS website at https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/fw9.pdf.

Step 7

Select the agencies for which you wish to register.  Be sure to select Montgomery County.  Click complete when you are done.

Step 8 – Not Quite Done

The screen will refresh and should display a success message (circled in green to the right) and you should receive an email with the subject “Montgomery County CVRS Registration”.   

You can use the button below the message to receive a printout of your registration if you’d like.

Also note the message underlined in yellow indicating that the Montgomery County Government encourages vendors to utilize the ACH system to deposit funds into your account.  Use the button circled to start that process.

Registering for ACH Disbursements

Fortunately registering for ACH payments is much easier and is done on a form that’s much more user friendly than the previous process.  If you didn’t see the button on the previous step, you can directly access this form at https://montgomerycountymd.seamlessdocs.com/f/AP_ACH_CVRS. This is a one-page form and to complete it you will need the following information:

  • Payee Name (business name in most cases)
  • SSN or TIN
  • Company Address
  • Telephone Number
  • Email Address
  • Banking Information
    • Name of Financial Institution
    • Address of Financial Institution
    • Account Name
    • Account Numbers
    • Routing/ABA Number (see note below)
    • Type of Account (checking or savings)

Note that the routing number is ALWAYS a nine-digit number and can be found on the bottom of your check or deposit slip.  Note that account numbers may be any number of digits and may also be nine digits, so if you’re not sure which is your routing number and which is your account number, contact your business banker and inquire as this is something they have memorized and can tell you over the phone.  If you don’t have a business banker or can’t contact yours, we have a great person to recommend to you!  Just contact us or use the chat below (if we’re online) and we’ll get you connected.

Once you have your routing number, you may want to enter it into the ABA search to confirm it resolves to the correct bank.  You can do this for free at https://routingnumber.aba.com/

Thats it!

That should be the end of the process!  If you noticed any errors or things that we need to clarify in this guide plese let us know in the comments below or by contacting us or using the chat below (if we’re online).

Questions?

We’re here to help as best we can. We want to make sure that all small businesses in Montgomery county takes advantage of the COVID-19 options that are available. Please don’t hesitate to reach out to us via phoneemail, or chat (below) if we can be of any assistance with the grant, web design, social media marketing or anything else.