Once your firm becomes 8a Certified and has successfully submitted its form 1010c business plan to the SBA the firm on an yearly basis, is required to submit an 8a annual compliance package. This package is designed to determine if the firm has met its business objectives and to see if a firm with 8a certification and owners are continuing to follow the guidelines created by the SBA. It is very important that the firm take the annual review that the SBA performs seriously. If the SBA determines that the business objectives of the firm have not been reached or that the owner is no longer deemed to be economically disadvantaged due to incorrect firm profit distribution the firm could be force into early graduation from the program.

8acertification.net keeps the business from becoming overly confident in the review process. The review process with the SBA becomes more stringent year-over-year. In conversations with an 8a certification.net specialist it was revealed that a compliance package that the SBA would allow in a prior year may result in early graduation in the following year. Our approach calls for a conservative and methodical approach to the annual review in order to protect the 8a Certified firm's status for the full 9 years of eligibility.

• Has the business "substantially achieved" the targets set forth in the business plan form 1010c.
• Is the owner by SBA definition deemed to be no longer economically disadvantaged.
• Has an owner made excessive withdrawls from the business
• Did the owner receive compensation in excess of $300,000 in adjusted gross income.
• Does the businesses net worth or working capital no longer justify small business classification.
• Is the business no longer disadvantaged compared to other businesses in the same SIC code.
• Financial ratio analysis
• Ability to operate without 8a contracts.
• Benchmarking goals for your SIC code.
• Percentage of non-8a business obtained
• Sales trends
• Bonding ability of the firm
• Overall firm profitability benchmarks met or exceeded.