The following is the original text as published in 2020.

Hello, everyone—it has been quite a while. Eagle Accounting Office is doing well.

With circumstances changing rapidly amid COVID-19, we are somehow managing to keep going. We are busy supporting clients who refuse to lose their fighting spirit and are doing everything they can right now, while also handling our own office's response.

The telework grant offered by the Tokyo Foundation for Employment Services, Business Continuity Emergency Measures (Telework) Grant (Japanese), is available. We applied as well, although we do not know whether our office will receive the grant. I believe there may be at least some parts that will be useful to those of you who are moving forward with applications, so I am making this public. You are free to modify it, but our office accepts no responsibility whatsoever going forward for your use of it or reference to it, so please use it at your own risk.

Overview of the Tokyo Foundation for Employment Services Telework Grant

  • Maximum of ¥2.5 million; subsidy rate of 100% (full subsidy)
  • Approximately 100 companies are expected to be selected
  • The deadline is May 12 (with the possibility of early closure)
  • Applications will not be accepted unless every document is complete and free of deficiencies (what a hassle...)
  • Items costing less than ¥100,000 including tax per piece of equipment are eligible.

Eagle's Current Circumstances

  • We have already spent approximately ¥5 million and put a telework system in place. Manufacturing has stopped, and delivery times are considerably delayed, but we will expand it in stages as items arrive. This application is for further expansion.
  • PCs and tablets are also eligible, which is appealing, but because we had no choice but to prioritize speed, we have already purchased the necessary number, so we are passing on them this time.
  • Because tax work is regulated under the Certified Public Tax Accountant Act, we will handle information by virtualizing the office PCs, so that all data remains within the office both physically and logically.
  • We are submitting as a sole proprietor, rather than as a corporation. Please note that the address and other details to be entered differ slightly. In particular, the field for the address at the top right of the first page says “individual,” so corporations need to change it.

Points for Preparing the Documents

  • More time is required to consider the system under which telework will be carried out than to complete the grant application itself.
  • Start early because gathering invoices is difficult. In some cases, an invoice cannot be obtained and you have to go back and change to different equipment.
  • For people at small and medium-sized enterprises who are not used to this, preparing a network configuration diagram and similar documents can be rather challenging. Incidentally, for preparing a network configuration diagram, I recommend using draw.io, as it is easy.
  • We prepare the documents while reviewing the guidelines and checking the entries against the checklist.

Materials We Actually Submitted in Our Application

Below are the materials Eagle actually submitted in its application, and I hope they will be helpful.

Eagle Accounting Office Application Form 1

Eagle Accounting Office Application Form 2

Eagle Accounting Office Application Form 3

If we receive feedback from the foundation in the future, I will update this again. I think this grant is new to all of us, so, frankly, I am not sure how best to complete the application, and I suspect luck plays a large part. Our office's approach is to do everything we can and submit it in the spirit of “we'll be lucky if it comes through.”