When a $192,000 mortgage from the federal authorities’s small-business support program arrived in his checking account final month, George Evageliou, the founding father of a customized woodworking firm, felt like one of many fortunate ones.

Below this system’s guidelines, Mr. Evageliou has eight weeks from the day he acquired the money to spend it. However practically three weeks after the clock began on April 14, he hasn’t used a penny.

His quandary? If Mr. Evageliou needs his mortgage to be forgiven, he should spend three-quarters of it paying the 16 staff he laid off from Urban Homecraft, his Brooklyn enterprise, in late March. However bringing his staff again now, once they can’t work of their fabrication store or set up woodwork in shoppers’ properties, gained’t assist his enterprise. And if New York Metropolis stays shut when his eight weeks are up in mid-June, Mr. Evageliou must lay off his workers once more — one thing he needs to spare them.

The federal government has “made this so arduous to make use of,” he mentioned. “It begins to really feel like a lose-lose scenario.”

The $660 billion Paycheck Safety Program was meant to increase a lifeline to small companies battered by the pandemic, permitting them to maintain workers on the payroll. However it has been dogged by issues. Numerous small companies couldn’t get cash, and lots of of hundreds of thousands of {dollars} as a substitute flowed to publicly traded companies.

Now lots of the small companies that did get loans are sitting on the cash, uncertain about whether or not and how you can spend it. That’s compromising the effectiveness of a program meant to assist stabilize the nation’s reeling financial system.

Some homeowners don’t see the purpose of hiring again staff when enterprise is so sluggish. Others chafe at having to make use of the cash inside eight weeks, once they want to maintain the monetary cushion for longer. And lots of the homeowners are confused about whether or not they have any flexibility. They might reasonably use the money to retool their operations for an altered world or purchase protecting tools for staff, however the guidelines require them to spend it on particular bills, like payroll.

Homeowners additionally say they’re afraid of working afoul of this system’s guidelines, that are complicated, ambiguous and nonetheless evolving. Accountants, attorneys and lenders are struggling to grasp the nuances and providing shoppers tentative steerage.

“It’s chaos,” mentioned Howard M. Berkower, a New York lawyer who advises company shoppers. “It’s unattainable for companies to have any diploma of consolation that they’re following the foundations when the foundations are nonetheless being written.”

The $2 trillion CARES Act, which created this system, specifies that small companies — typically these with fewer than 500 workers — can use the mortgage cash to pay workers, but in addition for lease, utilities or curiosity funds. The loans will likely be forgiven if they’re spent on these bills inside eight weeks and the enterprise retains paying the identical variety of workers, on the identical fee, because it did earlier than the pandemic.

The Treasury Division and the Small Enterprise Administration, which is working this system, added a restriction: For a mortgage to be forgivable, companies must spend no less than 75 % of it on payroll. In any other case, the foundations say, the borrower can pay curiosity of 1 % on any portion of the mortgage that’s not forgiven.

However what’s unclear is what occurs if debtors maintain all the cash as a mortgage for use later or if they need to spend your complete sum inside eight weeks, with an financial turnaround nonetheless months away.

Take Jodi Burns, the proprietor of Blazing Fresh Donuts in Guilford, Conn. Ms. Burns may use the mortgage she obtained — an quantity below $50,000 — to rent again her eight workers, however she can be paying most of them to remain house, because the bakery is open solely 12 hours every week lately. She would like to carry on to the money past eight weeks; her hope is that it turns into a low-interest mortgage she will be able to use for payroll and lease when her store is open longer.

Ms. Burns doesn’t know whether or not she will be able to try this. She has referred to as her native S.B.A. workplace, small-business advisory organizations, a legislation agency and her lender to ask for steerage, however nobody has given her any assurances. Furthermore, having signed documents requiring her to make use of the funds for functions allowed below the paycheck program’s guidelines, Ms. Burns is nervous about misusing them.

“I don’t by chance need to commit financial institution fraud,” she mentioned.

Many attorneys are telling small-business homeowners that they suppose the loans can be utilized broadly, though nobody is definite. Some bankers are reasoning that because the support program is predicated on present S.B.A. applications which are extra versatile, the pandemic loans will likely be, too.

“So long as they’re utilizing the funding for the working bills of the enterprise, our interpretation — and we predict it’s clear — is sure, you should utilize it as successfully a working capital mortgage,” mentioned John Asbury, the chief govt of Atlantic Union Bankshares, a neighborhood lender in Richmond, Va.

However officers at Treasury and the S.B.A. gained’t affirm that interpretation. Requested repeatedly if firms can merely maintain on to the cash for now as a result of paying workers doesn’t make sense to them, an S.B.A. spokeswoman would say solely that the funds have to be used for functions “according to the Paycheck Safety Program.”

Ryan Hurst, a accomplice at RKL, an accounting and advisory agency, mentioned this system had been put collectively rapidly and remained murky on important points. “Day by day I’m sitting at my pc, hitting refresh a number of instances a day, hoping we’ll get extra steerage from Treasury and the S.B.A.,” he mentioned.

Because the S.B.A. has not offered lenders with custom-made software kinds, many banks are utilizing a generic doc with provisions that don’t apply to the paycheck program.

Dutchess Maye, the proprietor of eduConsulting Firm, an academic companies supplier in Raleigh, N.C., acquired a contract from her financial institution that made no point out of getting her $20,000 mortgage forgiven.

Ms. Maye, who plans to make use of the cash for payroll, balked at signing a authorized doc that didn’t appear to explain the forgivable mortgage she thought she was getting. Her enterprise has no debt, and the thought of incurring any — particularly as the economy is nose-diving — spooked her.

“I felt it was predatory,” she mentioned.

She referred to as her lender, which assured her that the mortgage can be eligible for forgiveness, however the consultant she spoke with informed her that the financial institution had no thought but what the method can be. Ultimately, reluctant to threat lacking out on badly wanted support, she signed. However Ms. Maye plans to set $20,000 from her financial savings apart for a couple of months as a reserve.

“I needed to have a backup plan with the intention to take the cash, in case I’ve to pay it again,” she mentioned.

Coyote Ugly, a global chain of honky-tonk bars made well-known by the 2000 film of the identical identify, is sitting on its mortgage cash. The corporate’s American bars have been closed since mid-March. Bartenders and safety workers have been laid off instantly, however the bars’ managers have been stored on.

Via a small Louisiana financial institution, 9 of the corporate’s bars in the US utilized for loans “as a result of they have been there,” mentioned Jeff Wiseman, Coyote Ugly’s normal counsel. On the time, executives figured the financial system may reopen earlier than the loans got here due, during which case the cash could possibly be used for payroll and overhead like lease.

The bars’ mortgage purposes — starting from $40,000 to $120,000 — have been authorized in mid-April. By then it had develop into clear that Coyote Ugly wouldn’t be serving prospects for a very long time. Some places may by no means reopen.

On April 18, Liliana Lovell, the corporate’s founder and chief govt, informed managers that the majority of them have been being furloughed. Some have been livid to be let go simply as the corporate was granted the federal loans.

Ms. Lovell and Mr. Wiseman acknowledged these grievances, however mentioned Coyote Ugly hadn’t had a lot selection. They didn’t see the purpose in paying managers to take a seat round in empty bars, and in any case the funds can be exhausted inside a few pay cycles. Their understanding was that if Coyote Ugly used many of the cash for functions aside from payroll, like shopping for private protecting gear or cleansing provides, the corporate must repay the loans with curiosity, additional weakening its precarious funds.

And so the lots of of hundreds of {dollars} stay deposited in Coyote Ugly’s financial institution accounts, unused.

“It’s essential for us to take a seat and wait,” Ms. Lovell wrote in an e-mail on Thursday to the laid-off managers.

Even debtors who’re pleased with their support see it as a brief repair.

Erik Anderson is a co-owner of a string of high-end hair salons for males, Scissors and Scotch, which has places in a number of Midwestern cities. He and his companions, together with their franchisees, all obtained reduction cash and used it to pay workers, lease and utilities at their shops whereas they remained shuttered.

Now, a few of the states the place Scissors and Scotch has places are slowly reopening. However fewer stylists can work within the salons directly, and fewer prospects will likely be allowed in. Everybody has to put on a masks. The salons’ support cash will assist complement their stylists’ earnings, since few, if any, of them will be capable to work full 35-hour weeks.

Mr. Anderson’s understanding is that he’s not allowed to make use of cash from the small-business program for work like reconfiguring his areas, he mentioned. He hopes extra support will likely be coming if he wants it — or his firm could not survive.

When the loans run out, Mr. Anderson requested, “what are we presupposed to do then?”