3 Things You Should Know About Small Business: August 9

The refinance provision of the SBA 504 loan program allows small business owners to refinance commercial mortgages with longer-term, below-market, fixed interest rates. The First Mortgage Lien Pooling program creates a secondary market where lenders can re-sell a portion of SBA 504 first mortgage loans, allowing them to increase their liquidity and capacity to make more small business loans. Both initiatives face expiration at the end of September.

SBA 504 refinances accounted for 14.7% of all SBA 504 loans made in the first quarter of 2012, and 20.6% of total SBA 504 dollars during that time period, Mercantile Capital says, citing SBA data. In addition, nearly 15% of all SBA 504 loans made today are First Mortgage Lien Pooling loans, it says.

The SBA 504 refinance provision and the FMLP program were established as part of the Small Business Jobs and Credit Act of September 2010, temporary two-year initiatives. However, bureaucratic delays (14 months for SBA 504 refinance and 19 months for FMLP) in Washington hampered the utilization and impact of these programs for the small business sector, Mercantile Capital says.

"The FMLP program has become the only viable financing source for assisted living facilities, daycares, auto repair shops, restaurants and hotels because conventional lenders generally won't finance these types of properties," said Chris Hurn, CEO of Mercantile Capital Corporation. "Dozens of small business owners we've worked with this year wouldn't have been able to get funding without one or both of these programs."

3. Should you really be on Google+? Google+ just celebrated its first anniversary but has gained a reputation as a "desolate wasteland," given the social media service's trouble gaining traction.

It begs the question, does it matter if a small business is on Google+? The answer is still, absolutely.

Mashable reiterates why being on Google+ is important for your business, primarily because Google+ integrates all of Google's(GOOG) other services, including search, Google Places and Google Maps. Essentially any business that is on Google+ will see an SEO boost from maintaining the page, Mashable says.

Google+ can also be a powerful tool for use internally by combining it with services such as Google Docs and Gmail to create communications tools.