In general, none of the expenses listed in the above chart are refundable, except any security deposits you must make may be refundable.  We may finance a portion of your initial investment.

    NOTES:

1. Franchise Fee.  The Franchise Fee is described in greater detail in Item 5 of our Disclosure Document.  We may finance a portion of the Franchise Fee, financing is described in greater detail in Item 10 of our Disclosure Document.  The Franchise Fee includes furniture, equipment, and your initial supply of certain forms and materials, including business cards, letterhead, envelopes, brochures, intake packet, employee hire packet, employee progress notes and employee management package.
2. Leasehold Improvements.  We expect that your Approved Location will be in an executive style office suite or other suitable office space, and will require minimal improvements.  The improvements you may need to make to the Approved Location include new carpeting, décor items, wall treatments, or painting.  The total costs of leasehold improvements will depend on the amount of work required to be done at the Approved Location, the cost of materials, labor and equipment, whether you must use union labor, the rates charged in your area, and similar factors.  Our estimates do not include any tenant improvement allowance that you may negotiate from the landlord.
3. Equipment, Furniture and Fixtures.  You will need a copier, fax machine, desks, office chairs, guest chairs, telephone system, a high speed internet connection, computers and typical office supplies.
4. Signage.  The estimate in the above chart includes both your interior and exterior signage.  The ordinance of the town or municipality in which your Business is located may determine certain aspects of your exterior signage, such as size or color.
5. Rent.  You will need to rent office space of approximately 500 square feet in size.  Rental costs will vary widely and may be significantly higher than projected in this table depending on factors such as property location, population density, and economic climate.  You should investigate all of these costs in the area where you wish to establish a Franchised Business.  In addition to base rent, the lease may require you to pay common area maintenance charges (“CAM Charges”) your pro rata share of the real estate taxes and insurance, and your pro rata share of other charges.  The actual amount you pay under the lease will vary depending on the size of the space rented, the types of charges that are allocated to tenants under the lease, your ability to negotiate with landlords and the prevailing rental rates in the geographic region. Our estimates assume that you will lease property from which to operate your Franchised Business.  If you choose to purchase real property and/or build an office for your Business, you will incur additional costs that we cannot estimate.
6. Miscellaneous Opening Costs.  Our estimates include security deposits, utility costs for the initial phase, professional fees (such as legal or accounting fees for your review of our franchise offering and/or for the formation of an entity to purchase the franchise), and an insurance deposit.
7.  Advertising.  You must implement our marketing and sales program and conduct a grand opening event to promote the opening of your Franchised Business upon your return from our training program.  Our estimates include additional marketing collateral, costs associated with sales presentations, grand opening event costs, and fuel.
8. Travel and Living Expenses While Training.  We will train up to two people at no additional charge.  Our training program is more completely described in Item 11 of our Disclosure Document.  These estimates include only the out-of-pocket costs associated with attending our initial training program.  During your training program, we arrange for up to five nights of hotel accommodation for you and one other person.  We will pay or reimburse for the flight costs of two persons to attend our training program, up to a maximum of $400 per person.  These amounts do not include any fees or expenses for training any other personnel.  Your costs may vary depending on your selection of lodging and dining facilities and mode and distance of transportation.
9. Business Permits and Licenses.  These are estimated costs for the licenses and permits you may need to maintain for your Franchised Business.  If you do not need to obtain any licenses or permits to operate your Business, your costs would be $0.
10. Initial Inventory.  This is the estimate for the initial inventory you must purchase.  We will provide you with a complete list of recommended items in our Confidential Quickstart Manual.
11. Additional Funds.  You will need capital to support ongoing expenses, such as payroll, if these costs are not covered by sales revenue for your first three months of operation.  New businesses often generate a negative cash flow.  We estimate that the amount given will be sufficient to cover ongoing expenses for the start-up phase of the business, which we calculate to be three months.  This is only an estimate and there is no guarantee that additional working capital will not be necessary during this start-up phase or after.

We relied upon our experience since 2002 in operating and franchising Caring Senior Service Businesses when preparing these figures.  However, these figures are merely estimates and there is no assurance that additional working capital will not be necessary during this initial phase or after.  Your expenses will depend on factors such as how much you follow our methods and procedures, your management skill, experience and business acumen, local economic conditions (e.g., the local market for our products or services), the prevailing wage rate, competition and the sales level reached during the initial period.  These are only estimates and your costs may vary based on actual rental prices in your area, and other site-specific requirements or regulations.  The costs outlined here are not intended to be a forecast of the actual cost to you or to any particular franchisee.