Most small-business owners are struggling with higher operating costs, low cash reserves, and uncertain financing availability, the latest "SMB Economic Outlook Report" from Revenued found.
"What stood out to me most wasn't any single data point; it was how consistent the picture was across every type of business we heard from," said Grant Pastor, director of marketing for the financial technology company. "The stress is not concentrated in one sector. It's everywhere. And a lot of these owners are one bad month away from a decision they can't undo."
Three-quarters of respondents say business costs are higher than a year ago, with more than one-third describing the increase as "much higher." Inventory and materials rank as the top cost driver, cited by 36.5 percent of respondents, followed by labor and wages (16%), rent or real estate (10.4%), and software and technology (8.5%). Unlike inflationary environments driven by a single input category, cost pressure is distributed across nearly every operational line item, making it structurally harder to offset through any single adjustment.
More than a third of respondents have less than one month of operating cash available to offset the risk of slowing revenue. An additional 29 percent have one to two months of cash. Combined, 63 percent of respondents have fewer than 90 days of runway, a figure that is consistent across all respondent segments. When asked how they would respond to an unexpected expense, only 24 percent said they would draw from existing cash. The remainder would seek financing, use a credit card, or defer payments, or they do not know what they would do.
Seven in 10 respondents sought business financing in the past 12 months. Of those, half either could not qualify or faced significant uncertainty about approval. The top frustrations were inability to qualify (26%), cost of capital (24%), and uncertainty of approval (19%), pointing to structural rather than administrative barriers.
The most common obstacles were not paperwork or processing time, but failing to meet eligibility standards or finding the available capital too expensive to justify. Access to capital ranks as the single biggest forward-looking business risk over the next six months, cited by 24 percent of respondents.
Three-quarters of respondents are not more optimistic about their business outlook than they were a year ago, and nearly two-thirds describe their current strategy as either maintaining stability or actively reducing risk and conserving cash. Less than 30 percent say they are focused on growth and expansion.
"What made this survey striking to work through was the consistency across segments," said Elona Bregasi, the Revenued marketing manager who led the research. "Owners who were funded, owners who were declined, owners who hadn't applied yet—they all described the same reality. The cash is thin, the costs are up, and the financing system isn't meeting them where they are. That's not a data anomaly. That's a structural problem."
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From: BenefitsPRO
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