Small Business Credit Cards Offer Valuable Tools for Entrepreneurs

The latest Small Business Growth Index from Capital One shows that 60% of small business owners report that business is good or excellent, and 37% are in a better financial position than they were a year ago.

The survey polls 500 small business owners across the country, measuring their optimism, their feelings about their financial position, and the challenges they’re facing. In spite of overall optimism on the part of the respondents, there are concerns as well. Forty-five percent said they were worried about taxes, 42% were anxious about cash flow, and 32% found keeping up with technology to be a challenge.

Celia Edwards Karam, head of small business banking at Capital One, said the company is “focused on understanding these challenges and delivering experiences designed to help businesses succeed and grow.”

One way small businesses can make life easier is to carry a small business credit card, such as the Spark cards offered by Capital One, or the OPEN business cards from American Express, among others. These cards offer rewards for spending in categories that small businesses often frequently use, as well as letting business owners run year-end reports that can be helpful when tax time rolls around.

Businesses can also give extra cards to employees to use for petty cash spending, have their logos printed on the cards, and use the cards to keep their personal spending separate from their business spending.

Hiring stays steady; minimum wage increases not a factor

Besides small business confidence and optimism being on the rise, the Capital One survey found that revenues are increasing. However, hiring remains flat, with 25% of businesses planning to hire more staff within the next six months. That’s down two percentage points from earlier in the year. When asked whether mandated increases in minimum wage are impacting their hiring plans, 72% said they were not.

Companies were concerned about cash flow, however. The percentage of small business owners worried about their available funds jumped 11 percentage points over last year. Having a small business credit card with a generous credit limit can ease these worries and give businesses more purchasing power and flexibility in financing their growth plans.