QuickBooks Index Finds US Small Business Card Spending Up 20 Percent
Intuit's QuickBooks Small Business Index annual report shows US small business credit card spending up 20 percent, as inflation and tight funding bite.
Intuit has published a new annual report under its QuickBooks Small Business Index. It finds credit card spending by US small businesses up 20 percent since the pandemic. The report sets that rise amid inflation and funding challenges. We read it, and a few lessons stand out for anyone who keeps the books.
What does the report find?
The headline number is a 20 percent rise in small business credit card spending since the pandemic. The context matters as much as the figure. Intuit presents the increase against a background of inflation and funding challenges. In practice, that suggests cards are covering costs that other financing might once have carried.
Why are businesses leaning on cards?
Two pressures push the same way. Inflation raises the price of stock, supplies, and services, so the same activity simply costs more to run. When funding is harder to secure, a card is often the fastest credit within reach.
Cards also protect cash for payroll and rent. The trade-off is quiet: balances and interest build in the background while attention sits elsewhere.
What should change in your bookkeeping?
More card volume makes a few habits more important:
- Reconcile every card account in QuickBooks against its statement each month.
- Record interest and fees in their own expense categories, so the real cost of credit stays visible.
- Keep business and personal cards separate, because mixed spending distorts every report you run.
- Plan around card balances as liabilities, not as spare cash.
If reconciliation has already slipped
Higher volume gives a mismatch more places to hide, and old discrepancies tend to pile up quietly. A file that throws errors, or a reconciliation history that no longer adds up, usually needs attention at the data level. Our QuickBooks error code repair service handles exactly that kind of cleanup.
One step is worth taking this week. Pick your busiest card account and reconcile it against the latest statement. That habit keeps a spending trend from turning into a bookkeeping problem.