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December 28, 2011
By J.D. Harrison
The nation’s smallest employers don’t yet see the glass as half full, but they’re consistently reporting it as slightly less empty.
The latest index showed a decline in the number of employers who think business conditions and sales will soon worsen. (Jeffrey MacMillan/For The Washington Post) Small-business optimism increased for the third consecutive month, gaining 1.8 points in November, according to the National Federation of Independent Business index released Tuesday. That merely lifts the index to a yet-weak 92.0, still well below pre-recession levels and two points lower than the mark set at the start of the year.
“After so many months of pessimism, November’s modest gain made it feel like spring, again,” NFIB Chief Economist Bill Dunkelberg said in a statement. “We have good reason to be optimistic about last month’s report and hopeful about what it means for the future. Still, our current reality is still very much the ongoing economic winter.”
Eight of the 10 index components improved or remained unchanged from the October report, with the most substantial gains posted in sales expectations gains and outlooks for business conditions — again, not necessarily because more owners expect improvement in those areas, but because fewer owners expect sales and business conditions to worsen.
Employment also jumped last month, ending five months of declining numbers. The index, based on the responses of 781 randomly sampled small businesses, indicated an overall increase in employment of 0.12 workers per firm. Seasonally adjusted, 13 percent of the owners added workers while 11 percent reduced employment.
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By J.D. Harrison | 12:32 PM ET, 12/13/2011
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Tags: Economy, News, Small Business
November 2, 2011
By SHERYL JEAN
Staff Writer
sjean@dallasnews.com
Published: 12 October 2011 09:42 PM
Government-backed small business lending in North Texas reached a record in fiscal 2011, returning to dollar volumes not seen since before the recession.
The U.S. Small Business Administration backed $882.6 million in 1,748 small business loans in the fiscal year ending Sept. 30 through its two largest loan programs. That’s up from $656.9 million and 1,706 loans in fiscal year 2010.
Much of the increase was due to higher-than-usual loan volume in December as borrowers rushed to take advantage of loan enhancements under the Small Business Jobs Act, which was set to expire that month. The enhancements — waived fees and higher guarantees and loan amounts — were extended.
“SBA-backed lending continued the upward trend we saw last year,” said Herbert Austin, director of the SBA’s Dallas-Fort Worth district office, which covers 72 counties. The previous regional record was $782 million in 3,324 loans in fiscal year 2007.
The number of loans still lags pre-recession levels. North Texas is No. 5 nationally in dollars loaned and No. 8 in number of loans.
The average loan from Austin’s office is $505,000. His district includes 655,000 small firms (500 or fewer workers), with nearly two-thirds owned by women and minorities.
Austin said he’d like to see more loans at smaller dollar amounts, which would also fill a gap in the market.
“In a market where you have so many women-owned and minority-owned businesses, we’re not making enough smaller loans,” he said. “The women-owned and minority-owned businesses often need $50,000 to $150,000. We need lenders to serve the person who needs $5 million and the person who needs $200,000.”
To help fill the gap, the SBA earlier this year launched two programs to spur lenders to make loans of less than $250,000 in underserved areas. Under those programs, the SBA’s D-FW office added two new lenders — Accion and Business Community Lenders of Texas — this year.
Wells Fargo Bank recaptured its rank as the No. 1 SBA lender for North Texas: It loaned $70.2 million in 168 loans in fiscal 2011, up from $42.8 million and 127 loans in the previous year. Compass Bank was No. 2, with $62.5 million in 237 loans.
“We reached out in a three-tier approach: educating existing customers, internal business banking partners and referral networks,” said Dwight Hilton, district sales manager for Wells Fargo SBA lending in North Texas. “In 2010 and 2011, we’ve seen increased stability.”
Most of Wells Fargo’s SBA loans in North Texas in the past year were for buying a building instead of paying rent, business acquisition and business expansion, he said.
Nationally, Wells Fargo became the first SBA lender to extend $1 billion in a fiscal year.
The Obama administration has identified small businesses as key to U.S. job creation. Small businesses have generated 64 percent of all net new jobs nationally in the past 15 years, according to the SBA.
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Tags: Economy, News, Small Business
September 27, 2011
By SHERYL JEAN
Staff Writer
sjean@dallasnews.com
Published: 26 September 2011 09:51 PM
Psychelia Terry of Frisco made a bold move to turn around her e-tail startup, Urban Intimates Lingerie, into a designer and manufacturer of its own product line to sell at major department stores.
Brent Skoda started CollegeFitness.com, an online personal training and nutrition social network, as a college student four years ago. Now he runs four businesses that will generate $10 million in total revenue this year.
While many small businesses struggle in the weak economy, these two North Texas entrepreneurs embraced unexpected growth, changing their business strategy and entering new markets.
Today is a good time to expand if the entrepreneur is prepared for what comes next, said Dallas small business consultant Cynthia Nevels, who created the Advanced Entrepreneurship Certificate program at Mountain View College.
“There’s a tremendous amount of opportunities that exist in the marketplace today for innovative small businesses that are nimble and act on new ideas,” Nevels said.
Skoda and Terry share some traits that helped put them on the fast track: They thought big ideas, identified voids in the marketplace and remained flexible. They also weren’t scared to take risks or approach high-profile mentors.
Here are their stories:
Psychelia Terry
Terry, 29, had trouble finding lingerie that she liked and that fit well. She entered her idea for Urban Intimates in a business plan contest for her MBA at the University of Las Vegas.
She lost the competition but launched the company in 2009 to offer affordably priced luxury lingerie to women with curves. She moved the business to North Texas last year when her husband received a job promotion.
“We are the fresh, funky urban lingerie company. We are not Frederick’s of Hollywood or Victoria’s Secret,” Terry said from her home office. “I thought I’d run this small online retailer, but it grew much faster than expected.”
Business got a big boost when Essence magazine featured Urban Intimates twice. For now, Terry has put Web sales on hold as she designs a product line — from leopard print bustiers to diaphanous baby dolls.
She thought the transition would take a few years, but instead it’s been months.
In the last two months, Terry met with Macy’s, J.C. Penney and other retailers. She designed a spring line to show store buyers her ideas, but she’s shooting for fall 2012 orders.
Macy’s and J.C. Penney don’t comment on potential vendors or partnerships.Terry is “very aggressive … and eager to learn more,” said Michael Armitage, director of fabric and color technology for Dallas-based Haggar Clothing Co., who has become a mentor to Terry. “She is also very humble and will accept advice from people like myself who want to assist in her endeavors. I see her going far in this venture and will continue to offer assistance if she requires it.”
Terry is finalizing a $500,000 angel investment to start production. So far, she and her husband, Vantoba Terry, have bootstrapped the business, investing more than $100,000 from credit cards, 401(k) retirement plans and personal savings, she said.
Terry just hired her first employee. In November, she plans to meet with manufacturers in China.
“I have been a go-for-it kind of girl all my life,” said Terry, who spent 12 years in sales at Whirlpool. “I say shoot for the moon.”
Brent Skoda
The Cleveland native and baseball player launched CollegeFitness.com after friends kept asking him for help losing the “freshman 15” pounds. The site started with nutritional data for restaurants near his school, Texas Christian University in Fort Worth.
CollegeFitness.com attracted some big universities, but business really took off last year when a new law required chain restaurants to disclose calorie content on menus. Its database grew tenfold almost overnight, Skoda said. Today, CollegeFitness provides detailed menu and nutritional data for hundreds of thousands of restaurants in five countries.
As CollegeFitness grew, so did the demand for mobile apps. Skoda spun off the database into a separate company called yumee and launched an Android app earlier this year. An iPhone app should go live this month.
This year, Skoda started appcasters to develop word and entertainment game apps. So far, it offers games to teach cooking to children (MyPlay Chef) and word games for food lovers (Foodie Games).
Skoda also recently branched into a new industry, co-founding a commercial and residential restoration company called Legacy Builders and Contractors. Partner Trevor McCormick has the restoration experience, and Skoda brings the technology background.
“He never stops thinking,” said Priceline.com chief executive Jeff Hoffman, who has become a mentor to Skoda after meeting at a start-up forum. “That’s rare for someone so young to be that focused on business. Like the construction industry, he thinks of new ways to do something, and he’ll run his idea by me.”
Skoda, 26, has taken several steps to handle growth. In May, he set up Ahkeo Ventures as a holding company for the four businesses. Ahkeo has 36 employees, up from four a year ago, he said.
“It was really tough,” Skoda said. “I was doing 10 jobs. I wrote a job description for myself and hired three people.”
After graduating from TCU in December, he returned to Cleveland. He just moved to Dallas and is in the process of bringing the business headquarters here.“
You have to be careful not to get ahead of yourself,” Skoda said. “All of a sudden, we went from selling our product to how to put the process and procedures in place to support this growth. All of a sudden, there was all this paperwork.”
Skoda raised more than $2.4 million from family, friends and angel investors in the first couple of years. Since then, he’s been self-funded.
Skoda declined to break out revenue for each company but said he expects combined revenue to double next year to about $20 million. Ahkeo is profitable, he said.
Along the way, Skoda has become a spokesman for young entrepreneurs. Entrepreneurs Organization named him the 2010 Global Student Entrepreneur of the Year. This year, he spoke at the kickoff of the Startup America Partnership to promote innovation at the White House and participated in the NextGen IT Boot Camp in Cairo, to help 38 Egyptian techpreneurs build their businesses and an entrepreneurial community.
Dallas small business consultant Cynthia Nevels offers a few tips for small businesses wanting to expand.
Invest now: Invest in new employees or resources to take your idea from paper to a product or service you can sell.
Don’t do it alone: You have to go out and find resources that can fill in the gaps.
Think big: Don’t be afraid to do something that’s never been done before.
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Tags: Economy, News, Small Business
September 8, 2011
Will Deener
wwrdeener@aol.com
Published: 17 July 2011 10:18 PM
With so much anxiety over the looming debt crisis, persistently high unemployment and a chronically sick housing market, I decided it was time for another chat with one of my most trusted financial experts.
I first talked to Carmen Reinhart, an economist now at the prestigious Peterson Institute for International Economics in Washington, D.C., in 2009, just after she co-authored This Time Is Different. In the book, she and Kenneth Rogoff meticulously chronicled 800 years of financial crises across 66 countries, including the latest one that occurred in our own republic in 2007.
It is comforting to talk to Reinhart, if for no other reason than she calmly points out that our current situation and what we’ve experienced over the past three years “is not without precedent.”
Financial crises have occurred many times throughout history and virtually all of them are followed by years of economic slowdown, stubbornly high unemployment and low home prices.
Simply put, we should have seen this coming.
“Everything is really happening pretty much as we expected,” she said in a recent telephone interview. “I don’t want to sound like I told you so, but this is pretty much on track.”
We will survive it, but no one should expect robust economic growth, a dramatically lower jobless rate or higher home prices anytime soon. She explains that the financial crisis was preceded by a decade or more of massive credit expansion in households, businesses and government.
Reinhart summed it up in a paper last year when she said we could be in for a “lengthy period of retrenchment” that may last “almost as long as the [preceding] credit surge.”
Track record
Now before you write off Reinhart as just another yakety-yak economist peddling cockeyed prognostications, I would point out a couple of her more prescient observations.
First, she was the first to correctly gauge, based on historical data, how far we could expect the stock market to drop during the crisis — 56 percent.
Second, she and her co-author correctly projected how high and for how long the U.S. unemployment rate would rise following the crisis. They projected that it would rise for about four years following the crisis — which it has — and that it would jump 7 percentage points above the pre-crisis level of 4 percent. It hit 10.1 percent, just slightly below their projection.
Perhaps even more disturbing is that she found that unemployment often remains above pre-crisis levels for years following the crisis.
“The unemployment rate in advanced economies remains about 5 percentage points higher on average than in the decade before the crisis,” she said.
Just as she doesn’t expect the employment picture to improve significantly anytime soon, Reinhart also believes housing prices will remain subdued. Housing prices as reflected in the much-watched Case-Shiller housing index have dropped about 30 percent, peakto trough, since 2006.
Typically, housing prices slide for six years in the aftermath of a financial crisis, so she predicts “we will continue to see very soft prices for another year or so.”
More time is needed to work off the massive inventory of unsold and foreclosed homes, she said. Additionally, the persistently high rate of unemployment works against a robust recovery in housing because the jobless don’t buy homes.
Debt woes
One of the key reasons it takes so long to recover from a financial crisis fueled by too much easy credit is that consumers must spend years working down their debt load. This curbs consumer spending, the mother’s milk of the U.S. economy.
I had assumed that by now people would have dramatically paid down their credit cards, mortgages and other debts. Not so, according to Reinhart.
At its peak in 2008, the ratio of household debt to gross domestic product hit 100 percent. Today, even with all the foreclosed home loans, this ratio still remains at 90 percent.
To put that in perspective, in 1982, household debt amounted to 45 percent of GDP. Consumer spending was one of the engines of growth that helped to pull us out of the 1982 recession. It’s a different story this time.
I was also curious to get Reinhart’s thoughts on the looming debt ceiling crisis and the potential for the U.S. government to go into default. She doesn’t believe Congress will allow a default to happen, and, at least at the moment, the stock and bond markets seem to agree with her.
Stocks have held up nicely this month and bond yields remain low. Yields on the benchmark 10-year U.S. Treasury bond would probably spike much higher than the current 2.9 percent level if bond traders thought a default was imminent.
“It would be out of the historic pattern to have a default brought on by politics,” she said. “Most defaults occur under the weight of unbearable debt servicing and no economic growth, kind of what we are seeing in Greece.”
http://www.dallasnews.com/business/columnists/will-deener/20110717-we-shouldve-seen-u.s.-slowdown-coming-economist-carmen-reinhart-says.ece
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Tags: Economy, News
August 11, 2011
How to put your company in the best position to benefit from an improving economy.
By Gwen Moran | Entrepreneur’s StartUps – June 2011
Few small businesses have escaped fallout from the economic downturn of the past few years. However, as many indicators begin to show signs of improvement, entrepreneurs need to position themselves to benefit from the recovery, says Jim Muehlhausen, CPA and author of The 51 Fatal Business Errors and How to Avoid Them.
“The default mode is that we’re all very scared,” he says. “Business owners don’t want to spend when they’re in doubt, but it’s important to make smart investments in your business as the economy begins to rebound.”
Muehlhausen offers five crucial steps to recovery that business owners need to take now:
1. Review your business model
It’s time to ask some important questions: Is your business model working for you? Are your sales actually coming from where you think they’re coming from? Is it time to adjust your focus or the way you do business? Take a top-to-bottom look at your best sources of revenue and figure out how you can pursue more of that type of business.
2. Avoid the Hail Mary
If you’re holding your breath for one big deal or event, you’re putting too many eggs in one basket. Too many business owners are hanging their hopes on events that might never happen. Instead, look at ways to grow your business incrementally and make smaller investments in areas that will generate a return, such as expanding into new sales channels or increasing effective marketing tactics.
3. Buy back your time
You may have worked with a skeleton crew to survive a drop-off in business. Yet as the recovery takes hold, it’s important that you aren’t busy wearing too many hats to recognize growth opportunities. Hire a part-time assistant to invest in automation. For instance, create a web-based ordering tool or find a more effective CRM program to help identify and deliver on customer needs more quickly.
4. Get bigger
As so many companies are struggling, there could be opportunities to acquire or merge with a complementary business that has a solid customer base. By doing so, you can expand your offerings and capture more market share. In other words, grow your business now, in anticipation of the upswing that’s on the way.
5. Forget fear
Most important, it’s time to stop fretting. Fear-based decisions are rarely effective and will keep you from seeing your next move clearly. Now is a terrific time to tune up your systems and put effort into developing new products or services. Rather than lamenting the bad times or trying to make things better right away, Muehlhausen says, direct your attention to two years from now. You’ll be a step ahead of everyone who’s only focused on the short-term.
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Tags: Economy, News, Small Business
February 24, 2011
The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act represents the most significant transformation of the American health care system since Medicare and Medicaid. It will fundamentally change nearly every aspect of health care, from insurance to the final delivery of care. The length and complexity of the legislation, combined with a debate that often generated more heat than light, has led to massive confusion about the law’s likely impact. But it is now possible to analyze what is and is not in it, what it likely will and will not do, says Michael Tanner, a senior fellow with the Cato Institute.
In particular, we now know that:
While the new law will increase the number of Americans with insurance coverage, it falls significantly short of universal coverage — by 2019, roughly 21 million Americans will still be uninsured.
The legislation will cost far more than advertised — more than $2.7 trillion over 10 years of full implementation, and will add more than $823 billion to the national debt over the program’s first 10 years.
The new law will increase taxes by more than $569 billion between now and 2019, and the burdens it places on business will significantly reduce economic growth and employment.
While the law contains few direct provisions for rationing care, it nonetheless sets the stage for government rationing and interference with how doctors practice medicine.
Millions of Americans who are happy with their current health insurance will not be able to keep it.
In short, the more we have learned about what is in this new law, the more it looks like bad news for American taxpayers, businesses, health care providers and patients, says Tanner.
Source: Michael D. Tanner, “Bad Medicine: A Guide to the Real Costs and Consequences of the New Health Care Law,” Cato Institute, February 14, 2011.
For text:
http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=11961
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Tags: Economic, Economy, News, Small Business, Taxes
December 27, 2010
December 10, 2010
from the website: http://www.ncpa.org/sub/dpd/index.php?Article_ID=20126&utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm
While politicians in Washington negotiate a deal to provide welcome temporary payroll, income and estate tax relief to America’s workers, struggling employers wonder how long they’ll have to pay for the compassion of others — and whether they can survive, says Michelle Malkin.
The Beltway deal hinges on extending federal unemployment insurance (UI) for another 13 months. This would mark the sixth time that the deadline has been extended since June 2008.
The cost of the joint federal-state program is borne by employers who pay state and federal taxes on a portion of wages paid to each employee in a calendar year. (At the federal level, employers must pay 6.2 percent of the first $7,000 of income to keep the system afloat.)
The combined burden of these hidden state and federal payroll taxes has exploded during the recession as economic recovery interventions backfire and the jobless rate remains stuck near double-digits. State Unemployment Insurance funds have gone broke in nearly half the states. As of April 2010, 35 states and jurisdictions had unemployment fund-related debts worth $39.5 billion, says Malkin.
In an interminable money shuffle, these bankrupt state Unemployment Insurance funds are now borrowing money from the feds, whose own regular unemployment benefits account and extended benefits account are both in the red.
In Colorado, small and midsize firms have been saddled with eye-popping unemployment insurance bills that have doubled, tripled and more in the past year.
Greg Howard, owner of McCabe’s Tavern in Colorado Springs, told the Colorado Springs Gazette his bill spiked a whopping 600 percent.
A small commercial painting contractor say that her nine-person company’s first quarter Unemployment Insurance bill has gone from $1,000 to more than $6,500 over the past three years.
Source: Michelle Malkin, “Unemployment Insurance Kills Small Business,” Washington Examiner, December 8, 2010.
For text:
http://washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/columnists/2010/12/michelle-malkin-unemployment-insurance-kills-small-business
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Tags: Economy, Federal Spending, Government, Small Business, Taxes
November 16, 2010
QE2 sounds like a luxury ocean liner. But many wonder if the Federal Reserve’s second round of “quantitative easing” would be more aptly named the Titanic, says the Dallas Morning News.
“The book has not been written whether QE2 is a good idea or a bad idea,” said Sam Manning, general partner of the Blagden Fund in Dallas. “There are many highly educated, brilliant minds on both sides of the argument.”
But here are some basics about quantitative easing that most agree on:
The way it’s supposed to work is that the Fed buys securities in the open market, paying with a government “check.” The sellers deposit those checks into their banks.
The banks redeploy those deposits as loans to consumers and business. The money supply expands and, in turn, so does the economy — or so the theory goes. The likely — and intended — effect is inflation.
The Fed is worried about deflation and the psychological effect of our seeing assets such as 401(k)s, houses and stocks devalue. It’s the “wealth effect” in reverse, says the Dallas Morning News.
But some fear that the cure could be worse than the disease.
Bob McTeer, distinguished fellow with the National Center for Policy Analysis, disagrees: “Everybody’s treating this as a very unusual, draconian thing that’s extremely risky, probably won’t work and likely to have adverse consequences. I think they’re overdoing it.”
If successful, the action will create a manageable inflation rate that could push the stock market and housing prices higher, entice businesses to go ahead with projects and banks to lend to them.
If QE2 is too successful at unleashing money, inflation could shift into hyperdrive. Then the Fed will have to engage a completely different set of steering mechanisms.
Source: Cheryl Hall, “What Is Fed’s QE2, and What Will It Do? Experts Explain in Everyday English,” Dallas Morning News, November 10, 2010.
For full text:
http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/bus/columnists/chall/stories/DN-Hallonline_10bus.State.Edition1.3d7e691.html
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Tags: Economic Impact, Economy, Government
September 22, 2010
Budget & Tax News > October 2010
Written By: Alyssa Carducci
Published In: Budget & Tax News > October 2010
Publisher: The Heartland Institute
President Obama campaigned on the promise that middle-income earners—those earning $250,000 or less annually—would experience no tax increases. On the upcoming New Year’s Day, however, virtually every American will be facing the possibility of higher taxes.
Lowered tax rates on a wide variety of items including personal income, capital gains, dividends, and estate taxes that became law in 2001 and 2003 are set to expire on January 1 unless Congress extends them.
“Everyone’s tax rates will go up; everyone will see significantly higher taxes,” said Curtis Dubay, a senior policy analyst for the Heritage Foundation. “For the middle class that were promised not to pay tax increases, they’ll certainly see a much smaller paycheck starting in January.”
$1,540 per Family
Nationally, the typical middle-income family, which has a median income of $63,366, would see its federal income tax burden increase by $1,540 if the tax cuts expire, according to an analysis by the Tax Foundation.
“The Democrats are falling all over themselves promising the press and the American people that they will extend certain of the 2001 and 2003 tax relief, patch the AMT, etc. However, there seems to be no solid plans for doing so before the election [in November],” said Ryan Ellis, tax policy director for Americans for Tax Reform.
“In essence, they are asking people to trust that Congress will act after people have had [their only] chance to punish Congress if they don’t,” he said. “There are many of us on the right who believe that they don’t care to extend any of the tax cuts. They need the revenue to fund their permanently higher government spending.”
Business Burdens
American families and individual taxpayers would not be the only ones affected by the tax hike that will result if Congress takes no action. Ellis says both large and small businesses also have no certainty right now.
“If you’re a large employer, the expiration of the tax extenders—particularly the research and experimentation credit—gives you no ability to plan,” he said. “So there’s no sense of stability there,” he said.
He also pointed out many small businesses pay taxes at the rates applied to individuals.
“No one is sure where those rates are going to be, but there’s an increasing sense among business owners that rates are going up in January. There’s also uncertainty about small business expensing and the death tax,” he said.
Hundreds of Billions More
He said the combination of letting the 2001 and 2003 tax relief provisions expire, failing to “patch” the alternative minimum tax, and implementing the ObamaCare tax hikes would raise the nation’s tax burden hundreds of billions of dollars a year.
The alternative minimum tax was created 40 years ago to apply only to a handful of wealthy taxpayers to ensure they would pay a minimum amount of income tax, but it now affects millions of taxpayers because it has never been indexed for inflation. It does away with most deductions and tax credits, forcing people to pay more income tax.
Congress has been “patching” the tax code in recent years to help some people who would otherwise be hit by the AMT avoid its higher taxes.
“The tired old myth that the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts were just tax cuts for the rich will finally, once and for all, be proven false,” Dubay said.
Alyssa Carducci (adc.republican@yahoo.com) writes from Florida.
SIDEBAR
If Congress allows the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts to expire, these are major changes that would happen:
- Income tax would increase by 3 to 5 percentage points for every bracket, including an end to the lowest tax bracket, currently 10 percent.
- Capital gains tax rates would rise from 15 percent to 20 percent, and dividends taxes would jump from 15 percent to 39.6 percent.
- The death tax would rise from zero to 55 percent on estates over $1 million.
- The child tax credit would drop from $1000 to $500 per child.
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Tags: Economic Impact, Economy, Small Business, Taxes
September 2, 2010
Experian’s Business Benchmark Report is a monthly view of how U.S. businesses are faring. In July the national average number of days that businesses paid their bills beyond contracted terms increased by 2 percent compared with June. When compared with six months ago, the average payment beyond contracted terms has increased by 3.3 percent. The July report also showed that the national average dollars delinquent and dollars severely delinquent (91 or more days) are up (6 percent and 13 percent, respectively) when compared with six months ago.
Other findings from this month’s Business Benchmark Report include the following:
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The average commercial risk score for July was 58.3, up 0.5 percent over June’s average score of 58.0. The score is essentially unchanged when compared with six months ago.
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Very large businesses and nonemployer businesses have shown the greatest increase in Days Beyond Terms (DBT), increasing by 5.6 percent and 4.0 percent, respectively, when compared with six months ago. Conversely, midsize businesses (with 50 to 499 employees) showed the biggest improvement, reducing DBT by as much as 6.1 percent over the same period.
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For additional findings, download the full report or view an archive of previous Business Benchmark Reports.
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Tags: Economy, Small Business
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