December 20, 2023 – Small businesses continue to be a powerful engine behind the U.S. economy, contributing to 44% of economic activity per the Small Business Administration. Eighty-one percent of those 50.7 million small businesses keeping our economy running are individuals, or “solopreneurs,” who run their own business.
Despite its popularity, solopreneurship is not without its challenges. Cash flow remains one of the biggest challenges for solopreneurs, which isn’t surprising given a business owner focused on their product or craft must also be responsible for securing capital, invoicing customers, collecting payments, paying bills and much more.
A recent study from Intuit of more than 4,500 U.S. business owners and workers confirmed these challenges:
- 83% of solopreneurs say they have relied on credit cards to manage their business finances this year, and 59% of all small business owners are currently using credit cards as “an emergency or temporary source of funding,” demonstrating the pressures put on their cash flow.
- Nearly a third (32%) of small businesses created since 2020 were funded in part by tax refunds.
- Respondents predict inflation and interest rates will be the greatest threats to both small business growth and building personal wealth in 2024.
- The number one goal for small business owners for 2024 by a significant margin is increasing their business revenue.
To support this growing and increasingly critical part of the U.S. economy, Intuit is introducing a new 5% APY for QuickBooks Money – over 70 times the U.S. average – which recently launched through a global brand campaign featuring football star Saquon Barkley and celebrating how small businesses, and solopreneurs in particular, “business differently.”
QuickBooks Money – a new subscription-free payments and banking solution from Intuit – is designed to help millions of solopreneurs get paid and manage their money end-to-end. The all-in-one solution combines two industry-leading financial services - QuickBooks Checking (a business banking hub with a purpose-built bank account provided by Green Dot Bank) and QuickBooks Payments.
To achieve their vision of success, solopreneurs need seamless, accessible and affordable financial solutions built with their unique needs in mind. Simplifying and understanding cash flow is a primary need, from getting paid (instantly accessing earned money and offering customers flexible options to pay them) to tracking finances (with a single view into the money moving into and out of their business). QuickBooks Money solves these basic challenges for solopreneurs while offering them access to a full range of solutions in the QuickBooks platform as their business grows.
For more information on QuickBooks Money click here, and visit greendot.com/business to see all Green Dot has to offer as an embedded finance partner to some of the world’s biggest brands.
