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Cash flow is the number one concern keeping small and medium business owners awake at night, a survey has found.
Cash flow issues, inflation still plaguing businesses, NAB survey finds
22 May 2025
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7 minute read
NAB’s survey of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) found that the top three challenges worrying business owners in 2025 are cash flow, profitability and inflation.
“In a challenging year for many SMEs, cash flow and profitability have become more pressing concerns. But businesses are becoming increasingly resilient,” NAB said.
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The survey indicated that cost pressures continued to weigh heavily on businesses, even as price growth has eased within the RBA’s 2–3 per cent target range.
Almost half (43 per cent) of SMEs listed cash flow as a top-three worry, followed by profitability (38 per cent) and inflation (30 per cent). Inflation woes had eased slightly from the previous year but remained a top concern for business owners.
Looking to business services specifically, 50 per cent cited cash flow as a top-three concern. Many accounting firms planned to raise their fees across all services in response to profitability and inflation concerns, a pricing benchmark report by Ignition found.
The report found that 80 per cent of accounting firms planned to raise their fees in 2025, over half of which (64 per cent) cited “covering rising business costs” as the main reason driving their fee hikes.
Labour shortages were also a top concern for 40 per cent of business service SMEs, NAB found. The accountant shortage has been a long-running issue that has hampered the accounting industry.
To cope with persistently high business costs, SMEs reportedly explored a number of different solutions. Half (50 per cent) were looking to cut costs where possible, while 37 per cent said they would increase their marketing efforts.
On the other hand, some looked to change their pricing strategies (28 per cent), while others invested in new training, talent and people (28 per cent).
The finance and insurance industry reported concerns around profitability, government regulations and cyber attacks, NAB’s survey found.
A series of recent cyber attacks on financial institutions has likely underpinned this rising sense of concern, with 42 per cent of finance and insurance companies worried about cyberattacks compared to 31 per cent the year prior.
As a small sign of the turning economic tide, the share of SMEs that were highly concerned about interest rates fell from 10 per cent to 16 per cent. Furthermore, concerns related to staff turnover and labour shortages fell to 29 per cent, down from 35 per cent the year prior.
The RBA’s decision to cut interest rates on Tuesday will likely further buoy the business outlook and give confidence that the economy has turned a corner. Regardless, looming and structural threats such as trade tensions and stagnant productivity could continue to weigh on small businesses and the economy.
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