How to Use Intuit’s 2025 Report to Strengthen Your CAS Offerings

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Intuit's 2025 Small-Business Index Annual Report was recently released. Three themes stood out as applicable for the business owners we advise in CAS: financing, digital integration, and labor trends. This report serves as a great starting point for conversations with clients and prospects in your accounting firm.

Upcoming Live Events that I will be at:

• The Kick C@$ Jam Sessions are for procrastinators to unite. A 55-minute weekly (Tuesdays at 2:30 PM CST starting July 15th) work sprint to knock out your “I’ll do it later” tasks in The Kick C@$ Community.

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• Speaking at Bridging The Gap Accounting Conference on July 22nd through July 24th.

• Speaking at Intuit Connect on October 27th through October 29th.

1. Credit Cards as Financing

According to Intuit, credit cards are now the top financing method for small businesses in the U.S. While convenient, relying on credit cards poses serious risks due to high interest rates, which can potentially harm cash flow.

How to Advise Clients on this Issue

• Highlight the risks. Share Intuit's data directly with your client and ask them how much they currently rely on credit cards to cover short-term needs. This opens the door to valuable conversations about better cash management.

• Encourage establishing a financial safety net. My advice, outlined in an Inc. article, is straightforward:

  1. Help clients secure a line of credit (LOC) that covers two to three months of fixed operating expenses, ideally before a crisis happens.

  2. Support them in building a cash reserve equal to 1–3 months of operating costs. This reserve can help manage unexpected events or take advantage of opportunities without adding debt.

• Demonstrate incremental improvement. Longtime readers will recall using the "Power of 1" to demonstrate to your CAS clients how incremental improvements to key cash flow metrics (such as pricing, receivables collection days, etc.) yield cash flow and net income benefits over time.

2. Digital Integration: Driving Efficiency and Growth

Intuit's report confirms that small businesses with deeper digital integration report higher productivity, increased revenue growth, and greater confidence compared to less digitally savvy competitors.

Advisory Actions You Can Take

• Offer accounting tech recommendations. Clients often recognize the need to adopt better accounting technology, but they typically struggle with where to begin. You can help them by evaluating their current accounting processes for opportunities to implement new accounting tools that streamline processes, improve timeliness, and/or enhance accuracy and security. I include an accounting tech review in most of my new client assessments. You can take it a step further by offering structured project management, which involves choosing the right tools, setting clear timelines, and providing staff training.

• Connect digital improvements directly to financial outcomes. For example, integrating a tool like Ignition to automate receivables can easily reduce collection days, directly improving cash flow. Clients appreciate seeing exactly how technology impacts their bottom line. Again, the Power of 1 concept makes this easy to show.

3. Labor Trends: Smart Staffing Decisions

Intuit notes significant volatility in the labor market from late 2023 to 2024, including the most significant drop in small-business employment in nearly a decade, followed by recent signs of recovery. The hiring picture varies significantly by sector, making hiring and staffing decisions more complex for your clients.

Using the Labor Efficiency Ratio (LER)

In an earlier CAS Cache issue, we discussed using the Labor Efficiency Ratio as a helpful staffing benchmark. Intuit's report highlights recent volatility and variations in employment by industry, underscoring the importance of having clear, data-driven staffing benchmarks, such as the LER. While Intuit provides helpful context on overall employment trends, CAS advisors can apply metrics like LER to turn those broad insights into actionable, client-specific staffing guidance. Here's a practical approach:

• Discuss industry trends and client staffing plans. Use Intuit's industry-specific employment data to facilitate meaningful conversations with clients. Share relevant industry trends and ask them directly: "How are these conditions impacting your business right now? What are your current hiring or firing plans?" Then, introduce the LER as a practical metric to ground those staffing decisions in financial data, rather than relying solely on instinct. This approach enables clients to directly connect broad industry shifts to their operations, opening the door for valuable, strategic discussions around staffing.

• Regularly scheduled reviews: Build monthly reviews of LER metrics into your advisory routine. This provides concrete data to help clients make hiring or reduction decisions, replacing guesswork with clear financial benchmarks.

Conclusion

Intuit's 2025 Small-Business Index Annual Report offers a timely snapshot of the challenges and opportunities our CAS clients face today, especially in financing methods, digital integration, and labor management. The data in this report gives us valuable context and powerful conversation starters. Perfect for strengthening your advisory relationships or an opening to a Voice of Customer.  

Whether you're guiding clients away from risky credit card dependence toward safer financial cushions, helping them leverage digital tools for tangible cash-flow improvements, or facilitating strategic hiring decisions through clear benchmarks like LER, you have practical insights ready to share right now.

Use these insights proactively by scheduling client meetings, referencing relevant industry trends, asking meaningful questions, and proposing structured advisory engagements. By consistently connecting these broader economic trends to their business realities, you'll position yourself as a trusted advisor who delivers actionable clarity.

Thanks for reading, Luke Templin!

P.S. There are four ways I can help you grow your CAS offerings when you are ready:

1. Join my How to Start Offering Advisory Services Cohort.

2. Cannot wait until it starts? Check out the pre-recorded version here.

3. Join The Kick C@$ Community to grow your CAS offering alongside others doing the same.

4. Automated white-labeled financial digests for your clients with FinDaily.io