How Small Businesses Pay for Technology

Perhaps U.S. small businesses should spend more time with their accountants:

• A new study by HP shows that a whopping 46% of small businesses pay for technology purchases with credit cards (expensive!).





• And, over half of the businesses were not aware of the U.S. Sec.179 tax credit available to offset the cost of tech purchases.

The study was sponsored by HP. So, the statistics relate to basic office computing technology of the type sold by HP, such as PCs, printers, office software, etc. The study doesn't speak to other kinds of technology purchases.



Small Business Computing has a reasonably in-depth article about the study. There is a lot of interesting data and it's worth a read.





The use of credit cards almost half the time is not surprising. They're the easiest source of credit available to small businesses -- albeit the most expensive. Nor is it surprising that most small businesses don't understand the tax advantages available to them from buying technology. What's really surprising is why more tech vendors haven't seen this for the selling opportunity it is, by offering attractive financing programs and educating buyers about the tax advantages. They just might sell more.