Leveraging its proprietary data from more 100,000 SMEs using its suite of banking, accounting, and business admin software, Ageras' inaugural inflation index shows that in the latest quarter, small businesses lost significant pricing power across seven of Europe's most important economies.
Ageras, the leading fintech company utilizing its banking and accounting software to power more than one million small businesses across Europe and the United States, announced today that it launched its proprietary Inflation Tracker, revealing how the rise in the Consumer Price Index dramatically outpaced the rise in prices billed by Europe's small businesses across seven Western European economies in the most recent quarter.
By comparing how much tens of thousands of freelancers, microbusinesses, and other SMEs raised the prices for the same set of goods via Ageras' accounting software between July through September versus the rise in each country's official Consumer Price Index, Ageras data provides insight into how the smallest business owners across some of Europe's largest economies are faring relative to overall inflation rates.
"We launched our index because we wanted to objectively study and highlight the unique challenges facing the economy's unsung heroes sole proprietors and other small businesses," said Ageras Co-founder Martin Hegelund. "Our data in this inaugural report show that inflation left small business owners worse off in every country we studied. We hope these data are a wake-up call for policymakers to focus more on inflation's outsized impact on small businesses."
Ageras' index focused on seven European economies--Austria, Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom. It chose these countries because Ageras' software suite is most heavily used there, and its dataset is strongest. Ageras' future index reports will expand the countries it studies.
In Europe's largest economies, the CPI rose between 2% to 3% faster than price hikes by small businesses. In France and Germany, there was a 2.6% gap between official CPI data and SMEs studied by Ageras. In the United Kingdom, inflation's impact was slightly weaker. Prices there rose 2.2% faster than SMEs raised their prices.
However, inflation's largest impact was across some of Western Europe's small countries in the most recent quarter.
Among the seven countries that Ageras' index measured, inflation's impact hit SMEs in Austria hardest. Austria's CPI rose 5.3% faster than small businesses raised their prices last quarter. The gap was second highest in Belgium at 4.4%, followed by Denmark at 4.2%. Small business owners were best off in Switzerland, where the CPI rose 0.8% faster than SMEs raised the price of their goods.
Here are the full country reports (alphabetically ordered) using Ageras' proprietary dataset
Austria:
Ageras data show small business owners in Austria raised their prices by 4.5% in Q3 of 2022 compared to the third quarter of 2021. That lagged behind the 9.8% rise in Austria's CPI during the same time period.
Belgium:
Ageras data show small business owners in Belgium raised their prices by 5.9% in the third quarter compared to the last year. That was dwarfed by the 10.3% rise in Belgium's CPI during the same period.
Denmark:
Ageras data show small business owners in Denmark raised their prices by 5% in Q3. That rate trailed the 9.2% rise in Denmark's latest CPI.
France:
Ageras data show small business owners in France raised their prices by 3.2% in Q3. That was lower than the 5.8% rise in France's Q3 CPI.
Germany:
Ageras data show small business owners in Germany raised their prices by 5.9% in Q3 2022 compared to last year. That rate was below the 8.5% rise in Germany's Q3 CPI.
Switzerland:
Ageras data show small business owners in Switzerland raised their prices by 2.6% in Q3. During that same time period, Switzerland's CPI rose at a higher rate, 3.4%.
United Kingdom:
Ageras data show small business owners in the United Kingdom raised their prices by 6.5% in Q3 2022. That rate was less than the 8.7% rise in the UK's CPI last quarter.
About Ageras:
Ageras is the ultimate fintech platform for small business owners. Its one-stop platform integrates its solutions into a single "financial cockpit" for invoicing, accounting, payroll, and banking, enabling small business owners and entrepreneurs to focus on what they do best: running their businesses. Ageras began as the online marketplace Ageras.com (matching SMEs with accountants) and has expanded into a 350-person company offering a complete ecosystem of tools and services for SMEs. Today, Ageras offers cloud-based accounting software through its products Zervant, Billy, and Tellow, banking through Kontist, and payroll software through Salary. In late 2021, the group launched an embedded fintech service that directly provides financing options to its customers through its software. Ageras' solutions have been used by more than one million small businesses across Europe and the U.S. The company was founded in 2012 by serial entrepreneurs Rico Andersen and Martin Hegelund, who have 25 years of combined experience building internet companies. For more information, please visit www.ageras.group.
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