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By Maria Valdez Haubrich

How do your small business’s spending habits stack up against those of other entrepreneurs nationwide? PEX Card’s first SMB (Small and Midsized Businesses) Benchmark Expense Survey, conducted in December, has some good and bad news about small business expenses.

First, the bad news: PEX Card found that more than 60 percent of businesses expect their spending to increase in 2013. Among businesses with 25 to 49 employees, that figure was even higher (70 percent). Now, the good news: For more than one-third of businesses, spending is going up because of expenses associated with business growth.

Overall, PEX found, the average SMB spends nearly $800K annually in the categories that were itemized in the survey.  Expenses vary widely, though, depending on the size of the company. For those companies with fewer than 10 employees, average expenses were $378K; for companies with over 25 employees, the average was $1.7M.

What’s taking the biggest bite out of small business budgets?

Staffing expenses (which include sales staff compensation and incentives, healthcare coverage and the cost of workers’ compensation insurance) accounted for 50 percent of itemized expenses overall. Those companies with 10 to 24 employees spent the biggest proportion of their expenses on staffing (57 percent).

Where were the biggest cost increases?

More than 50 percent of respondents said that fuel, taxes and licenses increased the most year-over-year.

What are the costs attributed to growth?

The more businesses grew, the more they spent on fuel and insurance. However, the more businesses grew, the less they spent on taxes and licenses, sales and marketing, and office supplies and equipment.

How much is spent on marketing and sales?

This was a fairly large portion of expenses, representing 30 percent of expenses overall. Companies with fewer than 10 employees spent proportionally more on this category (34 percent), while the largest companies (those with 25 or more employees) spent the least (26 percent).  However, those companies spent 50 percent of their sales and marketing budget on advertising, significantly higher than the average of 34 percent.

Equipment and office supply expense accounted for 15 percent of expenses overall, but for the smallest companies, it accounted for 20 percent of expenses. Insurance accounted for 14 percent of total expenses; in this case, the largest companies were likely to pay proportionally more for insurance.

See the full survey results to compare how your business stacks up with others like you.

Image by Flickr user Tax Credits (Creative Commons)