Coming out of the recession, small businesses throughout the heartland have helped boost the economy. While the growth has been slow, it is still present.

Last month, the Times of Northwest Indiana covered the hiring efforts by small businesses in the state. Citing Intuit's December Small Business Index, companies with fewer than 20 employees added a total of 20,000 jobs in the final month of the year.

With a seasonally adjusted increase of 0.09 percent nationwide, small business employment increased 0.02 percent in Illinois and 0.01 percent in Indiana.

"After no progress from May through October, small business employment has now resumed its slow rise for the second month in a row," Susan Woodward, an economist who works with Intuit to create the indexes, told the news source. "For December, the growth rate is about one-tenth of 1 percent, for an annualized of just over 1 percent."

She went on to say that small businesses have added 555,000 jobs since March 2010, when the recession started to turn a corner toward recovery. Now, these companies are recovering slowly.

Despite the increase of jobs, the compensation for these employees did drop in December by 0.05 percent. With average monthly pay dropping $1 when compared to November. 

As areas like Indiana continue to grow business and create jobs, companies need to make sure their organization is expanding accordingly. Through the use of business management software solutions, any organization can easily handle how it operates and take advantage of an improving economy.