Andrew Gunner still remembers reconciling expenses in airport terminals, often late at night between client calls and flights.
Before joining FreshBooks, he was an independent consultant juggling admin work in transit, which is exactly the kind of inefficiency he now works to eliminate.
“The difference between 48 hours and a half hour for some businesses is really significant.”
Andrew Gunner, FreshBooks
“I wasn’t using a tool like FreshBooks, and so it’s very easy for me to remember the pain and lost time of just managing my own business in a way that wasn’t super efficient,” said Gunner.
Now, as Head of Product at FreshBooks, he’s focused on helping other small business owners get that time back, and do more with it.
Much of that work centres on embedding financial tools directly into the software they already use, so they feel less like new features and more like natural extensions of existing workflows.
FreshBooks is approaching embedded finance as part of the foundation, seamlessly integrated into core tasks. Payments, capital access, and automation are built to support momentum, reduce steps, and keep users focused on running their business.
Embedded finance as infrastructure
FreshBooks defines embedded finance not as a bolt-on, but as a deep integration between financial management and financial execution. It shows up in tools like FreshBooks Payments powered by Stripe, which allows users to accept credit card or bank payments directly through their invoices.
In 2023, FreshBooks also partnered with YouLend to offer flexible financing for 100,000 customers across the US. Instead of paying a fixed monthly repayment, business owners can pay a small percentage of their daily card transactions.
“When our customers are using our platform to manage their finances, they’re doing that by providing us data,” Gunner said. “We can use that information to help them get underwritten for a loan in a way that they may not be able to do with a more traditional financial institution. That’s giving them the power of their own data.”
That has particular value for service-based businesses, where the gap between delivering work and getting paid can strain cash flow. In those cases, capital tools give owners the ability to manage receivables while accessing financing to cover upfront costs.
“For service-based businesses, the time between doing the work, incurring expenses, and getting paid can create cash flow cycles that can be tight,” Gunner said. “By helping them manage both their receivables but providing access to working capital, we empower them to run their business more efficiently.”
Choosing partners for what’s under the hood
FreshBooks has long worked with Stripe to deliver payment capabilities. More recently, it introduced Instant Payouts, also built on Stripe infrastructure, which allows eligible users to access funds from paid invoices in as little as 30 minutes, instead of waiting the standard 48 hours.
The company recently expanded eligibility for Instant Payouts among connected account customers and have seen usage grow by nearly 40 percent, and that speed can be game-changing for a small business.
“The difference between 48 hours and a half hour for some businesses is really significant,” Gunner added.
But even as partners like Stripe power what’s under the hood, FreshBooks is deliberate about designing the experience end to end.
“We sat down with Stripe over the past few years and really invested in and overhauled our ability to provide and invest in owning the experience while using their world-class technology,” Gunner said. “It allows us to combine the best of both.”
Whether categorizing expenses or managing risk, FreshBooks is also investing in background intelligence that streamlines what used to be tedious and stressful. Through the use of AI, for example, the company is already automating the categorization of millions of expenses every month and leverages Stripe’s AI-powered tools to help its Risk team detect fraud.
“We think about automation in a couple different ways,” he said. “One is the under-the-hood investment, and in parallel, we’re also investing in experiences that customers feel.”
At the same time, the company is mindful that automation and investments in AI are useful when they actually help SMBs save time, reduce costs, and grow revenue, not when they add unnecessary complexity.
“FreshBooks can make managing finances relevant and useful for a small business customer so that we’re not over-complicating their life,” Gunner said. “Rather, we’re making it contextual and relevant and useful for them.”
A financial OS for small business
FreshBooks sees embedded finance as far from finished. In North America, embedded payments are now widely adopted. The next wave, Gunner believes, will layer in embedded capital, payroll, and other financial capabilities within a single operating system, and it starts with listening.
“We talk to customers all the time,” Gunner said. “Our usability for helping a small business owner run their business is built on millions of conversations, experiences, and touchpoints.”
Gunner returns often to that airport moment from his consulting days trying to reconcile expenses while waiting to board a plane. It’s a memory that grounds his own approach to product design, and a reminder of the time and energy FreshBooks aims to give back.
“Each moment that we can save them on managing financing or managing accounting or managing payroll, and they can reinvest that time into growing their business, is what we’re razor-focused on doing.”
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Feature image courtesy of Pexels. Headshot of Andrew Gunner provided by FreshBooks.