Fundbox + FreshBooks: Powering an Embedded Line of Credit for Service-Based Small Businesses

At a glance

Fundbox is now an embedded lending partner inside FreshBooks. Eligible U.S. service-based small business owners can use the revenue, invoice, and payment history already in their FreshBooks account to qualify for a Fundbox line of credit, with a decision in as little as a few minutes and no separate paperwork is required to get started. It's the shift reshaping the rest of the small business stack: capital should show up where the work already happens.

Key takeaways

• Fundbox lines of credit are now available directly inside FreshBooks for eligible U.S. small businesses.
• Eligibility is assessed from the data owners already track in FreshBooks, no tax returns, no bank statement uploads, no branch visits.
• Decisions come in as soon as a few minutes; funds can land as soon as the next business day.
• A line of credit is the right tool for "gappy" cash flow, covering payroll or a supplier bill while waiting on invoices, then repaying and reusing the line.

Built on more than a decade of trust

FreshBooks has trusted Fundbox to help its customers access capital since 2014, one of the first embedded lending integrations of its kind. The partnership has iterated continuously since: starting with invoice-based advances, expanding into broader credit access for FreshBooks owners, and now reaching its deepest integration yet, a Fundbox line of credit, underwritten on FreshBooks data, surfaced inside the app.

The 15% problem (and why FreshBooks data solves it)

The Federal Reserve reports that only about 15% of small business loan applications are approved by big banks. Nearly half of small businesses don't even apply, assuming the answer will be no. Almost two-thirds don't have access to a business credit card. (Federal Reserve Small Business Credit Survey; PYMNTS)

That isn't a credit problem. It's a distribution problem.

Service-based businesses, designers, consultants, agencies, IT shops, lawyers, and contractors, are exactly the kind of owners traditional underwriting was never built to model. Their cash flow is lumpy by design: invoices paid 30 or 60 days out, payroll and rent that don't wait.

Fundbox provides access to capital and conducts underwriting; FreshBooks brings the data and the distribution… Embedding the two in the same workflow is the most useful version of embedded lending: capital that arrives in the tool owners already open every day, qualified by data they've already entered, on terms they can read in one screen.

"Service-based business owners shouldn't have to translate their business twice, once for the work, and once for the bank," said Anchit Singh, Chief Business Officer at Fundbox. "FreshBooks already has the truest picture of these owners' businesses: who they invoice, who pays on time, how revenue trends quarter over quarter. Fundbox's job is to read that picture and turn it into a line of credit that's there the day they need it."

The FreshBooks Customer Experience:

Eligible customers will see a Fundbox line of credit as a financing option on the Business Financing page inside FreshBooks. The mechanics are built around how service businesses actually use money. It allows owners to:

1. Check eligibility in-app. FreshBooks revenue and invoice data automatically surface offers. No tax returns. No bank statement uploads. No credit score impact for checking.*
2. Review terms in plain language. One flat fee, displayed upfront. No compound interest.
3. Apply in minutes through a streamlined online application.
4. Get a decision in minutes, with funds available as soon as the next business day.
5. Draw, repay, reuse. Owners only pay for what they draw. As the balance is repaid, the repaid amount (minus fees) becomes available to draw again.

Traditional underwriting was built around documents. Modern underwriting, the kind Fundbox has spent more than a decade building, is built around time-series financial data: a moving picture of revenue, receivables, payment history, customer concentration, and seasonality. That data already lives in FreshBooks, structured and current. The accounting platform stops being a record-keeping tool and starts being the cleanest signal a lender can underwrite against. The result for the owner is faster, fairer, and significantly less work.

Thinking about embedded lending for your platform?

The small business lending market is projected to grow at roughly a 13% CAGR through 2032 (Allied Market Research), and most of that growth won't happen at bank branches. It will happen inside the platforms small businesses already use to run their day: the accounting software, the payments processors, the vertical SaaS tools that already see the data.

That's where Fundbox comes in. Fundbox partners with leading SaaS platforms to deliver a credit experience built for how small businesses actually work, with the full lending, compliance, and capital infrastructure already in place.

If embedded lending is on your roadmap, let's talk.