FreshBooks launches Automatic Expense Import, connecting customer accounts directly to their bank

FreshBooks gives small business owners a simple, automated way to manage expenses and understand the health of their business.  

FreshBooks, the developer of popular cloud accounting systems for small business owners, has officially rolled out Automatic Expense Import utility. The program automatically draws expenses in from bank accounts and gives users an easy way to track spending and to see their profit and loss at a glance. The function had previously been in beta testing.

This latest addition to the FreshBooks cloud accounting suite of simple, timesaving capabilities, allows small business owners to connect their financial institutions (including bank accounts and credit cards) directly to FreshBooks and have their expenses imported automatically into their account every day.

“Small business owners want to focus on serving their customers and on doing what they love, not on accounting,” said Mike McDerment, FreshBooks co-founder and CEO. "The ability to automatically import expenses from your bank enables small business owners to effortlessly manage their expenses, which helps them know exactly how much they’re spending and frees up times to work on more important things than paperwork. This is the promise of the cloud – a better way to work.”

Automatic Expense Import includes:

• Quick one-time setup to connect financial institutions to your FreshBooks account
• Automatically brings in new expenses daily, on an ongoing basis until disconnected
• Accommodates multiple accounts including checking, credit card and PayPal
• Imports the last 30-90 days of expenses data (depending on the bank)
• Flags duplications and makes editing painless

FreshBooks Automatic Expense Import, which has been in use with over 3000 customers since October 2012, is now broadly available in North America with support for more than 9,000 US financial institutions and 61 Canadian financial institutions. Customers outside of the US and Canada can identify which banks they would like supported by completing a form request found on the FreshBooks blog. Going forward, Automatic Expense Import is included with all FreshBooks paid packages, and for a limited time it is also available to existing, free FreshBooks accounts as well.

FreshBooks supports a wide range of service-based small business types: designers, lawyers, marketing and IT professionals, plumbers, interior decorators – any business with 1-10 employees that serves clients with their time and expertise. Whether logging expenses at the coffee shop, on the way from a client meeting or at the airport lounge, FreshBooks Automatic Expense Imports will help small business owners to save even more time managing the money they spend.   More about the FreshBooks Automatic Expense Import feature is at the FreshBooks blog.