FreshBooks


FreshBooks is accounting software operated by 2ndSite Inc. primarily for small and medium-sized businesses. It is a web-based software as a service model, that can be accessed through a desktop or mobile device.
The company was founded in 2003 and is based in Toronto, Canada.

History

FreshBooks was founded in 2004 by Mike McDerment in Toronto, Ontario. McDerment incorporated a second company, BillSpring in January 2015 to work on new product development. It was rolled back into FreshBooks as an updated interface in 2016.
Initially FreshBooks functioned like an electronic invoicing program targeting IT professionals. The initial release of FreshBooks is now referred to as “FreshBooks Classic.” FreshBooks Classic’s front-end application was built in PHP, and the backend services were built in Python.

Product

FreshBooks offers a subscription-based product that includes invoicing, accounts payable, expense tracking, time tracking, retainers, fixed asset depreciation, purchase orders, payroll integrations, double-entry accounting, and industry-standard business and management reporting. All financial data is stored in the cloud on a single unified ledger, allowing users to access the same set of books regardless of location on desktop and mobile. It offers a free API that enables customers and 3rd-party software vendors to integrate external applications with FreshBooks. FreshBooks also supports multiple tax rates and currencies. It also incorporates a payroll feature and a projects feature. The software is priced on a pay-per-use recurring monthly fee.
FreshBooks supports country specific tax calculation in Canada, the United States and Britain. GST and HST in Canada, sales taxes in the United States, and MTD in the UK are supported by Freshbooks.

Operations

FreshBooks has its headquarters in Toronto, Canada with operations in North America, Europe and Australia. Founder Mike McDerment has been the chief executive officer of the company, since its inception in 2003.

Funding

In 2014, FreshBooks raised a Series A venture investment of $30 million led by the venture capital firm Oak Investment Partners, with participation by Georgian Partners and Atlas Venture. In 2017, the company announced that it raised another $43 million in funding from Accomplice, Georgian Partners and Oak Investment Partners.