FreeAgent and Fathom Partner to Help SMEs Better Manage Finances

FreeAgent and Fathom Partner to Help SMEs Better Manage Finances
  • Accounting software provider FreeAgent has partnered with reporting, analysis, and forecasting platform Fathom.
  • The partnership will enable small businesses in the UK to access real-time profit and loss reporting, cash flow forecasting, KPI dashboards, and interactive management reports.
  • Founded in 2007, FreeAgent made its Finovate debut at FinovateEurope 2013 in London.

A newly announced partnership between accounting software provider FreeAgent and all-in-one reporting, analysis, and forecasting platform Fathom will enhance the ability of small businesses in the UK—and their accountants—to better manage their finances and make smarter business decisions.

“By partnering with Fathom, we’re giving accountants and their clients the tools they need to scale up their financial scrutiny and analysis,” FreeAgent CSO Stewart Hurd said. “Rather than simply giving an overview of the current financial position, our integration offers deeper, visual insights, forecasting, and scenario modeling into small business data—meaning that accountants are better prepared to answer the questions that really matter.”

Automatically syncing data between FreeAgent and Fathom will enable companies to access real-time profit and loss reporting, cash flow forecasting, KPI dashboards, and interactive and customizable management reports. The integration will also allow accountants to support multiple clients with different reporting needs, and provide them with advisory insights. The latter will come courtesy of Fathom’s technology, which delivers in-depth reporting, forecasting, and scenario modeling that will enhance the ability of small business accountants to provide greater value to their clients.

“FreeAgent has built award-winning accounting software that thousands of UK SMEs rely on daily, but we’ve consistently heard that many businesses outgrow basic reporting as they scale,” Fathom Country Manager Darren Glanville said. “This integration changes that entirely. FreeAgent users now get direct access to Fathom’s enterprise-grade toolkit—which, for accounting partners, means they can deliver genuine strategic advisory services whilst clients stay in the platform they already know. We’re not just connecting two systems, we’re fundamentally upgrading what’s possible for ambitious businesses using FreeAgent.”

Based in Brisbane, Queensland, Fathom is an Australian firm that specializes in corporate performance management (CPM) software. Founded in 2012, Fathom offers a management reporting, forecasting, and financial analysis tool that helps business owners assess business performance, monitor trends, and identify areas for improvement. More than 90,000 businesses and advisors use Fathom’s technology, and the firm enjoys a 36% market share in the Australian financial reporting software category, according to Practice Protect’s Australian Cloud Accounting Apps Report 2025-2026. Fathom was acquired by The Access Group in 2022.

FreeAgent made its Finovate debut at FinovateEurope 2013. In the years since then, the UK-based fintech has grown into an accounting software provider with more than 200,000 users. FreeAgent’s platform features tools for tax self assessment, VAT, and MTD. The technology enables firms to send invoices and automatic payment reminders, and record expenses and mileage to easily track business costs. FreeAgent also helps business owners make smarter business decisions by providing them with deep insights into profit and loss, cash flow, and overall business performance.

Acquired by NatWest Group in 2018, FreeAgent was founded in 2007. Co-founder Roan Lavery is CEO.


Photo by Pixabay

FreeAgent and Pleo Team Up to Help Small Businesses Manage Expenses, Cash Flow

FreeAgent and Pleo Team Up to Help Small Businesses Manage Expenses, Cash Flow
  • Accounting software provider FreeAgent has partnered with spend management platform Pleo.
  • The partnership makes Pleo FreeAgent’s preferred expense management partner, enabling seamless, automated syncing of data from Pleo into FreeAgent.
  • Headquartered in Edinburgh, Scotland, FreeAgent made its Finovate debut at FinovateEurope 2013 in London.

A new partnership between accounting software provider FreeAgent and spend management platform Pleo will help small businesses in the UK better manage both day-to-day expenses as well as cash flow.

As part of the alliance, Pleo will now serve as FreeAgent’s preferred expense management partner. This will enable seamless syncing of expenses, card transactions, receipts, and attachments—as well as categories and VAT—from Pleo into FreeAgent. Automated syncing removes the reliance on error-prone and cumbersome manual entry, makes it easier for employees to complete their expense reporting responsibilities, and provides for more accurate, up-to-date bookkeeping for small businesses.

“We know how frustrating and time-consuming it can be for small businesses to keep track of spending, especially when lots of different people are making purchases,” FreeAgent CEO and Co-Founder Roan Lavery said. “This partnership with Pleo takes a huge amount of that stress away. Expenses are recorded and sent straight into FreeAgent without the usual chasing around for receipts or spreadsheets. It just works in the background, so business owners can focus on running their business, not wrestling with their books.”

Pleo provides small businesses with smart virtual or physical company cards that enable complete control over spending limits and policies. The technology automatically tracks, categorizes, and matches all transactions with a receipt in Pleo, then syncs directly into FreeAgent. This integration will provide business owners and finance teams with comprehensive, real-time visibility of company spending, from one-off purchases to recurring expenses.

“Pleo is thrilled to launch our integration with FreeAgent, two partners with a shared vision of empowering SMBs with seamless financial tools,” Pleo SVP Haresh Bajaj said. “This partnership is a step forward in simplifying workflows and unlocking greater value for our customers, and we’re excited about the impact we’ll achieve together.”

Headquartered in Copenhagen, Denmark, Pleo offers solutions for expense management, accounts payable, reimbursements, and vendor management, as well as smart business expense cards with individual spending limits. With more than 40,000 business users of its technology, Pleo notes that 75% of administrators using Pleo have said its solutions have made their companies more productive. Pleo recently announced its Cash Management solution which combines spend and cash management to give businesses full visibility over all accounts, lower FX costs, and earn on idle cash in a single resource.

Founded in 2007, FreeAgent offers accounting software and support for small businesses and their accounting and bookkeeping teams. The Edinburgh, Scotland-based fintech made its Finovate debut at FinovateEurope 2013, and was acquired by NatWest Group in 2018. With more than 200,000 users, FreeAgent also recently announced a partnership with Australian corporate performance management (CPM) software provider Fathom.


Photo by Adam Wilson on Unsplash

Sensibill and FreeAgent Team Up to Bring Automation to Small Business Expense Management

Sensibill and FreeAgent Team Up to Bring Automation to Small Business Expense Management

A collaboration announced late last week between a pair of Finovate alums will give small businesses new options when it comes to digital receipt and expense management.

Toronto, Ontario, Canada’s Sensibill, which won Best of Show for its FinovateFall demo of its digital receipt insights solution, has partnered with FreeAgent. The U.K.-based cloud accounting software company will combine Sensibill’s technology within its own new Auto Extract feature to help SMEs transition from manual expense management and receipt tracking to a modern, automated process.

“By joining forces with FreeAgent, we’re eliminating the time and money businesses have traditionally spent manually entering data into clunky and cumbersome spreadsheets and systems,” Sensibill Chief Technology Officer Danny Piangerelli said. “Instead, we’re delivering item-level details that enable faster, better expense management.”

Sensibill’s customer data platform blends ethically sourced, enriched SKU-level data with real-time, actionable insights to help FIs achieve personalization at scale. Integrated into FreeAgent’s Auto Extract technology, the technology enables businesses to capture, organize, and categorize their receipts digitally and accurately link them with corresponding bank transactions.

“Automation is at the center of our business,” FreeAgent co-founder and CEO Roan Lavery said, “which is why partnering with Sensibill was a natural choice.” Lavery added the collaboration will help increase satisfaction and engagement among customers while relieving SMEs and their accounting team from the “administrative hassles,” costs, and inaccuracies that plague most manual, expense management processes.

Founded in 2007 and making its Finovate debut in Europe in 2013, FreeAgent was acquired by NatWest five years later for $73 million (£53 million). The company currently has more than 110,000 small businesses, freelancers, and contractors in the U.K. using its technology for a variety of key business tasks – from invoice and expense management to project management and sales tax calculation.

With more than 60 million users across 150+ financial institutions in Canada, the U.S. and the U.K., Sensibill was founded in 2013 and has raised more than $50 million in equity capital. Founded by current CEO Corey Gross, the company has forged partnerships this year with fellow fintech CAARY, as well as with Maryland-based SkyPoint Federal Credit Union ($182 million in assets) and AbbyBank, a full-service community bank based in Wisconsin with assets of $616 million.


Photo by Karolina Grabowska from Pexels

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This post will be updated throughout the day as news and developments emerge. You can also follow all the alumni news headlines on the Finovate Twitter account.

Starling Bank Selects FreeAgent

Starling Bank Selects FreeAgent

Cloud accounting platform FreeAgent teamed up with Starling Bank this week. The partnership aims to make business banking easier for Starling’s business and freelancer clients.

As Roan Lavery, FreeAgent co-founder and CPO said in the announcement, “This integration allows Starling customers to link their bank account with FreeAgent, pulling in transactions on a daily basis. From there, these transactions can be reconciled as normal.”

Starling said the impetous of the partnership was the increased demand for business banking services the bank experienced after a successful integration with FreeAgent competitor Xero in November of last year. Starling said it hopes the new integration will reduce stress levels for small businesses, which can sync their Starling business bank accounts with FreeAgent as of this week.

Here’s how it works– once businesses give FreeAgent consent, data associated with the business’ Starling account, including transaction time, spending category, and transaction name, is pulled over to the FreeAgent platform. By syncing both historic and current transaction data automatically, businesses can spend less time on manual data entry and benefit from more accurate reports.

Founded in 2007, FreeAgent offers cloud accounting services to help small businesses and freelancers manage their accounts. The U.K.-based company provides an API for easy integration, and works with existing startups such as Basecamp, Stripe, PayPal, and Xpenditure. The company also has an offering for accountants, a sales tax reporting tool, a fully-integrated payroll system, and freelancer tools such as time tracking and a project profitability estimator.

FreeAgent CEO Ed Molyneux debuted FreeAgent’s Financial Health Insights at FinovateEurope 2013 in London. In 2016, the company went public and, last year, was acquired by RBS in an offer valued at $75 million (£53 million).

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FreeAgent Acquired by RBS

FreeAgent Acquired by RBS

Cloud accounting platform FreeAgent has agreed to a takeover bid from the Royal Bank of Scotland this week. CEO Ed Molyneux and the rest of the board have accepted the offer, which values FreeAgent at approximately $75 million (£53 million).

In a blog post announcement, Molyneux said that the acquisition will allow the company to progress toward its vision and improve the FreeAgent platform for both customers and partners. “As part of a larger organisation we want to accelerate our growth ambitions in the micro-business and accountancy practice space, as well as significantly improve our core product,” he added.

This agreement comes just over a year after FreeAgent began working with RBS. The two formed a distribution partnership last January in which RBS offered FreeAgent’s accounting software services to its small business clients. The deal will help both parties leverage new opportunities to offer a more integrated banking and accounting experience for small businesses since, as Molyneux said, “the lines between banking, accounting and tax are becoming increasingly blurred.”

After the deal is closed, FreeAgent will continue to operate business as usual. In a Q&A, Molyneux said the company has “no intention of significantly changing the way that [it does] business with [its] customers.” FreeAgent shareholders will receive $1.70 (120 pence) per share. This represents an 86% premium to yesterday’s share price and a 43% premium to the IPO price of $1.19 (84 pence).

Founded in 2007, FreeAgent offers cloud accounting services for small businesses, an API for easy integration, and integrations with existing startups such as Basecamp, Stripe, PayPal, and Xpenditure. The company also has an offering for accountants and a fully-integrated payroll system.

Molyneux debuted FreeAgent’s Financial Health Insights at FinovateEurope 2013 in London. Since then, the company went public in 2016 and last month launched the Customer Sales Report, which allows businesses to see how much income they’ve received from each customer.

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NatWest, RBS to Offer Clients Business Banking Solutions from FreeAgent

NatWest, RBS to Offer Clients Business Banking Solutions from FreeAgent

FreeAgent_homepage_January2017

This week marks two big wins for online accounting system provider FreeAgent. NatWest has agreed to provide FreeAgent’s SaaS business banking solution to its small business clients this year. FreeAgent also signed an agreement with The Royal Bank of Scotland that will put its cloud-based accounting solution in the hands of RBS’s small business customers.

“We’re absolutely thrilled to have been chosen from over 30 vendors to help and support Royal Bank of Scotland and NatWest’s business customers,” FreeAgent CEO Ed Molyneux wrote on the company blog. “By moving onto the FreeAgent platform, we hope life will become easier for these small businesses (who in many cases have to do their accounting themselves) by allowing them to concentrate on running their businesses.”

FreeAgent_stage_FEU2013

Pictured: Ed Molyneux, founder and CEO of FreeAgent, demonstrating his company’s SaaS accounting solution at FinovateEurope 2013 in London.

As part of the partnership, FreeAgent’s technology will be connected to the business bank accounts of RBS and NatWest customers. The company’s platform – already used by 50,000 businesses – helps small businesses, entrepreneurs, and freelancers manage invoices, expenses, taxes, projects, and more. In December, FreeAgent launched a variety of new features for its mobile app, FreeAgent Mobile, including a tax timeline and notifications, a profit & loss screen, and a cashflow screen. FreeAgent Mobile is available on both iOS and Android platforms.

Founded in 2007 and based in Edinburgh, U.K., FreeAgent demonstrated its platform at FinovateEurope 2013. The company raised more than $10 million in funding from investors including IRIS Software Group, SaaS Capital, and Seedrs, before going public last November. FreeAgent trades on the London Stock Exchange under the symbol “FREE” and has a market capitalization of $54 million (£44 million). The company’s technology was listed in Creative Boom’s roundup of “must-have apps for freelancers” last year.

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This post will be updated throughout the day as news and developments emerge. You can also follow all the alumni news headlines on the Finovate Twitter account.