FreshBooks lays off 140

Accounting solutions provider FreshBooks will be laying off 140 employees across all teams, and at all levels around the world, more than 20% of its staff of roughly 500, according to an announcement from interim CEO Mara Reiff. 

As for why, she noted that the last 18 months have been "challenging," and that the company needed to take a "bold and pragmatic" step in order to "reach the destination" on their "path to profitability."

More specifically, according to a FreshBooks spokesperson in an email, the company had pivoted its strategy from growth at all costs to profitability about 18 months ago, like many tech companies given the state of financial markets.

"We need to do things differently so we can stand on our own two feet and within our financial means. This is a paradigm shift for the way we work and the company we can create," Reiff said. 

On a practical level, this means the overall team will be smaller and leaner. With this in mind, Reiff said the company has made changes to senior leadership, removed organizational layers to enable speed and agility, and combined certain teams to enhance its customer experience. In terms of senior leadership, FreshBooks said chief product and technology officer Stefano Grossi has departed from FreshBooks and supported a smooth transition from the company. 

These changes are needed for them to, in Reiff's words, "get back to basics and focus on what matters most: our customers." 

"This is why today's changes are necessary. So we can take control of our future, and deliver our mandate: to create a stronger FreshBooks that will deliver for our small-business owners, accountants, and all our stakeholders for years to come," she said. 

FreshBooks had also laid off around 80 staff members in March 2023. Then-CEO Don Epperson pointed to a need to adjust the company's funding strategy amid the market downturn, deciding that capital markets are, for the foreseeable future, too unpredictable to keep relying on external funding to fuel growth. Rather than raise more outside financing, FreshBooks at the time aimed to use its current cash flow and debt facility to reach profitability in 2025, as part of a newly approved three-year strategic plan, which requires a reduction in headcount and programmatic spending. FreshBooks had also laid off an unknown number of people the previous December. 

Later, in November 2023, Epperson and president Mark Girvan left the company, with then-chief customer officer Mara Reiff and chief financial and administrative officer Wayne Jackson acting as interim co-CEOs in their place. The announcement came shortly after the company disclosed its decision to shut down its operations in Raleigh, North Carolina.