Opportunity

HoneyBook saw an opportunity to deliver more value to their members by offering tailored financial products within their platform.

Solution

By partnering with Unit, HoneyBook helps their members manage their cash flow, get big-picture financial insights, and grow their businesses.

A command center for small businesses

HoneyBook is the leading AI-powered business management platform for service-based businesses. 

For small-business owners, managing operational tasks and company finances can be daunting. Typically, they use 4-6+ different software tools to do things like communicate with clients, draft proposals, schedule meetings, sign contracts, send invoices, and track expenses.

With HoneyBook, business owners can easily manage their workflows while delivering an exceptional experience for their clients. Today, more than 100,000 independent businesses in the U.S. and Canada trust HoneyBook to book clients, manage projects, and get paid. 

“Our members have enough to worry about without trying to keep track of a dozen different software tools,” says Asha Bhatia, Director of Product at HoneyBook. “HoneyBook makes every part of doing business feel seamless, simple, and professional.” 

As HoneyBook scaled, they identified an opportunity to provide even more value to their customers. Managing cash flow is a significant problem for many independent businesses—and it’s one that HoneyBook is well-positioned to help solve.  

To do that, they set out to build a better banking experience, accessible directly from the HoneyBook platform.*

What HoneyBook built with Lincoln Savings Bank and Unit*:

• A centralized place to manage business finances 
• Early access to ACH payments
• HoneyBook Balance business checking accounts
• Programmable debit cards (both physical and virtual) to manage corporate spend

Why small businesses choose embedded financial products

About 1 in 4 U.S. businesses fail within their first year, often because they can’t coordinate the timing of income and expenses.

The challenge is that payments arrive on different timelines and from a variety of sources. For small-business owners who are already strapped for time, it can be difficult to get a clear view of what money is coming in when—let alone align these capital inflows with the timing of expenses. In fact, 68% of small-business owners say they struggle with cash flow. 

Even worse, many small-business owners are managing company finances from their personal bank accounts. That’s because most traditional banks require a history of business activity to open a business account. But personal accounts weren’t designed to track business expenses —making tax time a challenge. 

“Banking is a critical function for independent businesses,” says Tal Gonenne, Staff Product Manager at Honeybook.  “By offering business checking accounts with Lincoln Savings Bank, we can help our members better understand their finances and confidently make important decisions for their business.”

Choosing the right partner for scale 

In their search for a platform to help them launch embedded banking, HoneyBook evaluated all of the major players—and chose Unit for three reasons:

1. A complete product. Unit provides all the necessary financial infrastructure for companies to seamlessly embed a bank's financial products into their platforms with just a few lines of code.

2. Product vision and velocity. Unit has a compelling vision, a public roadmap, and ships new products frequently.

3. A dedicated partner. Unit resolves issues quickly and provides the strategic partnership HoneyBook needs to optimize their embedded banking products.

“Unit has the infrastructure you need to launch quickly,” says Bhatia. “They’ve helped us quickly and efficiently build the financial hub our customers need to scale their businesses. For SaaS companies, it’s a game changer.”

Banking built for small-business owners

By offering tailored financial products and budgeting tools, HoneyBook solves numerous problems for their customers, with powerful benefits:

• A centralized financial hub. HoneyBook has become the financial control center for independent businesses. Armed with a clear view of their finances, HoneyBook’s members deeply understand their business health and what steps to take next (e.g., hire team members, apply for a business loan).

• Financial insights and cash-flow management. With embedded financial tools, HoneyBook can offer insights into areas such as income, expenses, profitability, payroll, and taxes. HoneyBook automatically tags transactions, which enables members to sort cash flow by client and see which projects are the most profitable.

• Spend management. HoneyBook’s members can quickly request and receive debit cards, both physical and virtual—making it easier to track purchases and manage expenses. They can automate expense categorization and even tag expenses to specific projects. As a result, business owners can view their expenses by client and better understand their profitability.

• Automated savings. HoneyBook helps members plan for the future with accounts dedicated to savings goals. Funds are automatically withdrawn from incoming payments and placed into “savings buckets” for specific goals. 

“Partnering with Lincoln Savings Bank and Unit is a win-win for HoneyBook,” says Gonenne. “We can deliver more value to our customers by offering a premium service, and in doing so, increase our product stickiness and diversify our revenue streams.”

*HoneyBook, Inc. is a financial technology company and is not a bank. Banking services provided by Lincoln Savings Bank, Member FDIC. The HoneyBook Visa® Debit Card is issued by Lincoln Savings Bank pursuant to a license from Visa U.S.A. Inc. and may be used everywhere Visa cards are accepted.