FreshBooks
FreshBooks is a cloud-based accounting software service designed for small and medium-sized businesses, offering features like invoicing, expense tracking, and time management.
Verdict
Common use cases
- Pull billable hours before client invoicing
- Summarize monthly expenses for budget reviews
- Check project status during standups
- Reconcile contractor invoices from chat
- Generate revenue reports for board decks
Integration
- Vendor
- FreshBooks
- Category
- finance
- Auth
- OAUTH2
- Tools
- 2
- Composio slug
freshbooks
Tools
- List Businesses
Tool to list all businesses associated with the authenticated user.
- List Projects
Tool to list all projects for a business. use after confirming the business id.
Setup
Setup guide
- 11. Open your Switchy workspace and navigate to Settings > Integrations. 2. Find FreshBooks in the finance category and click Connect. 3. You'll redirect to FreshBooks OAuth—log in with your account owner credentials. 4. Grant Switchy read access to businesses, projects, clients, invoices, and expenses (the scopes appear on the consent screen). 5. After authorizing, you'll return to Switchy and see a green Connected badge. 6. Open any Space and type '@FreshBooks list my businesses' to confirm the connection works. 7. Copy the business ID from the response—you'll need it to query projects or invoices. 8. Test a second command: '@FreshBooks list projects for business [paste ID]' to verify project data flows. 9. If you see 'Authentication failed', revisit Settings > Integrations and reconnect with full account permissions.
What teammates see: by default, memories from FreshBooks are scoped to the Space (PROJECT visibility) - you can mark any memory PRIVATE or share it ORG-wide.
Works well with
Top models
Compatibility data appears once enough Spaces have used this MCP together with a given model.
How Switchy teams use it
Starter prompts
List All Businesses
@FreshBooks list all businesses associated with my accountOpen in a Space →
Show Active Projects
@FreshBooks list all projects for business ID 12345 and show their current statusOpen in a Space →
Monthly Revenue Summary
@FreshBooks list projects for business 12345 then calculate total billable hours this monthOpen in a Space →
Client Project Lookup
@FreshBooks list projects for business 12345 and filter by client name Acme CorpOpen in a Space →
Expense Reconciliation
@FreshBooks list all businesses then show expenses from the past 30 days for eachOpen in a Space →
Example outputs
Illustrative - representative of the model's voice and quality, not literal recordings.
@FreshBooks show me all active projects for my main business account with their current budget status
Found 7 active projects across business ID 4829301. Notable items: "Website Redesign" (budget: $15,000, invoiced: $12,400, 83% complete), "Mobile App Phase 2" (budget: $22,000, invoiced: $8,900, 40% complete), "Brand Refresh" (budget: $6,500, invoiced: $6,500, fully billed). Three projects are under 50% budget utilization, two are nearing completion. This data reflects your FreshBooks account state as of this query.
This example demonstrates project-level financial visibility. Requires OAuth scope for both business and project data. The MCP returns structured project records; the AI synthesizes budget percentages and completion insights. If you manage multiple businesses, specify which one or the MCP defaults to the first in your account list.
@FreshBooks which business entities do I have access to and what are their primary currencies?
Your FreshBooks account has access to 2 business entities: "Acme Consulting LLC" (business ID 4829301, primary currency: USD, created March 2022) and "Acme Design Studio" (business ID 5103847, primary currency: CAD, created September 2023). Both are active. The USD entity has 18 active clients; the CAD entity has 9. This is a read-only query showing your current business structure in FreshBooks.
This read-heavy example shows how to orient yourself in a multi-entity FreshBooks account. Useful before running project or invoice queries that require a business ID. The MCP does not modify any data here—it's purely informational. If you only have one business, this step is often skipped in favor of direct project queries.
@FreshBooks compare total invoiced amounts across all my projects this quarter and flag any that are over budget
Analyzed 7 projects across your primary business. Quarter-to-date invoiced totals: $68,200. Two projects exceed their budgets: "Mobile App Phase 2" originally budgeted at $22,000 now shows $24,800 invoiced (112% of budget), and "Content Strategy" budgeted at $8,000 now at $9,100 (114% of budget). Five projects remain under budget. This synthesis combines FreshBooks project data with date-range filtering and budget math performed by the AI.
This example pairs the MCP's project-listing capability with the AI's ability to aggregate and compare financial data. The MCP provides raw project records; the AI calculates percentages and identifies outliers. Note that "this quarter" is interpreted by the AI based on today's date—FreshBooks does not natively filter projects by date range, so the AI must parse invoice timestamps from the returned data.
Use-case deep-dives
When FreshBooks MCP fits a 3-person creative shop
A three-person design agency runs 8-12 client projects at once and bills monthly. The FreshBooks MCP works here because the team needs to pull project lists into Switchy during end-of-month invoicing reviews without opening the FreshBooks UI. The two-tool scope (list businesses, list projects) covers the core lookup: confirm which business entity, then see active projects. This MCP doesn't write invoices or fetch line-item time entries, so you're still switching to FreshBooks for the actual billing work. If your workflow is just 'check which projects are open before our finance call', this MCP saves the tab-switching. If you need to draft invoices or reconcile payments inside Switchy, you'll hit the tool limit fast.
FreshBooks MCP as a read-only client dashboard
A fractional CFO manages books for six small businesses, each with its own FreshBooks account. The MCP's OAuth2 flow lets them authenticate once per client and list all businesses and projects in a single Switchy thread. This is useful for weekly check-ins where the CFO needs to see which projects are active across the portfolio without logging into six separate FreshBooks instances. The limitation: you can't pull invoices, expenses, or payment status, so this is purely a project-visibility play. If your review process is 'scan project names and ask the client about outliers', the MCP works. If you need to analyze revenue or overdue invoices, you're back in the FreshBooks UI anyway.
When FreshBooks MCP helps a contractor ramp faster
A startup hires a contract bookkeeper to take over FreshBooks from the founder. The new bookkeeper uses Switchy to document the existing setup: which business entities exist, which projects are live, and how they map to the P&L. The FreshBooks MCP's list-businesses and list-projects tools let them pull this structure into a Switchy thread and annotate it with notes for the founder to review. This is a one-time discovery task, not a recurring workflow. The MCP's narrow scope is fine here because the bookkeeper isn't trying to reconcile transactions or generate reports—they're just building a mental model of the account. If the handoff involves more than structure (like reviewing invoice templates or payment terms), the MCP won't cover it.
Frequently asked
What can the FreshBooks MCP do in Switchy?
It connects your FreshBooks account so AI agents can read your business list and project data. Useful for financial reporting prompts, cross-referencing project budgets, or pulling client names into proposals. It won't create invoices or edit time entries—just reads the structure of your businesses and projects.
Do I need admin access to connect FreshBooks via OAuth?
You need a FreshBooks account with permission to view businesses and projects. Standard user access usually works, but if your account is locked down to specific clients only, the MCP will respect those restrictions. The OAuth flow asks for read-only scopes—no write permissions.
Can the FreshBooks MCP create invoices or log time entries?
No. It only lists businesses and projects. If you need to generate invoices or track time, use FreshBooks directly or build a custom API integration. This MCP is for pulling reference data into AI workflows, not managing your accounting operations.
Why use this instead of just opening FreshBooks in a browser?
You use it when you want an AI agent to pull project names or business IDs into a larger task—like drafting a status report that references three active projects, or checking which business a client belongs to without switching tabs. It saves the copy-paste loop.
Who on the team should connect the FreshBooks MCP?
Whoever owns the FreshBooks account your team uses for billing. If multiple people have separate FreshBooks logins, each person connects their own. The MCP doesn't share credentials across Switchy users—it's one OAuth connection per person.