freee acquires “Bundle” SaaS account management

freee is the market leader among both cloud-based accounting and HR software providers in Japan.

freee 会計 Accounting freee

Accounting freee is an integrated accounting software solution optimized for SMBs. Accounting freee is designed to be easy to implement and use without specialized training in accounting or bookkeeping.

freee 人事労務 HR freee

HR freee is a cloud-native integrated payroll software solution, providing payroll and other human resource related functions optimized for SMBs.

In UB Ventures’ annual review of the Japan SaaS ecosystem, freee came in fourth, with annual recurring revenue (ARR) of JPY 16.5bn and a year-on-year growth rate of 36.3%. With that, freee is one of only seven publicly listed SaaS companies that managed to exceed JPY 10bn in ARR.

freee is acquiring Why, the creator of “Bundle”, a SaaS unified management tool that supports corporate IT departments. Bundle automates user account creation, management and deletion across more than 130 SaaS platforms.

With the transaction, freee aims to strengthen employee data management functionality, information management in IT departments and overall human resources products in its integrated cloud ERP. freee will offer Bundle as an integrated user provisioning management product and leverage the knowhow Why has cultivated through the development and offering of Bundle.

Bundle

Bundle’s functionality covers eight main areas:

• Integrated employee database
• Automated account management, e.g. creation or change in responsibility due to transfer between departments
• Account inventory, e.g. to identify orphan SaaS accounts of departed employees that should be closed down
• File inventory function for Google Drive, Box and Dropbox to manage sharing privileges, including to external parties
• Authority management, e.g. providing limited administrative functions by department to delegate responsibility for user management to administrators outside of the IT department
• Group function, e.g. the creation of job roles by department with a standard SaaS provisioning profile
• Audit log, full traceability of all actions taken on Bundle
• APIs — Bundle exposes its functionality so that integration with other corporate systems is possible

So, in short, Bundle is a SaaS-based SaaS management platform!

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