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Intuit has entered a multi-year partnership with Affirm to integrate its "buy now, pay later" (BNPL) payment solution directly into QuickBooks Payments. The deal makes Affirm the exclusive pay-over-time option within the platform, aiming to help small and mid-sized businesses (SMBs) improve cash flow by offering customers flexible payment plans while the business gets paid upfront.
Intuit announces a multi-year partnership with Affirm to integrate BNPL into QuickBooks Payments.
Affirm becomes the exclusive pay-over-time solution built directly into the QuickBooks platform.
The integration allows SMBs to offer customers flexible payment plans while receiving funds upfront.
The goal is to help businesses improve cash flow, increase conversion rates, and attract more customers.
Affirm assumes the repayment risk and does not charge late or hidden fees to consumers.
The feature will roll out to eligible U.S. QuickBooks Online customers using QuickBooks Payments in the coming months.
The partnership directly targets a major pain point for small businesses: managing cash flow amid late payments. Intuit cites data showing over half of SMBs are owed money from unpaid invoices, averaging $17,500 per business. By integrating Affirm, businesses can offer customers the option to split an invoice into manageable payments. The business gets paid immediately by Affirm, which then assumes the responsibility of collecting from the customer, thereby accelerating the seller's cash flow and reducing collection risk.
The integration is designed to be seamless for QuickBooks users. Eligible businesses will see Affirm as a payment method within QuickBooks Payments with no additional setup required. When a customer chooses Affirm, the platform handles the application, underwriting, and approval instantly for each transaction. Businesses benefit from potentially higher conversion rates and larger average order sizes by offering more payment flexibility, while customers get transparent terms with no late fees.
For Intuit, the partnership deepens the financial management capabilities of its QuickBooks platform, moving beyond accounting and invoicing into enabling sales growth. David Hahn, EVP at Intuit, noted it provides a "powerful new way to increase conversion and improve cash flow." For Affirm, the integration provides a massive, built-in channel to reach millions of SMBs and their customers, expanding its network beyond direct-to-consumer retail into the vast B2B and professional services invoicing market.
The partnership between Intuit and Affirm represents a significant evolution in financial technology for small businesses. It moves BNPL from a primarily consumer retail tool into the core operational workflow of SMBs, embedding flexible financing directly into the invoicing and payment collection process. This could fundamentally change how small businesses manage their finances, reducing the volatility of cash flow and providing a new lever for sales growth, all within the familiar QuickBooks environment they already use.
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