Open Ledger CEO: embedded accounting APIs let vertical SaaS platforms skip building a general ledger from scratch

and free returns and free shipping. And we are ready for our next with an 89. Congratulations, Jordy. He hit a soundboard for you. And let's bring in our next guest, Price from Open Ledger, embedding accounting in your platform fast. Price, how you doing? Good to meet you. Did you hire Sohome? No. Did you interview him?

Uh, no not ne neither. Well, check spam. It tends to be a bull signal if you reached out. Um, but yeah, please kick us off with an introduction on yourself and the company. Nice. Hi, I'm Price, co-founder and CEO of Open Ledger.

We're building embedded accounting, an embedded accounting API that help helps uh vertical SAS platforms embed full accounting suites into their products instead of having to build a general ledger from scratch.

uh 70 million people are running businesses of all types and no matter what type of business they're running they all have to do their accounting and so uh they're turning to a lot of modern platforms like Shopify MindBody and Surf Service Titan to run these their platforms but most of them still don't have accounting features and the ones they do are usually duct taped together and so uh what we've built is a set of APIs and components that makes it much easier for these platforms to embed a full accounting suite inside their product for their end users to use.

Interesting. So is this is this B2B TOB software? Yeah, I love it. We're adding an extra layer of Why did you pick an an easy problem like accounting infrastructure? Well, I I I don't see it as an easy problem. I'm totally kidding. I'm I'm I'm I I get it though. I get it.

I think um at first glance it seems like a very simple company in a lot of ways, but I think I don't think it's I don't to be clear, I don't I don't think so. No, he was joking.

It's a simple complicated it's simple idea extremely compliment to actually create totally because you have to create so much flexibility for each different client.

Um but yeah uh and we had we had a a a CEO on from from Ambrook that does accounting and financial just for farms and she said it took them like I think two and a half years to like build the core accounting sort of engine. So yeah. Yeah. So so what have the trade-offs been as you've as you've built the product? Yeah.

So we went all all the way down to the ledger level and built our own ledger database that that's what we build all the functionality on top of for reconciliation and then the actual embedded accounting API itself is all built on top of that general ledger level.

And so that took a bunch of time, but we really wanted to save folks who, you know, that exact situation you mentioned, folks who are building these custom accounting products that provide so much value to any users, finding a way to really take that those core things that don't change between accounting systems and turn them into uh infrastructure that anyone can use to build their own products.

What's the go to market like? How do you actually bring on these businesses? Is it power law distributed? Do you need to just get a few really huge companies on the platform or are you trying to go super broad like Stripe where kind of everyone's using the product? Yeah.

Uh so I think that's how we we really got our start and that's how our first clients are larger power law as customers.

But uh what we're looking forward to is this uh this deeper thesis that we've been building around is this idea that accounting data is basically the best substrate you can get to put at the base of a vertical vertical agent for business, right?

And so as folks are building more types of vertical agents that are uh working with financial uh APIs or payments and things of that nature, having accounting data reconciled into a book or a chart of accounts and building on top of that is one of the best places to sit because that information is essentially like memory for a company.

Yeah. I mean, it's the reason that every board meeting starts with like, let's look at the let's look at the finances of the business because that that, you know, that is the map of the territory and then then you can dig into specific things. So, that makes a ton of sense.

Um, in terms of agents, it seems like you don't actually need to uh do all the work of maybe discovering the correct patterns because your clients are working on top of you in that regard. Are you using artificial intelligence at your company?

Is there been uh different trends that you're tracking that are improving the product on your end yet?

Yeah, so uh what we're really excited about right now is really weaving it inside and through the the way we're building our general general ledger architecture so that it can automate a lot of those um those those bookkeeping tasks that that really are a big part of accounting and turn that into infrastructure that can quietly sit inside of a product rather than having so much human in the loop input.

And I think that's really what makes this part of what makes this a really exciting opportunity and different from a lot of other embedded payment or fintech features is that we're essentially helping to automate more of a service as well alongside a suite.

That's something that uh a lot of platforms previously were helping their end users and customers like hire bookkeepers or accountants to sit alongside them. We help um kind of add that almost as an extra feature that they can sell alongside their suite. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Jordy, anything else?

Oh, very cool. I'm excited about uh you know, I'm excited about all the different features and functionality that you can build on on top of Open Ledger. Yeah, I mean, we've seen such a big trend in vertical SAS and all the different uh different B2B players.

It makes sense that there would be uh you know, an enabling technology here. So, thank you so much for stopping by. This is great. Great to hear from you, Price. We'll talk to you. I'm excited for you guys. This rocks. Thank you. Have a great day. Cheers.

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Yeah. Tell give us give us your review. It was incredible. It was one of the best movies ever seen. I'm really sorry because I we wanted the whole crew to come and but I I you know was catching up with friend, you know, college buddy uh and former guest on the show as well. Um and uh it just kind of came together.

But saw it in IMAX. Highly recommend it. The entire film seemed to be shot in IMAX, which I have no idea how they did because half the shots are from the perspective of a Formula 1 car and so they must have mounted some massive camera rig on that thing. Um, but it was beautiful.

Han Zimmer delivered an absolutely incredible score. I've been listening to the the theme to F1 religiously as I drive uh at just, you know, five over the speed limit, right? Um, you sure, you sure you want to put that on the record? I I heard that you drive always perfectly at the speed limit. One under.

You've cap your car. You You actually hacked it to Yeah. Yeah. I I kind of take the Nvidia approach to driving. Yeah. You know. Yeah. Um and uh yeah, fantastic movie. Highly recommend it. Uh lots of great sponsorships, lots of great ads within the movie. Shark Ninja