Case Study: M1 Finance achieves scalable, automated accounting through hypergrowth with Airbase

How a two-person accounting team supported company hypergrowth

M1 Finance, a personal finance platform with 251–500 employees, faced the challenge of supporting explosive growth — hiring about 200 people in 10 months — while keeping accounting in-house with a two-person team (Controller Lara McGregor and Senior Staff Accountant Gee Lim). To replace ad hoc spreadsheets and manual credit card reconciliations, M1 implemented Airbase’s AP automation platform, including employee expense reimbursements, virtual/physical card controls, multi-subsidiary support, and NetSuite integration.

Airbase automated approvals, virtual card rules, bill payments, and multi-subsidiary consolidation, and provided an intuitive onboarding experience so employees code their own expenses with fewer errors. As a result, M1’s two-person accounting team continued to manage the books through hypergrowth without outsourcing, handled the surge in headcount and transaction volume, and reduced manual journalizing and training time — all enabled by Airbase’s scalable features and ongoing product updates.

M1 Finance

Lara McGregor

Controller