Embedded lending has grown rapidly in recent years, especially in the UK. The role of the accountant has transformed substantially. According to recent research, 75 % of UK accounting practices now cite increased demand from clients for investment and strategic advice as compared to routine compliance. 

The UK’s embedded-finance market, particularly embedded lending, is emerging as a multifaceted opportunity for accountants, and not just for banks, lenders or SaaS companies. But what does this mean for the accounting practice, and how can you create value for your clients and your firm by embracing it? 

This blog explores five distinct value-creation levers for accountants in 2025, grounded in current evidence, and offers a practical playbook to get started.

Faster Access to Capital = Advisory Opportunity

Embedded lending is the integration of credit (or financing) directly into non-traditional platforms like SaaS, accounting systems, or marketplaces, so that borrowing is delivered at or near the point of need, with minimal friction. For your clients, especially small businesses, this means the classic loan cycle (application, underwriting, disbursement) can be compressed or replaced entirely in favour of seamless workflows that tie to platforms they already use. (e.g., accounting software, invoicing systems, banking dashboards, or SaaS dashboards). 

As an accountant, this dynamic gives you the opportunity to provide timely guidance and advisory support. When your client is planning to expand stock, hire, invest in marketing or manage seasonal peaks, you can proactively map embedded lending into their forecasted cash-flow model. For example, if a retail client is facing a late-season stock shortfall, you might identify an integrated “working-capital loan” within their ERP platform and advise how that financing will help them manage liquidity, the cost of capital, and its effect on margins.  

Many firms still use traditional bank loans or overdrafts, but embedded lending offers speed and seamless access to funding, which is much faster. Accountants can guide clients, which positions you as a strategic partner, not just a reporter of historical statistics.

Data-Driven Underwriting = Enhanced Risk & Advisory Lens

One of the most significant shifts in embedded lending is the underwriting model. Instead of relying only on bureau scores or collateral, lenders are utilising Open-Banking, Open Accounting and alternative financial data such as cash-flow trends, invoice behaviour, and accounts receivable. 

As the accountant who often controls, validates or reconciles those data flows, you are uniquely positioned to: 

• Ensure data integrity so the client’s borrowing profile looks structured and credible. 
• Forecast how incremental financing will affect cash flow, margin and debt service.  
• Advise on how to structure the funding (timing, pricing, amortisation) to match client requirements (e.g., seasonal, project-based) rather than generic annualised terms. 
• Help lenders make data-driven decisions by allowing them access to financial data such as accounts receivable, cash flow, DSO, etc. This data will help lenders determine loan repayment capacity via alternate data sources, instead of relying on traditional methods. The result? Faster decisions and quicker access to funding for your client. 

Accountants can leverage solutions from Pulse, such as aiPredict: a comprehensive cash flow forecasting tool, and DebtorIQ: a solution designed to automate and streamline accounts receivable. To learn more about Pulse and its modular solutions, contact us today.

Embedding Finance into Forecasts and Advisory Frameworks

Embedded lending isn’t a standalone product. It’s part of a broader ecosystem. As an accountant, you can harness it by embedding credit into your advisory deliverables. For example, Pulse’s Unified Lending Interface (ULI) can be integrated with existing systems, dashboards and accounting packages like Zero, Sage, and QuickBooks. Its seamless API-first architecture and plug-and-play compatibility make it easy for accountants to incorporate embedded lending into existing systems. Accountants can add additional value as follows: 

• Trigger-based advice: Use real-time dashboards or alerts to spot when a client’s receivables or inventory are stretching beyond safe thresholds. For example, Pulse’s cash flow forecasting tool aiPredict allows for customised embedded lending pop-ups to appear within the Pulse ecosystem. Accountants can proactively suggest or recommend the appropriate funding solution that suits their client best, all done seamlessly via embedded lending functionality. 

• Fee vs. cost analysis: Help clients compare the cost of the embedded advance vs. traditional bank overdraft or merchant credit, using margin impact, interest cost, and the intangible benefit of speed and operational smoothness. 
• This elevates your role from a mere reporter to an active business advisor. The point is: the financing flows you help plug become part of your regular advisory functions, not an add-on. 

Due Diligence, Compliance, and Embedded-Finance Risk Management

It’s not all opportunity. The rise of embedded lending brings new layers of regulatory, operational and reputational risks. Your client may access fast capital, but that capital still needs to be appropriate, affordable, and governed by compliance frameworks, especially the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), Consumer Duty and business-lending oversight. 

As accountants, you can create value by offering frameworks for your clients to assess an embedded-lending provider. Points to cover include: 

• Transparency of fees, terms, exit mechanisms, and defaults. 
• Integration risk: How well the financing sits inside the platform, and what happens if the platform provider changes or terminates the service. 
• Data-governance risk: How client data is used by the embedded lender, what consents are obtained, and how the data pipeline affects client privacy or audit-trail requirements. 
• Impact on existing banking arrangements: How the embedded borrowing interacts with existing overdrafts, partner arrangements or corporate credit lines; 
• Your own liability: If you advise a client to use a particular embedded lending route, you must be confident you understand the product, cost structure, and risk implications. 

By offering this risk-management overlay, you differentiate your practice and become the ‘trusted advisor’ not only on numbers but on fintech-for-finance architecture. 

New Revenue Streams and Practice Differentiation

Finally, embedded lending gives accountants a practice-growth angle. Many firms are still stuck in commoditised compliance work; offering embedded-finance advisory can be a substantial differentiator. 

For example: 

• You could partner with an embedded-finance platform and offer “capital-advisory” services to your clients: helping with onboarding, negotiating pricing, linking the financing product to the client’s software/workflow. 
• Offer subscription or retainer-based advisory packages centred on “working-capital & embedded-finance optimisation”, helping clients manage flows, borrow when needed, repay and restructure; 
• Use embedded finance as a hook to deepen your service relationship with clients: the quicker and better you help them access timely funding, the more central you become to their business decisions. This also allows for increased retention and upsell potential. 

In short, embedded lending is not just a tool for your client. It’s an opportunity for your practice to evolve.  

Conclusion: The Accountant’s Embedded Advantage 

By embracing embedded lending as part of your advisory ecosystem, you as an accountant become the go-to partner for clients navigating real-time cash-flow pressures, financing decisions, and growth-oriented investment, or funding access. 

Start today by mapping your clients, building the necessary tools, and integrating these financing flows into your forecasts and advice. You can partner with leading SaaS companies like Pulse and take your accounting practice to the next level. The future of accounting is embedded, and those who leverage it will lead.