Bench Reviews

Pros

I like that the online interface is user friendly, albeit a little glitchy.

Cons

Software is glitchy and could use a bit of tweaking in order to ensure that it is more effective.

Alternatives Considered

QuickBooks Online Advanced

Reasons for Switching to Bench

We had a decent amount of historical data that needed to be tracked and entered. This felt like a huge undertaking and we needed the assistance. Doing that was a good experience and the bookkeeper that we worked with was really helpful. I am not sure that we will continue to use the service for future months, especially once our business is open and the books become more complex.

Pros

I like how simple it was to connect my bank accounts as well as third party payors (eg. paypal, stripe). The interface is intuitive to navigate and uploading receipts using my custom email is a nifty trick!

Cons

I wish linking to Bench Tax or having some sort of tax center was a bit more seamless.

Pros

I was hesitant to start Bench because I thought I could handle the bookkeeping for our business on my own. Managing money has always been a strength for me. However, as my company grows I find that I need to keep delegating and removing things off of my plate. At the same time as a business owner I like to keep as much cash inside the company as possible.

I finally gave the free trial a chance and it has been the BIGGEST weight off of me. I know that my bookkeeping is totally taken care of and done professionally. The stress of organizing everything for taxes is lifted off, and I know that I always have someone working on it everyday on my behalf.

Anytime I have questions I get an immediate response along with very valuable advice. I am a Bench customer for life!

Cons

I don't like that it keeps disconnecting to my bank account. We've had a few technical issues with that. It can be very time consuming and frustrating especially since I am extremely busy already. I also have to confirm purchases from months prior and that can take a long time! When I confirm those purchases it is usually 30+ transactions and at that point I don't even remember all of them so it takes a while for me to locate receipts. I really dislike that too. I wish it were less expensive for us a small business owner as well.

Pros

Very easy to use . This product has been very useful for me to track all business expenses and have all of the required audits of my accounts while also producing annual earnings reports. Very professional.

Cons

It would be nice if the system was able to read the memos for checks written to determine the purpose for the expenditure rather than the business owner having to review each check and identify its purpose for the business.

Pros

Very easy implementation - love the human support on closing the books each month.

Cons

Not all of my business accounts can be connected via feed (ie intuit payroll), which requires a drag and drop upload each month.

Alternatives Considered

Quickbooks Online

Reasons for Switching to Bench

I found quickbooks to be frustrating and required far too many manual adjustments - and I never did completely understand the chart of accounts on QB. It was simply too complicated to use and I was exhausted trying to keep up with everything that I needed to do to get a good set of financials.

Pros

The interface is clean and easy. Submitting expenses is easy and in most cases automated. My team, led by customer rep, is very responsive.

Cons

The only thing and I'm splitting hairs is that for more detailed ecommerce analytics, I need to either go to my ecommerce platform and/or pull other data for company performance. It would be helpful to be in one place. But that's a tall order for the great Bench price.

Pros

I really like the balance sheet and income statements.

Cons

The support is a bit difficult to deal with. There's 4-5 unnecessary calls for setting up the account and seems to be as disconnect among staff there. I was also cancelled on last minute and had a no show.

Pros

I LOVE being able to set and forget all the regulated/complex elements of our backend office. Not only do things run smoothly, but the Bench team is always available to confirm that all is as it should be whenever we get concerned.

Excellent benefits are a huge part of the culture we're building, and Bench makes it so easy through its core product and partnerships.

Cons

I'd love to have even more partners for wellness benefits

Pros

East to use. Improving on the regular and with new features like Pulse. I like the dedicated support and team member you are linked with makes it feel like an extension of my team.

Cons

Guided setup was more time consuming than it needed to be.. the sales team was great but my implementation team seemed like they were in the dark. After working through this and actually switching our bookkeeper within Bench after that it's been great.

Pros

Bench has changed our business for the better! Having all of our books from month to month in one place is GAME changing! My favorite part is the real time look at the health of our business because our books are now done monthly. I can be confident that we'll never be behind! Which helps us make better business decisions!

Cons

When I was first new to Bench and terms like "balance sheet" and "profit and loss" I wished there was a hover by where you click on them at the top that gave a quick description of what each meant.

Pros

Onboarding was pretty easy. The features actually work. Their automatic reconciling and messaging with issues is really good.

Cons

Fonts are hard to read sometimes. Uploader works well but sometimes the bookkeepers don't seem to see that I've uploaded something. Probably something amiss on that side of the software.

Pros

Easy to use. Friendly customer service. affordable.

Cons

Would have liked more human assistance even with a basic account

Pros

I loved this as a lower cost option for bookkeeping that is very streamlined. Their onboarding was great and showed me exactly how things work.

Cons

Nothing is particularly difficult to use

Pros

I like that they do everything, its easy. You send them the info and they get it all ready. The team is friendly and provides good support.

Cons

A couple features that would be nice include being able to send ACH payments from the software. Also they live look at your accounts is seperate from the book-keeping, small non-issue.

Pros

There’s someone assigned to your account that you can contact at any time, and who always responds promptly to questions or requests.

Cons

So far we’ve been very satisfied, have not come across any issues yet.

Pros

It’s all done for you, so you never have to worry if you’re categorizing something correctly.

Cons

Nothing that I can think of! It’s excellent.

Pros

The reporting tools are very clear.
Very easy to upload new documents

Cons

Time to prepare full report of prior month takes a few weeks. Certain expenses are repetitively miscategorized.

Pros

That it’s fairly intuitive to use. That I know my business numbers every month without the hassle of keeping track of everything myself.

Cons

Accounts don’t always link so you still need to manually send invoices and bank statements each month

Pros

The setup process was very simple & I've enjoyed having a single point of contact at Bench that I can reach out to whenever I have questions.

Cons

I would prefer more reporting to be easily accessible rather than just a year-end statement.

Pros

It takes automatically your expenses and revenue from your bank accounts and credit cards

Cons

Not valid for accrual accounting or to have proper AP/AR ledgers

Pros

We looked at a lot of alternatives. Bench is the least expensive, most modern, and what you'd expect in a bookkeeping platform.

Cons

There were a few non-critical bugs here and there, but they were all fixed within the same day. This is the nature of software and not a con by any means.

Pros

Great service and support. Nice UI.

Cons

Slightly overpriced.

Pros

I like that features are easy to read and easily accessible graphics.

Cons

I wish the that I could see projected money or pending invoices that are set up to come in that month or even unpaid receivable.

Pros

It's very user-friendly and I feel like I have someone I can ask real questions in real time to

Cons

So far I haven't found anything but I will certainly reach out when I do!

Pros

- Eliminates bookkeeping as a daily task
- Easy to read reporting

Cons

- Slow to update books at month end and at year end
- Zero new feature introductions in last few years