Bench Reviews

Pros

I've been using Bench for years now and it's so simple to see and manage my books. When something isn't categorized correctly, I add a comment and it's moved over to the right one. It's been great and easy to use.

Cons

The monthly income statements are behind often. I have to ask to get them on time. I wish it integrated with Quickbooks as my CPA can easily manipulate the data for reports.

Alternatives Considered

QuickBooks Enterprise

Reasons for Choosing Bench

The accountant was slow and took forever to make small updates.

Reasons for Switching to Bench

I didn't want to do the work!

Pros

The iOS app is simple and easy to use. I appreciate the quick access to messaging back and forth with my bookkeeper, making notes about transactions, and they referred me to Gusto for an integrated payroll service

Cons

Some of the features like their Pulse tab of real time bank account syncing and electronic PDF statement syncing are glitchy.

Pros

Bench is easy to use and navigate. In the beginning, they were fantastic at answering questions I had to help understand how my bookkeeping was being handled. That's about the only good thing I have to say.

Cons

I spent more time dealing with Bench all year long than when I was doing my own bookkeeping on a simple spreadsheet. I expected a learning curve in the beginning. They promised it would get easier "as we learn about your business and transactions," but I found month after month that the same transactions got flagged needing my input. Then, when I did thorough checks on my books, I found several transactions not in the right category. The other thing I didn't like was that my bank constantly needed to be reconnected. I truly felt like I spent more time handling Bench than I would've spend just doing my own bookkeeping.

Alternatives Considered

QuickBooks Enterprise

Reasons for Choosing Bench

I thought having a real person handle my bookkeeping would be faster than doing it myself.

Reasons for Switching to Bench

I chose Bench, because I was hearing good things about them from Ash Ambirge of the Middle Finger Project whom I adore & trust. I liked the idea of a real person on my books, not software I had to manage.

Pros

Incredibly supportive staff, intuitive friendly user-interface, provided year end tax portfolio that I could easily give to my CPA. Bench is just fantastic, I can't say enough good things about the way they have handled my accounts for the past 3 years, highly recommend. If you're a professional, this is for you.

Cons

The only con here is that I didn't switch sooner.

Pros

I like that it's easy to use, comes in a user-friendly format, and simplifies accounting for me. It's dummy-proof! I'm mostly looking forward to an easier tax season with this software.

Cons

It's a little expensive for a one-person office, so I wish there were more tiers in pricing. But I like the product and will continue to use it, and understand that it costs money for a good product.

Pros

Excellent service to receive an extra dose of stress.

Cons

They have changed my bookkeeper 4 times in a single year; they made repeated mistakes after mistakes on my books, nothing was personalized, all they do is to set the system to classify the transactions; 2 different 'tax experts' that gave me wrong information; books are NEVER completed on time, they are constantly late by several months; about filing taxes: they will file for an extension regardless of whether your books are done or not.. without even consulting with you; messages and emails are never replied to, you have to call every time and nothing gets resolved;

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

This was super easy to set up and describe exactly what I was using it for. other providers took ages to figure out how to integrate my Amazon sales but Bench just got it!

Cons

The pricing was a bit on the higher side especially the catch up accounting that ended up being a large lumpsum in my case!

Alternatives Considered

Synder and QuickBooks Online

Reasons for Choosing Bench

Better Bookkeeping support and ease of integration with Amazon

Switched From

QuickBooks Online

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

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

Offloading expense tracking was a massive weight off of my shoulders. I now have more time to lead my small team and know that my accounting is in good hands - if there is ever a question or discrepancy they reach out immediately.

Cons

Honestly the price. I wish it were significantly cheaper. Much of the expense tracking is already done through freshbooks, other financial input apps have APIs for the Bench team to use as well - so I don’t think the limited personal interactions (which is not a detriment-the less I can talk to accountants the better) warrants the steep price tag.

Alternatives Considered

FreshBooks

Reasons for Switching to Bench

Deeper analytics and reconciliation of accounts

Pros

A pleasant mix of self-service software, with a reliably consistent team who does genuinely get to know my business.

Cons

It is a walled garden, so no integrations with any existing software. Leads to a lot of duplicate or redundant content in Xero, Expensify, and other tools I use.

Alternatives Considered

Xero

Reasons for Switching to Bench

I still use Xero for accounts receivable, but I was struggling to do my own accounting.

Pros

It’s easy to set up and use, semi affordable

Cons

I would like to see mileage tracking and the ability to move items to a category myself

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

Standard features that all bookkeeping apps have. Syncs my bank transactions to the app. Saves time.

Cons

Service. I paid more only to have a human backed bookkeeping service to file my taxes. But it didn't happen.

Pros

We've been using Bench for a few years now and absolutely love it. It can be basically as hand's off as you want. We get an email once a month when they're working on our books, sometimes an extra contact here and there if they provide other documentation throughout the year. And we have our CPA and Bench people in touch with each other which is even more off our plate. As small business owners, bookkeeping used to take a ton of our time, and now it's a breeze. And logging into our account we can look around at where our money is going with a quick glance

Cons

I admit we haven't done a ton of digging around in the actual software - our typical use is them contacting us with any categorization questions once a month (and after a couple years there are hardly ever any). I do wish (or can not find how) we could see how much money we're paying/spending on a particular item. So, say, I want to see how much we're spending on just Facebook ads. What I can do is search for "facebook" (and I can specifically search within whatever time period I want, like Q4 2018 or January 2017), but it won't automatically give me a sum of all of those expenses. I CAN see a summary of expenses by category, but by "line item" (like "Facebook" or "AWS") would be even more helpful.

Pros

Bench is an amazing product that is in the cloud. I love that i can access my books from anywhere on the go and get a snapshot of how the company is doing week to week.

Cons

There are no cons at this point. I wish they started an accounting arm that tied to bench since their product is so awesome!

Pros

Prior to Bench, we used Quickbooks, and it was lifesaver! We had no idea how to use Quickbooks for bookkeeping and Bench made it easy for us. There was low setup involved and their dashboard was amazing.

Cons

As our company grew, we needed more information in our financial statements. At the time, there was low customization with Bench, and we couldn't add or change things in regards to our Profit and Loss statement. Also, at the time, they only did cash based accounting.

Pros

I like the ease of having my bookkeeping done on a timely basis and not having to think about it until I get a message to review the month. I can then easily go in and make notes of any changes to be made or answer their questions to me. The customer service is excellent as well. They integrate with my payroll company too which saves time.

Cons

They don't integrate with my Customer Management System and they don't use QuickBooks which I also use. I process invoices through my CMS which also provides my scheduling, customer profiles, employee payroll reports, etc. I would love it if Bench would integrate their system to it so I can better track invoices. Instead I have to do that through QuickBooks but am only using a small portion of what QB offers since Bench does my bank reconciliation and they don't use QB. So I'm still paying for QB for this part of what I need. I have a daily service company and I process client credit cards daily in addition to tracking some clients that still write checks and a few who pay via ACH. I do that within QB. At this point I'm not aware of a better way if I want to continue using Bench for bookkeeping.

Pros

I love the ease of use. The portal is easy to get around in and I always have someone to answer my questions.

Cons

I would like to have a little more interaction as to tax planning. I understand that it doesnt necessarily fall under bookkeeping. But I would like to be able to have some sort of review.

Pros

Right from the beginning Bench made everything extremely easy. My bookeeping is now completely hands-off. Our bookkeeper is always very easy to reach if we have questions and learned our business practices extremely fast.

Cons

I wish I could combined the income statement and other reports to stretch over different years. For instance, if we could view December 2020 and January 2021 in one report instead of having to do the math that would be fantastic.

Alternatives Considered

QuickBooks Enterprise

Reasons for Switching to Bench

Bench is much easier to use than quickbooks.

Pros

I don't like anything about bench. I can't say it enough time they are horrible

Cons

This place is a COMPLETE RIP OFF. I hope potential customers check these reviews before purchasing from them

Pros

The all ways there when I need them.Ever time I asked a question one day later I had a answer

Cons

When I was doing my taxes with bench they were on a separate platform

Pros

Very Easy To Use. Has many features & functionality.

Cons

I can't think of any. Very thorough for my particular needs.

Pros

Bench makes work simple.
The interface is very user friendly and instinctive, reports are clear and accurate. Our accountant can log in easily and the customer service is stellar.

Cons

There is literally nothing I don't like about Bench.