botkeeper Reviews

Pros

The best thing about Botkeeper's software is that it is invisible in the sense that it doesn't dictate how you should use it to collect information that it needs, and so it's very easy to fit into your workflow. Historically, Botkeeper had its own Dropbox-style integration, and now it is switching to Google Drive. This means that providing receipts and other information is as simple as putting the digital scan of a receipt into the Google Drive folder. Or if you prefer, you can upload files by hand using the portal.
Secondly, their portal provides nice views that show the state of your company's finances.

Cons

Botkeeper is a young company, and so growing pains are painful. The system has undergone several major changes during the 2 years that I've been using it, and those transitions were not completely smooth. However, to date, all problems were successfully resolved and the team really worked to address them, and those problems were rare.

Pros

I just hung out the shingle on my new CPA firm, and I want to use a strategic partner like Botkeeper to help me scale. So I love that I can white label the platform while having a dedicated team of accountants assigned to my clients.

Cons

I feel like their portal still has room for improvement even after their recent upgrade. One of the worst problems was the difficulty editing the dashboards for your own needs. That was one of the improvements on this last rollout.

Alternatives Considered

Pilot and Bench

Reasons for Switching to botkeeper

I was lucky enough to meet the Botkeeper founder Enrico Palmerino. And I wanted to work with a young, scrappy, and hungry competitor. And now that they recently completed a new financing round, I have to say that the future looks bright.

Pros

It's ok-ish if you don't know anything about bookkeeping and you're on a super super tight budget

Cons

Response times were slow
Struggled to get anyone to answer basic questions about my SLA, bill, contract, etc.
Regular errors on the GL

Pros

I love everything about bookkeeper but here are some stand outs:

Their customer service is amazing, we meet weekly with our account manager and he is very helpful with any questions or onboarding needs we have

It saves time on the day-to-day updates and monthly reconciliations, we estimate we save about 25% of the time for each of our 30 clients on the platform.

We just recently were impacted by the great resignation and lost about 40% of our staff (we are a small firm so we lost 3 of the 7 we employed) if it weren't for Botkkeper we would have been in a terrible position.

Cons

I don't really have any cons, I would be hard-pressed to think of any. Usually, if we have problems my account manager resolves them fairly quickly!

Pros

I like that Botkeeper is able ot do a lot of the tedious part of my job, it frees me up to focus on more important things for my clients that need my personal touch. I would say Botkeeper saves about a quarter og my client hours each month allowing me to spend more time speaking to the clients about the health of their business or answer Q's they may have.

Cons

Sometimes the connections with the bank break. I don't think this is Botkeepers fault (it's usually Amex) but it can still be frustrating nad time-consuming to relink the accounts.

Pros

BOTKEEPER IS HELPING US SERVICE MORE CLIENTS THAN WE COULD DO INTERNALLY. THE CONSISTENCY AND TIMELINESS MAKES IT SO WE DON'T HAVE TO RELY ON OURSELVES OR STAFF TO UPDATE BOOKS EVERY MONTH OR AS NEEDED. WE KNOW WHEN WE NEED TO GO INTO THE BOOKS THE MAJORITY OF THE WORK IS DONE AND WE CAN SPEND OUR TIME DOING MORE VALUABLE WORk.

Cons

THERE IS STILL SOME MANUAL UPLOADING THAT NEEDS TO BE DONE MONTHLY AND IT IS EASY TO FALL BEHIND. WHILE WE TRY NOT TO PUT MORE ON OUR CLIENTS, WE ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR KEEPING BOTKEEPER CURRENT WITH THE UPDATED CREDENTIALS OR UPDATED BANK STATEMENTs.

Pros

Integration and ease of use to bring clients QBO accounts to the Botkeeper platform was simple and straighforward. Having a weekly dedicated meeting with a Botkeeper specialist has been a great feature. Bank reconcilations are done quickly and timely with little to no errors. The reports presented to the client are professional and always on time.

Cons

The only con of the software may be that it typically usign what GL was assigned in the past. Sometimes this is not always the case. Also items can be dropped into Misc Expenses or unassigned expense accounts if there isn't a none record for the transaction. This could be brought to the atttention of the user as soon as it happens to help classify those unknown transactions prior to seeing them on the P&L.

Pros

Once we had botkeeper on board and up to speed, it was a set it and forget it experience. We had an incredibly dedicated account manager (CSR) who was committed to taking what was a giant mess of our books and streamlining the process for us so we could do what we do best: design.

Cons

Onboarding was tough but not because of botkeeper but because the process of getting someone up to speed about your business is always time consuming.

Pros

Removing transaction entry from our current CAS Team has been great so they can focus on Financial Statement Review.

Cons

We are still on the original platform anxiously waiting to be upgraded.

Pros

Utilizing botkeeper for income and expense tracking and bank reconciliations has been most helpful for me. It was easy to onboard my clients and begin using the botkeeper service.

Cons

I don't find the client management reports particularly helpful because our firm uses a specific format for financial reporting.

Pros

I liked their flexibility in working with my Quick Books online - my super complicated - incorporation with employees - setup! I saved over $2000 per month in accounting costs by switching to botkeeper. I'm hoping they don't raise their prices. They are super fast, and able to handle my business accounting which has "unrecognized revenue" calculations to do each month, and everything is in GAAP format "ACCRUAL" based because I was setup to take on investors and sell common stock from an equity crowdfunding fundraise. I would say I love their MANAGEMENT REPORTS! I love being able to look and see everything in one report and I also love that my books are reconciled and up to date nearly daily - so every time I look it is valid data - SO HELPFUL! Also - they take the time to teach me how to do things on my own if I am confused about anything. My old super expensive accountants never did that and they were super slow and it was always a point of pain for me. Botkeeper does everything I don't want to do - and they do it fast and accurately.

Cons

I have no complaints, because they are fast and accurate, and responsive for all of my accounting needs. They are highly capable of even the most complicated bookkeeping - I didn't think they would take on my books but have surpassed my expectations.

Pros

I like the accuracy and availability to access our books.

Cons

I do not like the new all over the place one drive searches. I liked all of my botkeeper on one page. I feel all over the place now. I have a shared spread sheet on one page, the portal on another and the check printing on another. So for me switching to one drive from the one page of botkeeper is going to take time for me to get used to it. I like the portal page before when you open up with passwords and all information on front page. I understand it will make it easier for botkeeper but it necessarily isn't as easy for us. I find you can't print the management report off the portal because you need to scroll down to access everything on the page. If you print you will not get all the information.

Pros

- Responsive - They have a very quick response time for questions/issues/reports/etc.
- Customizable - We're developing our systems and engagement with botkeeper as our needs evolve. They're more than bookkeepers, they're thought partners as well.
- Convenient - The day to day like processing invoices and sending payments is a breeze. We used to do a lot manually and hardcopy, but with botkeeper we can use email, the app, and the online portal, depending on what's fastest and easiest for us.

Cons

The things I haven't liked, I've worked with botkeeper to change and improve, so I don't have a good answer to this...

Pros

As a new user to a program already using BotKeeper, I was intrigued by how it worked. I love the fact that I can simply email Xenbot and ask the status of my budget as a whole, or elements of my budget. Thus far I have been able to drop the Xenbot a note and I would have a ledger in my inbox not but 24-hours later.

Their staff support is pretty awesome, too. As a new user, I did a call with their support staff early on to learn more about specific questions I had and use cases. The person I spoke with was pretty helpful and was very responsive to the feedback I had about the ledger from a user perspective.

Cons

It is a tad restrictive as a user and not the owner. For instance, I go very granular on my budget but the master budget is more broader in terms of categorization. With the master account being more broad, I cannot get my budget more granular, so I take the details from Xenbot and translate them over in my own spreadsheet. Granted, that may not be a use case for all users but as a new member to the team responsible for the department budget, I need to know where all of our funds go to make for a better budgeting process in the future.

Also, it would be nice if the email ledger allowed you to dial-down to specific transactions. For instance, I can tell what is a vendor payment or a monthly payment as it matches spot on. But, if I have multiple payments (say for an event) all bucketed into the event, I can only see the total number and not the charges that make up that total.

Pros

I have answers only an email away at all hours. What is not to like about that. Instead of relying on a bookkeeper that worked part-time for us, I now feel like we have a full-time bookkeeper on staff without any of the hassle.

Cons

Took some "training" to get them onboard on complex accounting set ups, but once learned, it has been smooth.

Pros

The ease of use and the fact botkeeper works well with all my other accounting services i.e. Quickbooks, Gusto etc...Botkeeper, handles my EOY tax filings which allows me to work more efficiently.

Cons

The only con is the fact I wish botkeeper could handle direct deposits in Russia as I tend to use this method a lot.

Pros

Efficiency and accuracy of accounting. Accountants and bots are very responsive.

Cons

Onboarding time but that issue seems to be resolved.

Pros

I have been with Botkeeper for over a year now; the bookkeepers are friendly and very helpful. Always happy to talk through upcoming projects/issues with me.

Cons

The AI sometimes has bugs, but nothing that isn't quickly fixed and updated.

Pros

I like the people behind the software. The software uploads my transactions every night and the people behind the software ask questions to make sure everything is categorized. They enter bills, cleanup mistakes and have the knowledge to do it.

Cons

I havent found a con yet. This product and service is solid.

Pros

Very attentive to detail. Always responds. Very easy to use. Staff is very friendly and willing to go out of their way to help you however they can.

Cons

Their client portal is a little lacking technology upgrades but still works pretty well.

Pros

The most significant upside is removing those tedious, monotonous tasks from the bookkeepers and having them become actual account managers focusing on high-level tasks, quality control and working more closely with the clients in other areas besides bookkeeping.

Cons

There are a few minor things within the system (that doesn't affect the overall work) that could be improved, but it's still a growing company, and I have faith in the product roadmap that they will be addressed.

Pros

Ability to have extra time to offer better services to our client

Cons

Not able to reach out to someone live when needed

Pros

Automating certain accounting functions to eliminate manual processes

Cons

Can't think of any cons; the tool is great and the people at botkeeper are amazing

Pros

Botkeeper is very organized and easy to use. You are provided with a personal contact that is there with you every step of the way. Everyone at Botkeeper is very responsive and helps you get any question answered.

Cons

It is not 100% hands off. The software still requires attention.

Pros

I like the individual care given to us by our multiple account managers. As an Ecommerce company, I also like how automated everything is and how everything is primarily electronic.

Cons

There definitely can be a ramp up period in the beginning where lots of your time will be spent explaining how your business works, what accounts you use, etc. Not necessarily a knock on botkeeper though since I think this is a universal thing.