Bench is the easiest way to manage our books online. It's been a huge time and money saver over the last few years.

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.

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.

Understanding the financial health of our business has been critical in making decisions both long and short term. Bench helped free up the minimal time that we as business owners have and spend more of that time focusing on our business, which has been very helpful.

It was great to see a breakdown of all three financial statements for our business, both from a macro and micro perspective. Being able to pull up accounts and see specific transactions from desktop and on the go through mobile was indispensable in running a healthy business and planning for the future. The messaging system was prompt and efficient for keeping in touch with our book keepers and account manager with any pressing questions. They were always very professional and did high quality work. Any questions or concerns with categorization and interpreting information were answered well.

I think it would be helpful to expand the software to allow for the dropping of all receipts into our account in order to have a one stop location for accessing and printing receipts for accounting and tax purposes. We were informed that only high ticket items needed receipts, and so we ended up using other third party software to track mileage and keep track of receipts.

Terrible, terrible, terrible. They did not make my life easier. They cost me money in lost time and lost access to reports. They made me pay for the year upfront; Sunk Cost Fallacy kept me there, and I have many regrets. Their Gaslighting makes you think you are the problem. After a few years with them, I can say they will keep asking over and over for more categorization of the same items to keep you busy so you don't ask for reports. They did not provide my final year-end report when I canceled their service, even though I paid for the year in advance. They told me it would be months after my tax filing deadline before I would receive it. I'm not counting those chickens.

It was easy to set up. That was the only good thing about Bench. But, you will have to set it up repeatedly because they remember almost nothing from report to report.

Everything! Bookkeepers change constantly. They seem to intentionally delay and avoid reports by telling you they need one more thing or someone has to finalize and review before they can give you a report. When you realize you never got your report (because small business owners are busy, you know!), you reach out again and it is as if you never asked them for anything. The process starts over, if it ever started to begin with.

Overall, really great! They're super helpful. Most of the time they're quick to respond, but at times have needed to have an extra poke to get a response. That is a rarity. Usually, I'll hear back from someone by the next day at the latest.

Having all the data to see my business stats has been really helpful. They call it the "Pulse" which shows you the health of your business with a way to visualize how you're doing over time. I like that a lot. Bookkeeping is really easy for me now and I'm thankful I outsourced it. I just connect my accounts and drag and drop invoices and receipts that I scan or receive into the documents section and they take care of things. They also provide a nice, clean, easy to understand summary at the end of each year so my accountant can do my taxes easily. I have no regrets going with Bench. It definitely saves me a lot of time and stress.

I wish there are some nice comparable summaries like percentage growth or changes month to month, by quarter, and YoY. Prices still feel a little high to me and I wish there was an option for invoicing and receiving payments into my checking accounts.

Great experience and helpful service. Awesome value since an in-person CPA would be double the cost. Bench was especially around tax time when it comes to working with me to get my numbers buttoned up.

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

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

My accounting was solved using bench, literally it's set it and forget it, these guys are top notch and make your life easy.

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.

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

My service has been terrible. I spent over $5000 and do not have access to my books. Customer service was lacking and my bookkeeper would respond to my inquiry on timeline with responses like... I am on it like white on rice. Professionalism, accuracy and commitment to the contract is very lacking.

I liked the idea of having support and a knowledgeable team to up to date and accurate financials. Unfortunately that was not my experience with Bench.

I have worked with Bench for over a year and cannot get access to any of my financials. I check in on a daily basis to understand when and how I might get access to my books, but given answers about their three part review process with no explanation or timeline for when I will get my books. After working daily with Bench to get my financials for 2023 for over 5 weeks, I am told the financials will not be ready until after tax season and if I want them to file a tax extension. I could not recommend this service to anyone.

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.

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.

I am spending a lot less time on bookkeeping and accounting.

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

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

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!

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

I tested Bench out at the end of 2019 and then hired them for my entire 2020 books. In the beginning, they were on top of things. Then, mid-summer they dropped the ball. My account got passed to another team, and they didn't even touch my books for months. It was a mess. I reached out to customer service and they did give me 2 months of a refund, because the customer service rep (who was very kind & courteous) saw what I saw. In December, I requested for my bookkeeper to fix some miscategorized transactions and later asked, "Hey were those fixed?" She said she fixed them, which was a blatant lie! On top of all of that, it took them about TWO MONTHS to do my final end of year books that I could pass onto my CPA. I was told they were uploaded, but then they weren't there when I looked for them. I had to request, "Please upload them again." They apologized and did so right away, but by the time I saw them, thank goodness for the COVID extension, because I literally didn't have my deliverables from Bench until April 2020. My filings would have been late.

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.

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.

First time around was good. This time around I’m not too pleased with the person assigned to my account

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

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

I use it because I've already paid for the tax return to be filed with them for 2022 and don't want to have to pay twice to have it filed. I will never use them again for a tax return and feel their ability to offer this service should be revoked as I have never worked with a more unprofessional tax service.

After months of back and forth with their accounting team I was finally put with an account manager who knows what they are doing and can communicate effectively

They are incapable of filing an accurate tax return. It is now August and they are still figuring out how to file my 2022 return. Each time they send anything over there are multiple errors they need to fix. Their response times are abysmal and their team has little to no knowledge about actual tax compliance and filling.

As a small business we're constantly prioritizing big time spends and deciding what's worth us outsourcing and spending money on rather than time. Bench was one that, as soon as we were set up and going with them, we've never looked back. It is not cheap. But it's worth it for us, no question about it!

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

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.

tldr; terrible - incompetent, will not support client if there are missed filing deadlines, penalties and fees. During my sales onboarding call, I talked about my 10 years of doing business in NYC as a sole owner of an s-corp. I have to file extensions from time to time. Bench assured me this would be no problem. They missed the deadline to file my business return with NYC. When I asked Bench about this, they replied that they don't do municipal filings. I asked why didn't my tax preparer notify me - the short answer: he didn't even know NYC requires a seperate business filing. It took several intense phone calls to get a refund. My personal returns were the same. They didn't calculate my estimated tax liability when the filed my extension. I got hit with hundreds in penalties and interest. Again I asked why they didn't notify me. Answer: it was in our disclaimer. If you look at what Bench offers, they are charging a premium for essentially googling information for you. The actual issues you will need guidance on, they don't offer. Furthermore, they will not advise you of critical filing necessities because it's in their list of "disclaimers". Find a local tax accountant who understands your business and will have your best interests in mind.

The dashboard chat and customer call scheduling were pretty responsive.

a bit clunky moving from bookkeeping to tax platforms and not knowing which chat/communication to use when customer support tells you to check your messages.

My overall experience is great. this is my second time using them. I had to leave the first time while switching my business format but it’s worth the investment knowing that my books are in order in I can easily track my growth and readjust expenses.

The best thing about the software is hands off. In comparison to other software you have to not only implement the software you have to hire someone to upkeep it/reconcile it every month, whereas this is all in one pricing.

The software may be a little confusing at first but with the customer service they help you navigate how to use the key features. I do wish there was a easier way to download a simple profit and loss and there are some other things that they may not be able to do that you need a CPA for but you at least have all your information in order for the CPA.

Overall, I recommend bench to everyone. They do have their shortcomings, but in my experience it can be fixed by not giving so many clients to one person. My current bookkeeper is great and very prompt on delivering my books each month. I hope she sticks around. YMMV, but keep with it, bench is the best out there.

My QuickBooks was a mess. I had brought in duplicate transactions from syncing with square and I was going to need to manually adjust thousands of items. Then I found bench! The bookkeepers are relatively easy to get in touch with when you have an issue; you can book a call, chat, etc. Come tax time the year end summary they put together was amazing. It made filing taxes very easy.

The bookkeepers are spread very thin, and turnover is high. I've been with them a little over a year and I've had 3 different bookkeepers. I had to complain about one of them because he wasn't giving me a complete set of books each month. (They ended up giving a month free while they caught up my books.) It costs much much more than QuickBooks and doing it yourself, and you do have someone knowledgeable doing the work, but all than means nothing if your books are fragmented.

Great experience, we've been with them for 2 years now and we will not switch to anything else!

Extremely professional bookkeepers, easy to use user interface and 100% hands-free. They even have auto-linked bank accounts to pull your bank statements so you don't have to manually send receipts and statements. You can view your dashboard anytime and see live updates on your balance sheet. My CPA loves their books as well.

Sometimes the connection might be off and I'll have to upload documents anyways, and they'll still need my input for returning vendors/suppliers.

With bench.co I've been able to see in real-time our financial statements without having to ruffle through paperwork or calling someone/visiting an office. I would highly recommend this service to any small business owner.

Bench.co has literally changed the way I operate my organization & school. Whereas in the past we'd have to wait, and work around local accountants who had 100's of clients in queue, Bench allows me the convenience and access to my virtual accountant 24/7 online and poignantly clear on all aspects of bookkeeping.

As with all software based services, sometimes Bench can lag in their monthly accounts at the beginning of the new year. This is a very minor inconvenience to the overall experience.

Overall I am more than pleased. I have no doubt that my books are being done correctly, which frees me up to deal with other things.

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

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.

Bench allows us to accurately forecast our cashflow with ease.

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.

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.

We hired Bench to do some simple bank statement sync entries for the previous 6 months. They charged my credit card 1 day after signing the agreement. They never did a single entry when I say a single entry not 1.I call and talk to [sensitive content hidden] and he says they need documentation from my merchant account to begin work. I am like dude all i need is my bank account entries mapped to the chart of accounts. He says they can't start without the merchant documentation.I tell him since they haven't started please issue a refund and I will get the work done somewhere else.Now, I get directed to [sensitive content hidden] (Client Success team) about the refund on [sensitive content hidden] . She responds on [sensitive content hidden] . Sorry I was out sick . Here is her response to my refund request: To answer your question "Have I refunded the account" , there has been no refunds processed. The reason this has occurred is Bench is a stand-ready service (similar to Netflix). What that means is we do not process refunds for previous months of service; whether you have used the service or not.NEEDLESS TO SAY I AM IN THE PROCESS OF DISPUTING WITH THE CREDIT CARD COMPANY NOW THE $1200 THEY CHARGED ME!!!DON'T GET SCAMMED BY THIS COMPANY.

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

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

Like family

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

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

We save a considerable amount of money over brick-and-mortar services and save a huge amount of time by not trying to do this ourselves with Quick Books or similar software.

Value. They provide services like a personal bookkeeping company. Very helpful and quick response.

Nothing comes to mind. We've been very happy with it.