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.

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.

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.

The worst experience. They will steal from you and provide no services.

Nothing. They do not know what they are doing. There customer service is horrible.

This is a very incompetent company. They have charged me thousands for services that they have not performed. I have used them for almost a year. I have tried to cancel them and they keep charging me. When you call, no one answers in any department. The voice mail states that they will call you back with in 1 business day. My rep ([sensitive content hidden]) makes appointments and will not hold the appointment time. You sit there and wait for them and they never call.

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.

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.

I had Bench do a full year of bookkeeping for my company and consulted them on aspects of the PPP loan program. I found them shockingly incompetent. Many mistakes. Much flat-out wrong technical information about the PPP program. It was the most recent encounter with them over the PPP program that motivates me to write this review, to warn the public. They should not represent themselves as PPP experts.

The pros are beside the point because the cons are so overwhelming.

I had Bench do a full year of bookkeeping for my company and consulted them on aspects of the PPP loan program. I found them shockingly incompetent. Many mistakes. Much flat-out wrong technical information about the PPP program. They should not represent themselves as PPP experts.

Overall Bench has helped me to track and monitor my business financials. Tax seasons has been a breeze the last two years with Bench - something a lot of freelancers struggle with.

- no need to use quickbooks - friendly and responsive staff when issues arise - individual bookkeeper assigned to your account - user interface is friendly and accessible - reporting features are solid - costs less than hiring your own bookkeeper - affordable rates which are advantageous for small businesses

- auto syncing does not connect w Capital One bak accounts which results oftentimes a 2-3 week lag in getting monthly reports back - only retrospective reporting; no prospective budgeting features (need to use separate software) - does not provide tax accounting services; only bookkeeping - cannot easily customize revenue subledgers without discussing w accountant - no categories of fixed/variable expenses - cannot upload documents via mobile devices

My experience has been overall positive! My bookkeeper is there when I need him and always professional and friendly!

Simply put, Bench took a headache away and made managing my bookkeeping easy and seamless. It also encourages me to be more aware of receivables and expenses + I really appreciate that I can check my books at any time, day or night. The overall look of the site is clean and approachable, and the interface is simple.

A few times my bank accounts have come "unlinked" somehow and I've had to go back in and link them.

What I love the most is the customer service. Despite this being a "bookkeeping software/tool", you get a dedicated accountant. Executives are so responsive. Every time I have a question, I get a response that same day. The platform is also easy to use, and the interface makes it really easy to upload documents, download reports, etc. Really recommend!

One small issue is the capabilities. If you have highly complex bookkeeping needs (a unique situation or business model), this may not work for you. This doesn't matter for 99% of businesses.

Easy Way To Stay On Top Of My Business, Taxes & Reports.

Very Easy To Use. Has many features & functionality.

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

Nothing food to say honestly. Never got it off the ground. When I asked for a refund it was a hassle

If you look around and have your ducks in a row you will find these people are price gouging businesses and their pricing tactics are horribly unfair to the prospective customer. My best advice is RUN FAR FAR AWAY!