I was an early adopter of the Crunch service because I bought into the idea of an online book keeping system backed up by accounting services. Crunch has delivered on all counts. Over five years we have grown our business nearly five-fold and Crunch has been a reliable partner throughout. Because they do so much more than the standard book keeping software systems (ie VAT returns, PAYE returns, audited annual accounts) it is hard to do a simple price comparison with book keeping software. In our calculations they have saved us money over the years and offer a low hassle factor (ie no missed VAT submissions or company house returns). Things like having good looking invoices, user-friendly interfaces and people at the end of the phone for operational questions or accountancy issues is invaluable. It definitely helps with keeping tabs on monthly profitability and overdue invoices. Yes, you need to be organised - and you need to enter the information. The best thing I ever did was make my assistant responsible for all aspects of book keeping. Now I can focus more on the business. Overall, if you are looking for a professional accounting partner to help you grow your business I would recommend Crunch.

- Easy to learn and to use - Combines accounting with book keeping - Good for cash flow - Responsive people - Good alerts so accounting deadlines are met

- new developments are not always as quick to arrive as you would like - financial reporting is OK, but not amazing - certainly good enough for a small business

day-to-day business accounting. Ensuring I am always ahead of my accounting requirements. Even after striking off my company, Crunch have continued to offer support with HMRCs system issues. If I find myself as a sole trader or setting up a company in the future, I will be coming straight back to Crunch

Straightforward to use. Easy to track everything and stay on top of it. Is the difference between running a company successfully (or paying fines to HMRC)

Small learning curve and mobile app at first had a couple of small bugs, but nothing major.

Oh how I used to love Crunch, the answer to all my one ban band freelance design business woes, well that's how it was for the first 6 months. It went sour after that and eventually rock bottom and perished, leaving a very bad taste in my mouth and a very stressful 18 months. On the front of it, it's great at invoicing and keeping a tally of ins and outs. Until you have to update all your expenses yourself, do your own reconcilliation (trawling through uploaded (when they work) csv bankstatements) and matching them off to the expenses you've already inputted. This technically is an accountant/book-keeper's role, so you're doing their work for them. It's up to you to check your own information, again doing their work for them. If you can put up with all the server errors, bugs, site crashes etc then fine, which was ok at first as the system was in it's infancy. But then when you have to engage with a human being, expect to encounter the very junior front end account manager, who is usually pretty clueless. Imagine this, you're needing to pay yourself, there's a bug in the system that they can't work out in the back end dev department, this holds you back from paying yourself for weeks while they try to sort it out. So you start withdrawing what you assume would be enough to keep you afloat to be told that the numbers now don't work out, then 6 months later with hardly any hair left you get to a state you think is 'fixed'. Then more problems, I could list pages of problems. I won't bother. Steer clear, use a human being trained in accountancy, one that has many years of experience behind them. Not some jumped up cloud system that means you'll be spending sleepless nights worrying about and inputting data.

Not many

Plenty

A few years back I quit my job at an agency and started freelancing. Work came in, everything was great. I debated setting up a company but it looked complicated - it was less about the invoicing and whatnot, more about the legalities. After about 6 months of doing it myself, I realised it just wasn't efficient and decided to do something about it. I had no idea what to look for, but after a suggestion from a friend I contacted Crunch. As far as business goes, it's been one of the best decisions I've ever made. After going through all my options, they set up a company for me, set me up on their system and explained how everything works. There's certainly been a learning curve, but then I'd never run a business before - thankfully they've been wonderful with answers to questions (that looking back) seem borderline idiotic. Reading another review on here (that in fairness prompted me to write this one), I wasn't quite sure what the guy/girl was talking about - my experience with their (incredibly tolerant) account handlers and accountants has been nothing short of fantastic. The system itself is great - I do a lot of web work and it's pretty much what I would have built if I'd been building it. Expenses, invoicing and the rest is really simple to do, and it's great to have and see all my numbers and 'company financial stuff' in one easy-to-digest dashboard. Paperwork (including all the HMRC real time PAYE stuff) is all done and taken care of automagically. Which is nice. Frankly, I can't praise them enough. I was really worried about doing the whole 'proper company' thing, but it's not really something I think about anymore - it's just another tool that helps me get my job done, maximise my earnings and keep me legal. There are very few companies I'm happy to wax lyrical about, but Crunch is certainly one of those (just ask anyone I've blathered on to about starting up on their own!).

Super helpful, easy to use, love the system. Hassle free accounting - I feel like they actually 'get' me and understand what I'm doing.

None, really.

Overall experience was excellent. The customer support was always helpful and the system was easy to use. I could not have run a single owner/directory company without them.

The best thing about using Crunch was the peace of mind when dealing with invoicing and tax. Everything was clear and I could be sure things were being handled properly.

There were sometimes bugs in the front end, like reconcilling bank account entries via .csv file. Upload and reconcile in one go didn't work, but uploading first, then reconcilling separarely after refreshing the front end did. It took a while before they did a UI refresh, and the bug still existed after that, but it wasn't a deal breaker!

saving time and a better understanding of accounting for companies

Where to start? I knew nothing about accounting so when we started I wanted an online company, Crunch basically do it all! Once you get round the software (it's not exactly simple but what accounting program can be??) it's very easy to use and the real time info is great. We use it for tax returns, PAYE and personal tax and it's an essential tool for us!

The reporting side can be better, you get great bar charts but only for the active tax year. I'd like to see more historical visual charts to help build up a better picture of the companies growth.

Excellent web interface makes it easy to access all of my accounting information in one go. I love the fact that its online so that I can use any device to get to my accounts, and NO spreadsheets!!!

An iPhone/iPad app would be great for quick view information. I would also love a more fully inclusive contract review service, the existing arrangement with 5 day lead time is often too long so I end up having to go elsewhere. Sometimes I want a quick answer such as 'which category should I list this expense as?' - this would be nicely solved via an online chat function which would be really useful. Finally, proper 2 factor authentication (Google authenticator) would be good too.

Great experience from day 1 thanks to the amazing platform and great customer service anytime I had specific questions. The teams are all very responsive and always incredibly patient and willing to help.

The software is very intuitive, easy to use and has great features like the synchronisation with bank accounts which makes the registration of expenses fast and efficient.

I can’t think of anything. I have never encountered issues with the software.

We've been using Crunch for almost a year now, and they've saved us a huge amount of money over traditional accountants. But it's also taken a long time to learn the software and it's not flexible enough to be our only tool. The biggest limitation is the reporting, there are a couple built in reports but you can't edit the reporting period!

It really makes my accountancy tasks easier and helps me having a clear picture of the current status of expenses vs. income. With the helpful notification I can also be on top of the deadlines for submissions to HMRC in terms of taxes, VAT returns or any other needed documentation.

All the relevant numbers information is clearly displayed on simple dashboards which makes it extremely easy to have a clear picture on the transactions performed, the amounts getting in and out of the account and expenses.

Sometimes the navigation is not 100% straightforward. Even actions I have performed a couple of times, sometimes I have a hard time remembering under which section menu they can be found.

Trying to use them as accountants for my small limited company. Pretty tempted to swap to Quickbooks.

Bank reconciliation with certain banks is free and easy to use. Nice to know your tax exposure at any point.

They are dropping their iPhone app, which is pretty basic and could be so much better, but allows fast expense entry. No have top use their website, which isn't the best. You no longer have a dedicated account manager, you have a pool of them, so you don't get continuity and there's always a different person responding to emails. There seems to be a huge shortage of accountants, they take literally 1-2 weeks to reply to a basic email. End of year accounts has a lead time of 8 weeks and you have to chase to actually achieve that (I understand that its fully automated, the accountant just needs to double check it, which is pretty basic, I have no idea why it takes so long in this day and age). You ask a specific question and quite often get a generic response. They do not offer any helpful tax advice or go out their way to help. Expensive when compared to the competition.

All of my business finances are online and accurate.

The invoicing and automated emails are very helpful. The instructional videos are v. good and helpful but I think you need more of that embedded within the platform. Also the UI is very clean and well layed out. Probably too many clicks for some tasks but otherwise very good.

Expenses. The data entry, and reconciling process is too manual and laborious. I think there definitely should be a free app with unlimited scanning of receipts and the app should complete expenses in Crunch by default. And I also think I should be able to link my bank account to Crunch and not have to do the whole import/export/reconcile/scan process. For the amount paid for Crunch as a service I think these services should be covered as well. I think the End of Year Taxes could be better illustrated on the platform as I'm still unsure how much Tax I'm due to pay towards the end of the year. Also I think it would not take too much research to create a Salary calculator so that you can compare day/hourly rates to yearly salaries.

The software works pretty well but the company itself basically does nothing for you. You do all the expenses and reconciliation yourself and most of the tax calculation is automated or you have to do it yourself so the accountant only looks at it for the corporation tax return. They never suggest ways you can save tax apart from the most basic standard ways. They never consult you about expected earnings for coming years to put in place any tax saving strategies. They never do what they say they will do unless you hound them. When I finally decided to close my business they told me it would take a couple of months but a year later they still had not done it so then it gave me issues with my tax return. I've had 5 different account handlers in 6 years all of which seem a bit clueless. You pay standard accounting fees for a computer to do the work for them and the little work an accountant does is done very very slowly or not at all. I'll use an old fashioned accountant next time as I paid a lot less tax than with crunch.

Easy to see the exact state of your business at any moment Easy to export data and tax documents

Steep learning curve You do all of the reconciliation yourself instead of an accountant No proactive tax advice or strategy so you pay a lot more tax overall

The software is easy to use and full-featured, at least in its desktop version. Backed up with great support from the Crunch accountants and client managers.

It doesn't scale down particularly well to phones. The iOS app should be full-featured and include the Snap functionality (which is available through a separate app).

Lower cost than traditional accountants, more feeling of oversight and control over financial position, more empowerment as a business owner

The various dashboards make it easier to see how my business is performing in terms of sales, revenue and profit. Invoicing, expensing, bank reconciliation and keeping on top of taxes are all easy. Notifications are clear and prompt, so I'm never at risk of falling behind with my accounting.

Timed logout is too quick - I'm often toggling between tabs and tasks and don't want to have to sign in every 5 minutes. It's time-consuming to rectify historical mistakes in banking reconciliation. Non-compatibility of certain bank statements is a pain.

Makes it possible to run my business without wasting evenings and weekends keeping my accounts up to date.

The software covers all my needs for recording invoices, expenses, calculating taxes, preparing accounts and so on. It is pretty easy to use too for most things. I like the reminders that tell you when payments are due and taxes need to be paid. I don't need to remember very much. The automated bank reconciliation process makes it easy to keep up to date too.

I get a bit confused over how the payments for Corporation Tax work - but my account manager is always on hand to sort things out for me,

Complete and instant control of my business finances. Understanding where my company funds are is essential to a small company like mine.

You are in complete control of your accounts, you instantly know how much you have, what you owe and who you owe it too. Business planning is made simple when you can see your finances at the click of a button.

Some of the banking dashboards were poor, but have recently been improved. Everything else is spot on.

It used to be a reliable bespoke service, with staff who care and follow their customers. But I have noticed the services getting poorer every year.

At this day, their services looks more like a bunch of automated emails rather than a true service helping you handling your tax efficiently. I am now dealing with the worst customer experience, with late fee payments and been forced to pay a full year of subscription despite my wish to leave. I am currently seeking for legal help as anywhere else is a pro-rata based type of subscription. I thought that a start up would had the decency to consider their old customers who endured the up and down of their development. I am shocked of their very poor ethics and consideration against freelancers and small businesses.