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 Desktop 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

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

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

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

I love how user friendly the software is. Everything is easy to upload and the team is able to communicate with you and ask for documents or ask questions.

Cons

I have no complaints about any aspect of the software. Very satisfied overall.

Pros

I like that the online interface is user friendly, albeit a little glitchy.

Cons

Software is glitchy and could use a bit of tweaking in order to ensure that it is more effective.

Alternatives Considered

QuickBooks Online Advanced

Reasons for Switching to Bench

We had a decent amount of historical data that needed to be tracked and entered. This felt like a huge undertaking and we needed the assistance. Doing that was a good experience and the bookkeeper that we worked with was really helpful. I am not sure that we will continue to use the service for future months, especially once our business is open and the books become more complex.

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

1) Uncomplicated Interface — For a non-numbers/non-accounting comfortable individual it's great. It provides me access and understanding to our accounting in a very digestible yet informative manner.

2) Accessible Customer Service/Communications — All the interactions I've had have been professional, courteous, and problem solving driven. It's never "No". Instead if a challenge arises, they've always been proactive in finding a way to address the challenge or question providing options. It's also especially great that you can speak with them or chat with them with no barriers. At first I was very concerned about this since our books are the heartbeat of our financials, and i was quickly at ease after the first few calls and chats.

3) Easy — Once our accounts were synced and Bench had a clear picture of how our business worked, it's set-it-and-forget-it. What used to required a few hours every week for me now has become an hour or two a month.

4) Transaction Verification Made Easy — I especially love how they've simplified this process to almost a game.

Cons

1) Cash based bookkeeping. This was a struggle in the beginning since we were accrual based initially. However upon working with them and our CPA, we've managed to stay accrual based and set up a system where we do adjusted entries after filing taxes.

2) Not Quickbooks. This is not really a con, but should make it clear that if you prefer to stay on Quickbooks, this is not the service for you. They will provide your books as spreadsheets for your CPA to work with. At first I was nervous about this, but it hasn't been an issue.

3) Turnover with bookkeepers — Over the years, we've had I believe 5 different bookkeepers over the course of 6 years due to turnover or what seems to be internal promotions. It has not negatively impacted our service, but I do wish it was less frequent since at times I'd have to remind the new person some of the subtleties of our account.

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

The platform is intuitive and easy to use. You speak directly with the individual managing your account, which is nice for continuity. Any discrepancies are easily adjusted or annotated. It exports to multiple file types for integration with other platforms. It links with your accounts so you don't have to manually input everything. AND THEIR TEAM ACTUALLY CARES ABOUT YOU, which is a breath of fresh air.

Cons

Sometimes there are functionality issues with linked accounts, but usually it is because of the security protocols of the bank or account.

Pros

Very easy to use . This product has been very useful for me to track all business expenses and have all of the required audits of my accounts while also producing annual earnings reports. Very professional.

Cons

It would be nice if the system was able to read the memos for checks written to determine the purpose for the expenditure rather than the business owner having to review each check and identify its purpose for the business.

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 Desktop Enterprise

Reasons for Switching to Bench

Bench is much easier to use than quickbooks.

Pros

How easy it is to use the software. It shows you all the financial details of your business.

Cons

I'm really happy with everything they've done so far.

Alternatives Considered

QuickBooks Desktop Enterprise

Reasons for Switching to Bench

Better quality and customer service.

Pros

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

Cons

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

Pros

The software is very user-friendly. I like how you can isolate your search to specific months or quarters or the whole year. Uploading documents is very simple. Overall using this software is a pleasant experience.

Cons

Sometimes it will not pull my bank statements and I have to submit them manually.

Pros

After months of frustration with our old software, we switched to Bench and have been so happy. It is easy to use, painless, and so convenient.

Cons

So far I am completely happy, no cons yet!

Pros

The interface is clean and easy. Submitting expenses is easy and in most cases automated. My team, led by customer rep, is very responsive.

Cons

The only thing and I'm splitting hairs is that for more detailed ecommerce analytics, I need to either go to my ecommerce platform and/or pull other data for company performance. It would be helpful to be in one place. But that's a tall order for the great Bench price.

Pros

I love the ease and overall design of the software, and being able to switch between viewing the entire year, and each month. It helps me understand my financials in one glance, all in one place. It makes P&L reports infinitely more comprehensible, and they’re always completed promptly.

Cons

I have almost no complaints. My issues have been with smaller banks making it difficult to link accounts to Bench, but this is less about Bench, and more about the banks’ software.