Bench Reviews

Pros

I really like it that Bench people essentially leave me alone and they will do all the bookkeeping stuff for me. It is not my forte, so it is great and done at much lower price point than hiring a firm. The web interface is great and pretty much you upload your expense receipts and they will take care of it.

Cons

Occasionally the bank statement transfers stops, then takes a bit of trial and errors for it to work, only happens perhaps once a year or so. No biggie, but could improve it.

Pros

Everyone I worked with to understand and use the bookkeeping software was friendly, professional, and helpful. The dashboard analytics was very easy to understand and is very appealing. I also like that I can export all data into a single workbook (summaries and itemized transactions).

Cons

I don't like that the product is so expensive. Depending on how large your business is and how many transactions you're managing, this product may be too expensive. For example, I've used Quickbooks Self-Employed for years and it's under $20/mo. In comparison, Bench (without any promotions) is hundreds of dollars per month. Granted, they are provided professional bookkeeping services as well as the software, but for a business with 50 transactions per month, it is a little overkill. It's really the only thing I don't love about Bench.

Alternatives Considered

FreshBooks and Wave Accounting

Reasons for Choosing Bench

I wanted to test out Bench to see if the added cost would equate to advice on how I could save more than I'm spending. To date, everyone has been helpful but I have received no recommendations.

Switched From

QuickBooks Self-Employed

Reasons for Switching to Bench

I chose Bench over FreshBooks and Wave Accounting because of the bookkeeper assistance, design of the product, and ease of use.

Pros

I like that they have articles that are helpful to small business owners

Cons

I dislike that they sometimes don't do a great job with bookkeepin

Pros

I like that Bench can customize the experience and give you almost any list of metrics.

Cons

Bench is more expensive than other options I've tried, but much of that is my fault. Their pricing is based on working with much larger companies.

Pros

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.

Cons

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.

Alternatives Considered

FreshBooks, QuickBooks Desktop Enterprise and Xero

Reasons for Switching to Bench

A good blend between what I need the most, pricing, and peer reviews.

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

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

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

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

I was hesitant to start Bench because I thought I could handle the bookkeeping for our business on my own. Managing money has always been a strength for me. However, as my company grows I find that I need to keep delegating and removing things off of my plate. At the same time as a business owner I like to keep as much cash inside the company as possible.

I finally gave the free trial a chance and it has been the BIGGEST weight off of me. I know that my bookkeeping is totally taken care of and done professionally. The stress of organizing everything for taxes is lifted off, and I know that I always have someone working on it everyday on my behalf.

Anytime I have questions I get an immediate response along with very valuable advice. I am a Bench customer for life!

Cons

I don't like that it keeps disconnecting to my bank account. We've had a few technical issues with that. It can be very time consuming and frustrating especially since I am extremely busy already. I also have to confirm purchases from months prior and that can take a long time! When I confirm those purchases it is usually 30+ transactions and at that point I don't even remember all of them so it takes a while for me to locate receipts. I really dislike that too. I wish it were less expensive for us a small business owner as well.

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 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.

Cons

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.

Alternatives Considered

QuickBooks Desktop Enterprise and Wave Accounting

Reasons for Switching to Bench

All in one pricing

Pros

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.

Cons

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.

Pros

Prior to Bench, we used Quickbooks, and it was lifesaver! We had no idea how to use Quickbooks for bookkeeping and Bench made it easy for us. There was low setup involved and their dashboard was amazing.

Cons

As our company grew, we needed more information in our financial statements. At the time, there was low customization with Bench, and we couldn't add or change things in regards to our Profit and Loss statement. Also, at the time, they only did cash based accounting.

Pros

I like the ease of having my bookkeeping done on a timely basis and not having to think about it until I get a message to review the month. I can then easily go in and make notes of any changes to be made or answer their questions to me. The customer service is excellent as well. They integrate with my payroll company too which saves time.

Cons

They don't integrate with my Customer Management System and they don't use QuickBooks which I also use. I process invoices through my CMS which also provides my scheduling, customer profiles, employee payroll reports, etc. I would love it if Bench would integrate their system to it so I can better track invoices. Instead I have to do that through QuickBooks but am only using a small portion of what QB offers since Bench does my bank reconciliation and they don't use QB. So I'm still paying for QB for this part of what I need. I have a daily service company and I process client credit cards daily in addition to tracking some clients that still write checks and a few who pay via ACH. I do that within QB. At this point I'm not aware of a better way if I want to continue using Bench for bookkeeping.

Pros

Bench is SIMPLE. The software provides me an accurate and easy to understand overview of my monthly and annual financials with easy-to- process visuals and graphs. The software integrates automatically with my bank and credit card, alleviating the back and forth calls and emails I used to labor through with my former "brick and mortar" accountants. When I have a question, the Bench team is always available and quick to respond.

Cons

Nada! No complaints here! I have not experienced a single problem with the Bench software

Pros

- 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

Cons

- 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

Pros

Easy to master accounting software and programmatic marketing is a little easier and is practically with Bench

Cons

One of the easiest software to find and use. No problem likely

Pros

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

Cons

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

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.