"It was good the first year"

It was good the first year, and now i cannot get in contact with them and get my book keepings released for 2023 so i can do my tax returns.

"Horrible Service: Not Accountants"

Horrible service. They don’t keep up on your books at all, they do not properly chart your account. Once I decided to cancel services they deleted my data for the entire year even though I paid every single month. This is not an accounting firm. Some side notes are: they use foreign folks and also can legally copy and steal your info per their terms. Your private financial information is NOT confidential. Talk about stealing IP.

Quickbooks is cheaper, will chart your accounts accordingly, will NOT delete your data, are always on time. Working with this company was a nightmare. Spare yourself.

Full disclaimer from their terms is “ License to Use Your Information.”

With the exception of your non-public personal information, You hereby grant to the Company the perpetual, unlimited, royalty-free, worldwide, non-exclusive, irrevocable, transferable license to run, display, copy, reproduce, publish, bundle, distribute, market, create derivative works of, adapt, translate, transmit, arrange, modify, sublicense, export, merge, transfer, loan, rent, lease, assign, share, outsource, host, make available to any person or otherwise use any information or other content You provide on or through this website or which is sent to the Company by email or other correspondence, including, without limitation, any ideas, concepts, inventions, know-how, techniques or any intellectual property contained therein, for any purpose whatsoever. The Company shall not be subject to any obligations of confidentiality regarding any such information unless specifically agreed to by the Company in writing or required by law. You represent and warrant that you have the right to grant the license set out above.”

"Books are months behind on being done"

The Bench team is simply stretched too thin. I have been a Bench customer for several years. This is the most delayed they have been to closing the books. So much requires additional correction and categorization on our part. Their team is pleasant and honest about this being an issue — but it is a real issue, especially if you need to rely on these books.

"The bench team has only one way of…"

The bench team has only one way of communicating and that is electronically and I feel for the money paid it is very restrictive and slow. I have never had one discussion with the person handling my accounting or my account and so my actual numbers and information seems flawed so it is frustrating.

"Do Not Use Bench"

The entire process was a nightmare. From the onboarding representative not showing up. To our "free month" getting fully charged. I question their ethics, legalities, and how dedicated they are to their customer base. I would steer FAR FAR away from Bench

"This company is a COMPLETE JOKE"

This company is a COMPLETE JOKE! Been with them for about 4 years, and tried to give them the benefit of the doubt.... but just NO! If you have ANY understanding of bookkeeping/accounting to begin with, then Bench will be a TOTAL WASTE OF TIME FOR YOU. The people assigned to your account change way too frequently for ANYONE to be able to keep up. There's no way to set or see any categorizing rules, you just have to HOPE that your bookkeeper actually does them correctly each month, which they don't in most cases. So you end up having to recategorize them later.....IF YOU catch them! Cause NO ONE AT THIS COMPANY is actually going to review ANYTHING before they close the month and move on, like they're done! I had ONE of about 10 different bookkeepers assigned to my account, after I had to ask for someone more qualified to handle our business financials. Then they mention they have an advanced team that I would switch to. This person was better but the books were always at least 3 months behind. Every year end, it's a race to try and catch up first, to then process tax returns. I also tried their tax return service collaboration with Taxfyle, because I used Taxfyle seperately for 2 years prior with a GREAT experience. Once I moved to try and sync taxfyle through Bench it was a total nightmare, and that was a yearly contract agreement versus monthly, and 3-4 months into the contract they told me they were going to raise the price on my monthly fee because of updates they've made to the platform! I can't tell cause nothing is helpful to the user. I started out paying 159/month 3 years ago up until 2023, when I switched to the tax prep and bookkeeping plan. So January 2023 the price went to $428/month for 12 months, which included 2 years of tax prep thru Taxfyle.com(they're awesome alone) for my business & personal, so I thought it was an good enough deal. BOY WAS I WRONG! 2 months later my March 2023 bill was $568/month with no warning or explanation before they billed it. I immediately asked about it and no one could answer me. They had to go consult with others, and that took WEEKS to get back to me. When they did, they said there was an issue with not getting the email they sent. And because I didn't get the email they would credit my monthly payment to $397.60/mo. a 30% discount starting in MAY for 6 invoices. That's how long they incorrectly billed me! Nothing was mentioned about the ACTUAL 12 MONTH CONTRACT they had me sign at the beginning for $428/mo. Nov and Dec were back up to the $568/mo. They almost gave taxfyle a bad name in dealing with them. The communication between teams was non-existent. No one knew what the other was doing. I was supposed to be assigned an actual CPA. I thought the CPA was going to review my books monthly, and advise on how to write off items, plan for donations and credits for tax filing. He did absolutely NOTHING PROACTIVELY! It was basically schedule an appointment if you have a question. He didn't even automatically weigh in on the actual tax preparation, which needed it. But they assign a completely different person to prepare your tax return, NOT THE CPA YOU PAY FOR! And I asked them to match me with the previous person that filed my taxes for years directly thru taxfyle. They didn't communicate that to anyone, so I got some random person that didn't know how to communicate, explain what he was doing, or answer any questions. He took forever, and had to file an extension. My taxes didn't get done until like July!!!! And that was AFTER I made them reassign me to someone new to finish what the first guy started! I've talked to my CPA ONCE in 2023, which was the initial call! I'm going to cancel, and hope that this doesn't turn into a nightmare. I've had enough! DON'T PICK THEM REGARDLESS OF WHAT ANYONE TELLS YOU. Waste of time and money. Stressful & a liability if you're not careful. They'll jack your financials up and possibly your business, depending on who you pass those jacked up financials on to. FIND ANY OTHER COMPANY BESIDES THIS ONE!

"Definitely a Time-Saver"

I've been with Bench a couple years now, where previously I was doing everything myself in Excel. If you're coming from a similar place, it's a big improvement! Bench does save a lot of time in keeping the financials up to date and accurate, but it's not entirely hands-off.

Real-time reporting has improved during my time as a customer, but it's still frustrating not to be able to recategorize transactions myself. For simple corrections, it's pretty lame to have to message my bookkeeper. For whatever reason, they have a really hard time with my payroll process and correctly allocating the different amounts.

"Bench was great--until it wasn't."

Bench was great--until it wasn't.

I've been shuffled around various different bookkeepers over the past 2 years. One bookkeeper was phenomenal, but the others weren't good.

During that 2-year period, They made 2 serious mistakes on my books that would have cost me a lot of money if I hadn't discovered them myself. The mistakes were made despite the fact that I checked in with each bookkeeper to make sure the particular problem had been addressed (and it wasn't).

Unfortunately, Bench seems to have lost its soul in a quest to scale.

I'm really disappointed to see a company I once loved lose what made it great.

"Very responsive team, and nice online dashboards"

They are very responsive when I ask a question, and also good about letting me know if I need to take any action on my part. The online platform and dashboards are great for quickly seeing how your business is doing, and overall just keeping an eye on your finances and expenses.

"Do not use this company"

Do not use this company. They have taken two payments (Oct 27 and Nov 27) and have still not provided any books (the promised FREE Sept books and the Oct + Nov books), despite my numerous emails asking where my books are and their replies that "you will have them end of this week". It's now Dec 17 and I still don't have a single thing from them. I asked for a refund, but they won't give it (want to give me 50% off the next 2 months -- but why would I do that when I don't have anything I've paid for already?). Fortunately, my credit card company refunds for issues like this (service not given) but it's been such a waste of time for now 2.5 months as they promised the Sept free books early Oct. I also gave them every chance to correct -- but they don't seem to understand the huge issue of not giving service and taking TWO payments.