Bench

Bench is the easiest way to manage our books online. It's been a huge time and money saver over the last few years.

In the wake of COVID I left the agency I was at to do my own agency. While I had my business as a side-agency for a number of years and applications like Freshbooks and then Quickbooks Self-Employed helped me manage things I dreaded tax season and all the work I needed to do every year.

During COVID I had to get my business up and going, get clients, execute projects, and get things done. I had zero time for managing my books. When the end of the year came up I dreaded the work that was ahead of me with several big projects in progress. Then, through the service I use to pay my contractors, I found out about Bench and it has changed my business AND my life.

Bench took 15 months' worth of books that needed to be done and assigned them to a "catch-up" accountant. He went through everything, classified all my expenses, and had a simple way to ask me to review anything they need clarification on. They pulled difficult things to deal with like my processing fees from Stripe and instantly accounted for them. On top of that, having an honest to goodness accountant and accounting team to know how to PROPERLY set up a Chart of Accounts and classify expenses was game-changing. This service easily pays for itself in the time it saves me and the peace of mind it gives me.

The sales and onboarding team was amazing. [SENSITIVE CONTENT] is a champion.

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.

Overall, I've been very impressed with Bench. The people, organization, resources, and software are top-notch. The price, however, is too much for someone who is self-employed or a small business owner with limited transactions. I understand that you generally get what you pay for, but I don't feel that you get 10x the value over self-managed bookkeeping using Quickbooks, Freshbooks, or Wave bookkeeping software. Excellent product -- it's just not for everyone.