Bench Erfahrungen

Love Bench!

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

Vorteile:

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.

Nachteile:

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.

A great value of service for taking care of bookkeeping

Kommentare: Great experience and helpful service. Awesome value since an in-person CPA would be double the cost.
Bench was especially around tax time when it comes to working with me to get my numbers buttoned up.

Vorteile:

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

Nachteile:

Some of the features like their Pulse tab of real time bank account syncing and electronic PDF statement syncing are glitchy.

Bench - A rollercoaster designed by a clown – full of unexpected twists, turns, and a few too many pies in the face.

Kommentare: Oh, Bench, where do I begin? Our journey together has been like a rollercoaster designed by a clown – full of unexpected twists, turns, and a few too many pies in the face. From the magical year of 2020, we embarked on an adventure, not knowing it would turn into a saga worthy of its own sitcom. Our point of contact changed more often than a chameleon in a disco, each time promising a smooth transition that felt more like a game of hot potato. The nuances and complexities of our account were supposed to be handled with care, yet they were tossed around like a salad, leading to a delightful mix of confusion and misplaced assumptions. Let's not forget the enchanting dance of communication with our main Bench point of contact, our very own guide through this nightmare. Their performances were nothing short of spectacular, a blend of confusion, misinformation, and the occasional contradiction. It was like watching a mime trying to explain quantum physics – utterly baffling but strangely captivating.
If you like jokes, you should hear the one were they cancel tax fillings the week before they are due after months of working with their team to get everything reviewed and ready for filing. Their solution, leave your business hanging and waiting for updates and promises that never seem to come all while collecting their monthly billings and service fees but never actually providing the contracted services. Use Bench if you like your accounting services like a rollercoaster without the thrill, a puzzle without a solution.

Vorteile:

Simple and easy to use platform interface and features. Consolidated communication in platform.

Nachteile:

Contradicting communication from our point of contact. Multiple changes with our point of contact and main bookkeeper. Charging us 21+ months of billings for accounting and tax services they never provided or actually completed. Bench promising to fix and refund those services and tax filings and then never doing so, over and over fro months. Tax filing errors that we had to discover with a 3rd party accounting firm. If you like getting ripped off, money stolen and then have to hire another accounting firm to fix all the issues they caused, then Bench is for you.

Good Quality; Probably too Much for a Smaller Company

Kommentare: I like the product, but am unsure of the value for smaller firms with fewer expenses.

Vorteile:

I like the ease of use. There is a lot of info that is consolidated well, and the customer service is quick.

Nachteile:

Overall the service works well, but for a small company with relatively few expenses, the $300/mo pricing is a bit steep. I feel that a tiered rate based on expense quantities would be valuable to smaller companies wishing to offload the accounting work, but can't justify the cost.

Bench is great

Kommentare: My accounting was solved using bench, literally it's set it and forget it, these guys are top notch and make your life easy.

Vorteile:

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.

Nachteile:

The only con here is that I didn't switch sooner.

Great product, worth the cost for peace of mind

Vorteile:

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.

Nachteile:

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.

Ditched Quickbooks and saved a lot of time

Kommentare: I am spending a lot less time on bookkeeping and accounting.

Vorteile:

Very easy implementation - love the human support on closing the books each month.

Nachteile:

Not all of my business accounts can be connected via feed (ie intuit payroll), which requires a drag and drop upload each month.

Easy to use, great customer service

Vorteile:

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!

Nachteile:

The pricing was a bit on the higher side especially the catch up accounting that ended up being a large lumpsum in my case!

Enjoying Bench Accounting for my Small Business

Kommentare: Bench helps me stay on top of my bookkeeping and know that my "i"s are dotted and "t"s are crossed.

Vorteile:

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!

Nachteile:

I wish linking to Bench Tax or having some sort of tax center was a bit more seamless.

I wish we would have invested in this sooner!

Kommentare: I LOVE it so much!! I wish we would have started using this from the start with our business.

Vorteile:

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!

Nachteile:

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.

Do Not Recommend

Kommentare: My service has been terrible. I spent over $5000 and do not have access to my books. Customer service was lacking and my bookkeeper would respond to my inquiry on timeline with responses like... I am on it like white on rice. Professionalism, accuracy and commitment to the contract is very lacking.

Vorteile:

I liked the idea of having support and a knowledgeable team to up to date and accurate financials. Unfortunately that was not my experience with Bench.

Nachteile:

I have worked with Bench for over a year and cannot get access to any of my financials. I check in on a daily basis to understand when and how I might get access to my books, but given answers about their three part review process with no explanation or timeline for when I will get my books. After working daily with Bench to get my financials for 2023 for over 5 weeks, I am told the financials will not be ready until after tax season and if I want them to file a tax extension. I could not recommend this service to anyone.

SaaS, but with people you get to know

Kommentare: Bit of a bumpy onboarding with aggressive trials clearly operated by a different team, but so much smoother once you start a subscription and are assigned your bookkeeper.

Vorteile:

A pleasant mix of self-service software, with a reliably consistent team who does genuinely get to know my business.

Nachteile:

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.

One less thing off of my plate...

Kommentare: I am saving myself hours and hours of handling the bookkeeping. I am confident that it is done correctly and I am not missing anything. I like having someone to ask bookkeeping questions to if need be.

Vorteile:

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!

Nachteile:

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.

DO NOT USE BENCH

Kommentare: The worst experience. They will steal from you and provide no services.

Vorteile:

Nothing. They do not know what they are doing. There customer service is horrible.

Nachteile:

This is a very incompetent company. They have charged me thousands for services that they have not performed. I have used them for almost a year. I have tried to cancel them and they keep charging me. When you call, no one answers in any department. The voice mail states that they will call you back with in 1 business day. My rep ([sensitive content hidden]) makes appointments and will not hold the appointment time. You sit there and wait for them and they never call.

failed to file business taxes on time and did not file personal taxes properly

Kommentare: tldr; terrible - incompetent, will not support client if there are missed filing deadlines, penalties and fees. During my sales onboarding call, I talked about my 10 years of doing business in NYC as a sole owner of an s-corp. I have to file extensions from time to time. Bench assured me this would be no problem. They missed the deadline to file my business return with NYC. When I asked Bench about this, they replied that they don't do municipal filings. I asked why didn't my tax preparer notify me - the short answer: he didn't even know NYC requires a seperate business filing. It took several intense phone calls to get a refund. My personal returns were the same. They didn't calculate my estimated tax liability when the filed my extension. I got hit with hundreds in penalties and interest. Again I asked why they didn't notify me. Answer: it was in our disclaimer. If you look at what Bench offers, they are charging a premium for essentially googling information for you. The actual issues you will need guidance on, they don't offer. Furthermore, they will not advise you of critical filing necessities because it's in their list of "disclaimers". Find a local tax accountant who understands your business and will have your best interests in mind.

Vorteile:

The dashboard chat and customer call scheduling were pretty responsive.

Nachteile:

a bit clunky moving from bookkeeping to tax platforms and not knowing which chat/communication to use when customer support tells you to check your messages.

Bench is Amazing

Kommentare: Bench is amazing. As a small business owner I was spending too much time categorizing expenses and correctly documenting items for the P&L or balance statement. Bench offers such an amazing service and any time I had a question or issue my Bench specialist was right there. I would highly recommend Bench to anyone who needs bookkeeping services (and their tax team is amazing as well). Couple all of that with their service team's (big shout out to [SENSITIVE CONTENT HIDDEN]) genuine care for you and your company and you have kind of a no brainer.

Vorteile:

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.

Nachteile:

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

Good start, low customization

Kommentare: Overall, I still recommend Bench if you are starting out and a small business under $1 Million in sales. However, as you grow, I would recommend switching to Quickbooks.

Vorteile:

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.

Nachteile:

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.

Total disaster of company

Kommentare: I am a bit puzzled on how there are so many 5 star reviews. My experience has been a total disaster. Stay away, just Google for "Bench reviews Reddit" and you will find the real users experience.

Vorteile:

Excellent service to receive an extra dose of stress.

Nachteile:

They have changed my bookkeeper 4 times in a single year; they made repeated mistakes after mistakes on my books, nothing was personalized, all they do is to set the system to classify the transactions; 2 different 'tax experts' that gave me wrong information; books are NEVER completed on time, they are constantly late by several months; about filing taxes: they will file for an extension regardless of whether your books are done or not.. without even consulting with you; messages and emails are never replied to, you have to call every time and nothing gets resolved;

Really Disappointing

Kommentare: Poor. I do not feel that I am getting my money worth.

Vorteile:

I thought I would enjoy seeing where my business expenses were going, but so far I am not able to tell what is going on.

Nachteile:

No turn around on items I need categorized. No follow up. Slow to respond.

Completely alleviated stress while reducing my bookkeeping costs

Kommentare: When I first heard about Bench, I was nervous about switching from a standard, old school accounting firm I'd worked with for many years. Within a week, my fears were dissipating. Three years later, my fears are completely gone. Bench completely meets my needs as a small business owner - while saving me time and money.

Vorteile:

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.

Nachteile:

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

The Back Pocket Tool That Solved My Bookkeeping Blindspot

Kommentare: Overall, I find Bench.co to be an accessible, easy-to-use, game-changing bookkeeping tool and resource for entrepreneurs & SMEs. The team is efficient, friendly, patient, and thorough (even when I had an adverse reaction to tackling my stuck-point when it comes to bookkeeping and I managed to even annoy myself I was treated kindly, a currency I don't take lightly, especially this year). I even got a goodie from a referral. It felt awesome to be rewarded!

Vorteile:

We all know that transitioning from the "idea" stage of a side gig to a real independent consultancy can be tricky. Without the right mentorship or support for small businesses, many are under the impression they don't need a bookkeeper. If I had known then what I know now, it could have saved me thousands of dollars and time which is priceless to time-scarce bootstrappers with multiple streams of income. I also like that Bench.co works closely with FreshBooks so when I need help I hear from both teams when needed. It's not just the AI in software, it's the EQ and human relationships that make it all come together. Bench.com are definitely real humans which I loved!

Nachteile:

A real struggle bootstrappers have is time. Therefore, it was a near emotional crisis to embrace I had to go into my documents like a surgeon to know every weird detail of each expense which is time-consuming as the names may slightly differ from the actual purchase.

Bench review

Vorteile:

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

Nachteile:

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

AMAZING SOFTWARE & CUSTOMER SERVICE

Kommentare: I'd definitely recommend this software to all my friends. Easy to use and great customer service. They get the job done. Great investment.

Vorteile:

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

Nachteile:

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

Very Happy With BENCH

Kommentare: Easy Way To Stay On Top Of My Business, Taxes & Reports.

Vorteile:

Very Easy To Use. Has many features & functionality.

Nachteile:

I can't think of any. Very thorough for my particular needs.

Good software

Kommentare: Pleasant experience. Fix times need to be shorter.

Vorteile:

The reporting tools are very clear. Very easy to upload new documents

Nachteile:

Time to prepare full report of prior month takes a few weeks. Certain expenses are repetitively miscategorized.