Bench Reviews

I found this company online fromFacebook and called them up When I originally called they kept me on hold for 3-5 minutes and then the recording asked me to leave a voicemail I was looking to get started and sign up but that alone make me think otherwise I have not signed up I am not able to talk to anyone Then a few minutes later I started getting calls from a CA number from a guy saying he was returning my call I said I inquired before and wanted to know how to sign up The phone he was on was very choppy distant I am not sure if these people work fromHome or not but it did not seem professional From the onset so I will find another service

I had a very different experience depending on the client contact working with me So it s more dependent on the individual than on their culture and system I believe Bench wants to get it right overall but they are not quite there yet Not a seamless experience a lot of the inputs need to be repeated because they forget Much happier with my current account person

Bench is a great starter tool but wouldn t recommend it once you get 10 employees 1 Their tax service is a bit questionable I was told that it would be a tax strategy type service but YOU are the one expected to come with questions and proactively book meetings How does that make sense if I don t have any tax knowledge 2 Bookkeeper service is good - they capture 90 of it but it took me 20 hours ish for me to work with them and get into our cadence I feel like they didn t get it

It started out well They gave us a really good deal to get started They failed to mention that they would not do inventory They claim this was a failure of their onboarding team or I wasn t listening because this is a hard and fast rule I seriously doubt it was my hearing because inventory is a big deal for our company We do electronics manufacturing and have parts and subassemblies costing much less than one cent to several hundred dollars And of course correct handling of inventory and CGS Cost of Goods Sold will give you correct value for inventory and proper gross and net profit My first indication of trouble was the P L showing seriously negative months This was because they were putting all purchasing into CGS So if we bought a year s supply of a 50 PCB the cost all went into the month the P O was paid causing wild gyrations in the monthly profit and crazy CGS numbers one month and extremely low CGS other months using up inventory not buying much or anything I did not understand what was going on but when the books claimed my net profit was 9K and I had 45K in the bank cash I knew something was wrong I had added on tax support because I wanted to talk with someone on tax issues I was unable to contact anyone for 4 months They did not give me a way to contact anyone then they gave me a broken link and finally after 4 months of nothing I got to talk with the tax guy It was that conversation that helped me to understand why Bench not tracking inventory was messing up my books It was also my complaint that Bench owed me 800 for 4 months of no service for tax advice I never got the 800 There were attempts to try to do inventory without them having to do it In other words I was to do it and provide information to them Then they told me they could not make adjustments to reflect the inventory values I reported because the IRS would not allow them to do that What That is nonsense It became clear that they were unable and or unwilling to do inventory in any correct way that would result in appropriate bookkeeping For a company with long term inventory this is unacceptable I could not use the books and P L balance sheets to assist me in making business decisions I had to spend a lot of time adjusting everything NONSENSE So I found a replacement They laughed about the claimed IRS restriction Now the books make sense the P L makes sense it all works together and I can make business decisions with the information The bookkeeper is sucking the data out of my credit card and bank accounts and setting up for tax time without much input from me Wow it is amazing I used to spend a lot of time sending receipts to Bench Now only if it is unusual such as something the bookkeeper has not seen before It was always a struggle with Bench and I still had to do a lot of accounting myself Now I do almost nothing I then tried to get a refund First the 800 Also since they essentially defrauded me by failing to tell me they did not do inventory how is that a bookkeeping position we only do some of your bookkeeping I told them I should get it all back but I knew they would not do that I did think they would do something Nope nada Never heard from them again Maybe if you have no inventory such as a software download company or your turnover in inventory is measured in a week or two max or you have a service where there is no inventory Bench might be a reasonable choice Probably a lot of companies that might fit into that category Stay away if you have inventory to manage and keep track of On the tax assistance paying 200 mo for that is a joke They can answer some questions even look at your books they are at a different location and not part of Bench But do any serious tax service for you Nope The answer is see you after December 31 So why am I paying 200 mo all year Makes no sense

Lackluster Constantly changing bookkeepers on you Look elsewhere for bookkeeping

Ailbhe Muhall from their marketing team has been VERY difficult to work with At one point he literally said he needed my phone number to ensure my mom doesn t get any more bothersome calls Yes there is context missing but I have the full conversation if anyone from the bench executive team what s to review the EXACT dialogue I can assure you that the series of communication that took place was NOT much better This was their response Hi Geoffrey I hope you are well My name is Rebecca and I am a Senior Client Success Specialist at Bench I wanted to reach out to you as we received your TrustPilot review of your experience with Ailbhe from our sales team I have reached out to Ailbhe s team lead Soraya cc d and we have both reviewed the correspondence between yourself and Ailbhe as well as the timeline of events I can confirm that on August 17th she tried to reach the phone number that was inputted into our system to schedule a call with you Unfortunately as no one answered she left a voicemail This was also the case on August 18th when she attempted to contact you again but left a voicemail due to no response When someone finally answered on the 21st they clarified that they were not Geoffrey and at that point Ailbhe ceased all calls to that number She even made a note in our system confirming that the number was not yours Regarding the appointment booked through Calendly please understand that Calendly automatically sends reminders for upcoming appointments via Text Email and Phone based on the information provided This is an automated process managed by Calendly and we apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused your mom Furthermore when Soraya and I reviewed the email correspondence between you and Ailbhe we found that at no point did she attempt to use your phone number as a bargaining chip Her intention was simply to provide you with appointment information and reminders so you would have them in your system We completely respect your decision if you choose not to provide us with your phone number as it is your right However we wanted to clarify that Ailbhe s intentions were not as described in your email which contained accusatory language We appreciate your feedback and hope this clarifies the situation If you have any further questions or concerns please feel free to reach out to us Thank you

So far the process has been very slow I ve had to do my own accounting to pay quarterly estimated taxes

I have been with bench for 2 tax seasons now I pay a premium every month for their tax services in addition to bookkeeping services When you sign up you are assigned to a team and to one tax professional if you are opting for tax assistance I have had to correct them on the state level of taxes that I should owe and correct them on the federal tax identification codes that I should be using due to my industry I have given them leeway due to my line of work being very niche but they seem to be repeating the same mistakes I will say the group I m assigned to is very prompt at responding to me in our text communications through the platform website but any time I want to talk to my tax professional I have schedule it and the wait is typically a week During March - June the wait to talk to my professional is 2 weeks I don t talk to them often and when I do need them it s a completely unreasonable wait time Two weeks ago I had scheduled a time to phone conference with my tax professional yesterday I was unable to attend due to sickness I just got finished calling them back there is no representative to talk to I had to leave a message and goodness knows when someone will be able to get back to me I m currently vetting for a local bookkeeper tax preparer I have no doubt there is an excuse to my treatment Maybe my company is too small I pay a premium so I should be offered the same consideration as anyone else Maybe the company is too busy it s your responsibility to handle the work you take on if you can t you need fix that I guarantee you won t maintain long lasting customer relationships this way

I ve had Bench co for over 5 years In that 5 years even thought you re talking to people I never got real or helpful answer to anything Unless you can already do your books this service is not good for people who really need someone help them for their finances Also several times over my account was unassigned - sometimes for Months - causing me to miss tax deadline Admittedly I don t know everything about finances and taxes - Hence why I got Bench co At the end of the relationship I feel it cost me more overall for the service than the benifit Their taxfyle service is also a joke Don t expect ANY help beside them filing it And expect to be asked for the same documents over and over again The people who work their are nice and professional but if you really need one on one support or help I would recommend finding a real person close to you

My service with Bench started off fine but has gone completely downhill in the last 12 months I was asked to repeatedly upload the same documents after already adding them I have to make requests for edits and changes several times before they are actually made and sometimes they aren t at all and they do not adhere to the 15 day timeline for completing books as stated on their FAQ I had books waiting for completion and quality checks for over 6 months I voiced my frustrations first to my assigned bookkeeper then to the many customer survey requests I received in my email Nothing was done until I finally pulled the trigger to cancel my account Now I ve paid up through July of this year but my May and June books remain unfinished I am now paying a new bookkeeper to go back through this year s books and make sure everything is square I half suspect that my assigned bookkeeper has been just a chatbot based on the disjointed communication I ve received Spend your money wisely and hire a dedicated bookkeeper not this service