[HN Gopher] Notice of Service Closure
___________________________________________________________________
Notice of Service Closure
Author : knuckleheads
Score : 155 points
Date : 2024-12-27 15:43 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (bench.co)
(TXT) w3m dump (bench.co)
| knuckleheads wrote:
| Just got an email from them out of nowhere and they are closing
| down more or immediately. Very surprising.
| gkedzierski wrote:
| With how much they were charging and how little service they
| were providing, I can't comprehend how they've never been able
| to figure out the business model.
| marcobambini wrote:
| Does anyone know the reason?
| porter wrote:
| What are the best alternatives?
| journal wrote:
| https://github.com/denys-olleik/accounting
|
| Doing my best wish someone would help.
| ibejoeb wrote:
| Cool. Looking forward to going through it.
|
| >Have CREATE EXTENSION IF NOT EXISTS postgis; installed.
|
| Why is postgis a requirement for an accounting package?
| numbsafari wrote:
| Sales tax calculations maybe?
| journal wrote:
| I wanted some features for shipping and receiving and
| ability to find closest assets. I'll be importing zip codes
| which have lat lng needs to be stored and queryable.
| cyrusradfar wrote:
| First off, it's tragic to see this happen to folks. As a
| business owner, I understand how painful bookkeeping is and
| having your accountant drop you at the end of the year is
| remarkably terrible.
|
| Collective.com should be able to help for 2025. I can't speak
| to 2024 as, frankly, most of the affected aren't sure what the
| state of the books / export is.
|
| Bias (my brother is a co-founder). My two brothers both use the
| service for their S-Corps so, like Hair-Club, he's not only the
| CEO but he's also a customer.
| cyrusradfar wrote:
| Collective formally responded on LinkedIn with:
|
| We're sorry to hear about Bench shutting down, particularly
| coming into tax season.
|
| As a company that specializes in solopreneur finance
| (formation, accounting, tax and payroll) we know that this
| time of year is stressful as is. If Collective can support or
| help you and your business in any way, please reach out at
| http://collective.com, join one of our Q+A sessions, or reach
| out to me at hooman@collective.com.
|
| If we're a good fit for your business, use the code
| HERETOHELP to get a discount off of your membership.
|
| We have years of experience working with former Bench
| customers and our team is working through the weekend to help
| any small businesses who need urgent help. We're here to
| support you.
|
| If you're an employee that was impacted, we also have lots of
| job openings at www.collective.com/careers.
|
| https://www.linkedin.com/posts/hooman_financial-solutions-
| re...
| claudiogodoyb wrote:
| I know I mentioned this earlier but trying to help out any way
| I can to those looking for an alternative to Bench.
|
| Taxfyle is a great tax and accounting solution and have
| thousands of CPAs in their network. They offer free bookkeeping
| migration, a free Xero subscription, a dedicated bookkeeper to
| do your books and professional tax support where they handle
| your taxes too. Check them out here:
| https://www.taxfyle.com/bookkeeping
| mgkimsal wrote:
| FYI: "You will have until Friday, March 7th at 5:00pm ET to
| download your Bench data from this website."
| laleck wrote:
| Additionally, they took down all of their accounting articles
| without notice. They had valuable summaries on various tax
| topics. Thankfully, Wayback Machine has archives of my
| bookmarks.
|
| All the more reason to self-host your own archived versions of
| bookmarks...
| aftbit wrote:
| Not sure why flagged. Link rot is one of the scourges of the
| internet.
| ezekg wrote:
| This is really frustrating. I'll admit their services have been
| going downhill dramatically (all my books Jan-Nov were still open
| as of last week and usually they would close subsequent month),
| but I still think shutting down right before the tax year ends is
| downright scummy.
|
| What are the alternatives that handle bookkeeping and tax filing?
| Maybe I should just get a local CPA...
| ibejoeb wrote:
| Definitely a local CPA. Building that relationship will pay
| off, even if it's just peace of mind.
| kstrauser wrote:
| My local CPA had previously guided me to using Bench.
| "Accountant" and "bookkeeper" are separate disciplines. My
| accountant manages my tax filings and other complicated
| transactions. The bookkeeper makes sure all our ledgers
| balance out.
| ibejoeb wrote:
| That's a fair assessment. I'd advise hiring a part-time
| bookkeeper if the transactions are sufficiently numerous or
| complicated to warrant it. The cpa can handle period
| closing concerns, trial balances, all that stuff. Many
| family-sized firms offer this as included, so there might
| not be much of a difference.
| kstrauser wrote:
| For others reading along, one huge difference is that
| bookkeeping tends to be vastly cheaper per hour. It would
| get very expensive to pay a CPA to transcribe your credit
| card statement into Quickbooks (or previously Bench, or
| whatever else you're using for your ledgers).
|
| Bookkeeping is sufficiently complex that I'd personally
| rather pay someone to do a good job of than muddle
| through on my own, but it's not rocket science. Perhaps
| most importantly, they understand accounting jargon. When
| my CPA asks me to send over the Fnord-Smootson report,
| and that's not the exact name of a report in my
| bookkeeping software, I have no freaking idea how to get
| that to him. A competent bookkeeper asks whether he needs
| that report frobnicated by date or by time-value and they
| work out the details.
|
| A good CPA makes rocket science look easy. You typically
| pay them crazy amounts per hour, but for only a few hours
| a year. They take those bookkeeping journals and explain
| your situation to the IRS in a way favorable to your
| interests.
|
| You want a good bookkeeper _and_ you want a good CPA. If
| you can get both of those under the same roof, freaking
| awesome! Your life just got easier and more profitable.
| ibejoeb wrote:
| Absolutely. I am actually not familiar with Bench, so I'm
| just talking in general, but I've never heard accounts of
| good experiences with highly parallel XaaS. Your f&a
| operation sort of necessarily needs to be close to your
| operation. It's tough to farm it out. There's a big
| continuity story in your books.
| foolfoolz wrote:
| "shutting down right before the tax year ends is downright
| scummy"
|
| as if a dying business can magically decide to stay open longer
| and shut down at a more convenient time
| Ylpertnodi wrote:
| Just like the strategic announcement of bad news....on a
| Friday.
| thayne wrote:
| It seems unlikely they didn't know they were going down until
| just a few days before having to shut down services.
|
| And given that this happens during the holidays, ot wouldn't
| surprise me if some customers don't find out about this until
| after the window to extract your data has expired. Or people
| have to work on fixing this mess who were supposed to be on
| PTO.
| aftbit wrote:
| They can though. Dying businesses take time to die. Even if
| nothing else, they could have decided to shut down _earlier_
| so that customers would have more time to deal with the
| fallout. Or they could have decided to shut down _at the same
| time_ but just messaged about it earlier.
| aphilbert wrote:
| Local CPA isn't a bad option though it could be pricey. (CPAs
| don't want to do book keeping either). I think one of the
| things that makes the bench.co shutdown challenging is that
| they used "proprietary" software so now you're going to have to
| migrate soon. Switching to accounting software that CPAs are
| more likely to be familiar with would be a step in the right
| direction and working with someone to aid that and help do
| catch up would be a good idea. I can help with both so that
| this isn't the catastrophe that it's shaping up to be
| 1123581321 wrote:
| You can hire a bookkeeper to work with the CPA. I had a
| freelance freelancer who would keep books up to date, and
| then turn over the books to the CPA for tax prep and
| analysis. I estimate the cost was about half as much as if
| the CPA firm did everything, and everyone was doing what they
| wanted to do.
| claudiogodoyb wrote:
| I have a friend who works at Taxfyle and they are a great
| alternative. They do both taxes and bookkeeping and work with
| software like Quickbooks and Xero where the pro does everything
| for you. Definitely worth checking out if you want to check
| their website: https://www.taxfyle.com/bookkeeping
| aimazon wrote:
| The company is over a decade old and was not cheap to use, I
| don't think they could have suddenly run out of money as
| customers typically pay upfront and are in long term contracts.
| Could it be staffing issues? Corporate misbehavior? Data loss?
| Ransomware? Has a member of their team gone rogue?
| Misappropriation of funds?
|
| We were bench customers until a few months ago, paying thousands
| of dollars per year for what could only be described as hundreds
| of dollars worth of service. The service was not very good so
| moving away was an easy choice but on a per-customer basis they
| must be making money hand over fist.
|
| I expect we'll find out more eventually, hopefully employees will
| leak some insight. For now, this is inexplicable.
| ezekg wrote:
| I'd guess staffing issues, since my bookkeeper would change
| every month. I'm still not sure how they couldn't afford to
| hire better staff, though. You're right that it could be
| something nefarious.
|
| Where did you move to?
| porter wrote:
| what service did you move to?
| paxys wrote:
| Why do you think it wasn't possible for them to run out of
| money? It's not like a 10 year old business is immune to
| failure.
|
| The simplest explanation is usually the correct one.
| aimazon wrote:
| Anything is possible and running out of money is the most
| probable explanation but it seems so hard for this type of
| business to get itself into this type of situation. Customers
| pay thousands of dollars per year, usually upfront. That's
| the type of revenue predictability that most of us would love
| for our businesses because it makes forecasting so much
| easier. They must have known months ago that they were
| running out of money. Failing to become sustainable and going
| through layoffs is one thing, shutting down overnight with
| zero warning is another. But yes, you're probably right, it's
| just hard to imagine how they could have imploded like this.
| BehindBlueEyes wrote:
| And yet, it's as simple as money ran out. They never turned
| a profit, investors ran out, the last round of funding was
| a loan with strings attached that led to a bunch of cost
| cutting and other poor decisions that explain the poor
| service quality.
|
| A few staff guessed it might close 3 weeks ago at best
| though everything was very uncertain, but most of the
| accountants probably didn't see this coming either.
|
| source: I know a few former employees.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| There's an accountant shortage, so I imagine it wasn't
| hard for those folks to prepare to bail, if they did.
| runako wrote:
| $60m Series C 3.5 years ago. My hypothesis is they shut it down
| when they were unable to turn it into a rocketship.
| euph0ria wrote:
| We just moved to CleerTax. Not sure if they are good yet but
| pretty responsive.
| yolo2122 wrote:
| Does shutting down mean bankruptcy? My businesses will have real
| damages from this - both the money that has been paid to bench
| all year for now no output of annual books/a financial summary as
| well as the cost of now having to pay to redo my 2024 books.
| ABS wrote:
| on social media some employees are saying it's insolvent
| mdlm wrote:
| Got the same email. Totally shocking.
| digitcatphd wrote:
| I just fired my "CPA" and am using Claude. Sick of paying for bad
| advice and mistakes.
| ezekg wrote:
| How can Claude file your taxes for you? And without
| hallucinations? Seems dangerous tbh
| benchdude444 wrote:
| I havent been at Bench for over 6 years but it's always been a
| business on the verge of failure. The main issue was just the
| schizophrenic strategy that was being employed. On one hand you
| have a software company with useful tools and services to
| automate bookeeping. On the other you had a division of
| bookeepers that would do a lot of the manual / refinement work.
| These tasks are at odds with one another. If you automate things
| you remove power from the teams who are incentivized to scale
| their org charts. With LLMs, Bench should have been positioned to
| own this space entirely, and offer a superior or equivalent
| product with much better margins. Bur they decided to become a
| services company and not a technology company.
|
| All I can take away from it is a few lessons, because this is a
| pretty awful outcome for almost every party.
| carloshdx wrote:
| Im based here in the US, and unfortunately i signed up yesterday
| after learning about the bookkeeping special...for a small
| business $1005 is alot...Square (my bank) basically said they
| cant do anything about it since i autho the payment...Any
| suggestions?
| deepsun wrote:
| Ask them for prorated refund. You paid for a service and didn't
| receive it.
| solidgiant wrote:
| I signed up two weeks ago and they made me sign an ACH
| agreement with Capchase. Did you sign with capchase?
| kstrauser wrote:
| I'm not a lawyer, but I'd be filing a fraud complaint. They had
| to have known this yesterday but still sold you a service. At
| least, that's the argument I'd be making, and I doubt the Bench
| team will have the bandwidth to dispute complaints right now.
| nervous_jessica wrote:
| No mention of refunds for unused months
| ABS wrote:
| on social media employees are saying it's insolvent so no
| refunds :-(
| Amfy wrote:
| link please
|
| Edit, found it myself: https://www.reddit.com/r/Accounting/co
| mments/1hnhoxq/comment...
| wdaher wrote:
| If you're a tech startup and previously used Bench, I'd strongly
| encourage you to check out Pilot.com - we work with literally
| thousands of startups. (Disclaimer: I'm one of the founders.)
| porter wrote:
| Pilot looks very expensive!
| aimazon wrote:
| I guess we now know that the price of a bookkeeping and tax
| preparation service that won't shut down without warning is
| the 2x pilot are charging of what bench were charging.
| porter wrote:
| You don't know they won't shut down. And how does this
| compare to a local accounting firm?
| wdaher wrote:
| Price should be comparable to a high-quality local
| provider, but if that's not what you're seeing, I'd love
| to know that.
| CamperBob2 wrote:
| _And how does this compare to a local accounting firm?_
|
| Hint: ask the salesman what happens in the event of an
| IRS audit. A good local CPA will go to the wall for you.
| Will the service you're considering do the same?
| santoshalper wrote:
| Your bookkeeping service shutting down with no notice over
| the holidays is not cheap either, my friend. Some things are
| worth paying for.
| bagelss wrote:
| I'm interested in migrating over to Pilot. How is the migration
| process from bench? It seems we can do a data export in a few
| days. Can pilot do 2024 catch up?
| wdaher wrote:
| We have a number of folks who have switched from Bench, and
| as you can imagine there's enough volume here that it's worth
| building some bespoke stuff for this.
|
| And yes, we can do 2024 catch-up work.
|
| (waseem@pilot.com if folks have any specific questions)
| Nelkins wrote:
| Do you service single member LLCs/S Corps?
| cj wrote:
| Genuine question: why did you raise $100 million Series C for a
| bookkeeping company? I'm a Pilot customer, and my heart dropped
| when I saw your funding announcement on the homepage a while
| back.
| dustingetz wrote:
| let's hear your metrics on the issues of timeliness, accuracy,
| cost and bookkeeper churn that Bench faced?
| adam_gyroscope wrote:
| Happy pilot customer at both my startups (gyroscope & bit.io),
| and will be using them again for my third.
| deepsun wrote:
| I've heard they claimed to have SOC 2 security compliance, but
| refused to prove it (show the SOC2 report to customers) -- that's
| really fishy.
| BehindBlueEyes wrote:
| They had that cert for the last ~3 years and were audited
| yearly and had a standard package to share with clients so
| doubt there's much to this rumor
| deepsun wrote:
| Nope, just confirmed, they refused to share SOC2 Report with
| their paying customers.
| CoastalCoder wrote:
| Can someone explain why potential customers would put up
| with this?
|
| I'd think that the _last_ thing a company wants to do is
| hire an bookkeeping company that seems shady.
| pplante wrote:
| Bench was a terrible service in my experience. I used it for one
| of my startups a few years ago. I personally invested a lot into
| said start-up. I checked my books and everything seemed ok.
| Eventually I found that they had hidden my Gusto payroll line
| items from view and they were no longer taken into consideration
| in my books. This led to a $300k shortfall from where I thought I
| was vs reality. Their team just shrugged when I brought the issue
| to their attention. The impact was immediate layoffs affecting
| real people who depended on me.
|
| Sure ultimately everything falls upon me the founder. But
| something so common as GUSTO payroll should never be
| miscategorized and hidden from view.
| willcipriano wrote:
| [flagged]
| pplante wrote:
| What gave you that impression? I always consulted my
| financials when making decisions. Unfortunately the books
| were wrong and I made incorrect choices from that bad data.
| willcipriano wrote:
| When I go over my household budget I'd notice if I wasn't
| paying my mortgage even if someone deleted it from my
| spreadsheet. It's important enough to me that it's front of
| mind when I'm thinking about money. I expect to see it on
| the list. I'd look for it if it wasn't there. Salaries are
| apparently not that big of a deal in the same way so asking
| for a higher one seems like a good idea.
| Projectiboga wrote:
| This is why you have to do a quick back of the envelope go
| over of the big numbers and make sure they are at least
| close. Loosing track of $300K is partly your fault. The
| scale means you have to be looking at it as part of a big
| picture summary uncontaminated by technology. With Nuclear
| Treaties it is called "Trust but Verify" and is applicable
| to business cash flows. You have to be skeptical of the
| automated numbers that employees touch as there can be
| either error or worse fraud.
| Spivak wrote:
| Generally good advice in general, $10-20k is nothing to even
| a small business but is probably a lot to you. It's not often
| an asymmetry works out in the employees favor.
| dang wrote:
| " _Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation
| of what someone says, not a weaker one that 's easier to
| criticize. Assume good faith._"
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| MichaelZuo wrote:
| How could this kind of 'hiding' comply with GAAP standards in
| any scenario?
|
| What sort of accounting books were being prepared where such a
| function is even needed?
| cj wrote:
| When I was using Bench, they were only doing cash accounting
| (not GAAP). We had to switch to a different service when we
| switched over to accrual accounting.
| porter wrote:
| Bench just forced me to switch to an annual contract a few days
| ago too. What a bunch of crooks.
| solidgiant wrote:
| Me too, and signed with Capchase. What are you looking to do?
| I'm trying to find someone at capchase, but not finding
| anyone...
| beibeiq wrote:
| I would LinkedIn DM Capchase folks with support or customer
| service titles.
| Schiendelman wrote:
| Wait a minute, they pushed you into an annual contract? And now
| that they aren't going to perform their end of the contract?
|
| This is fascinating. That smells like actual fraud on their
| part.
| ttul wrote:
| I'm sure all of this will be played out in spectacular
| fashion in the courts of British Columbia in the coming
| months. Directors in BC are liable for unpaid wages to
| employees. No doubt they pulled the rug just in time to
| ensure people got their statutory severance. But beyond that,
| anyone hoping for more will have to get in a long line behind
| secured creditors. Man this sucks.
| blakebilliet wrote:
| I'd be shocked if you didn't get reimbursed. But if you don't,
| let me know and Afino might be able to mitigate a portion of
| your losses with a friendly discount. That just ain't right.
| lindsi wrote:
| This is so fucked up**. I have an annual account and they have
| not done my books since July and now this... An no refunds?!
| Nelkins wrote:
| This is terrible. I paid them ~$4500 to do all my taxes and book
| keeping (just started my business this past June). What recourse
| do I have to get that money back?
| Nelkins wrote:
| Also allegedly they were supposed to file an S Corp election.
| I've emailed them, but have no idea if I'll find out if it was
| actually sent.
| mt1973 wrote:
| same here. and my spouse signed up for the year to get taxes
| done quickly because we had an issue with 2023 -- and he hated
| them. I have used them for years. now I'm just at a loss. I
| don't know how to get money back. I'm sick.
| bagelss wrote:
| Does anyone have experience with Kick.co? It seems more self-
| managed with AI. I don't want to migrate to another company
| that's just going to close again despite being well funded.
|
| 7 years with bench and just renewed the annual plan last month.
| Seems like it's unlikely we'll see any refund for the 11 months
| remaining. Very frustrating to have to mirage somewhere else and
| pay for 2024 catch up.
| jseibert wrote:
| Truly crazy news and timing for this to happen over the holidays.
|
| I'm the founder/CEO of Digits - if you're a tech startup on
| Bench, we'd love to work together. Reach out to vip@digits.com
| and we'll extend our friends/family discount and make this as
| painless for you as possible.
| Nelkins wrote:
| Do you do personal tax returns in addition to business taxes as
| part of a package?
| beibeiq wrote:
| Are you a single member LLC? Digits is focused on C Corps
| right now and for C Corps we can offer personal tax returns.
| Fill out this form: https://tinyurl.com/digits-bench here.
| Our team is fully focused on helping Bench customers through
| the rest of the holidays!
| Nelkins wrote:
| Single member LLC, so I don't think Digits is the right fit
| for me at the moment. Thanks for taking the time to
| respond.
| claudiogodoyb wrote:
| I have a friend who works at Taxfyle and they cater to
| single-member LLCs and newly formed businesses. They seem
| like a great fit for you if you need taxes and
| bookkeeping done. Check out their website:
| https://www.taxfyle.com/bookkeeping
| arjawn wrote:
| Hey, Arjun here, CEO of doola (Business-in-a-Box for LLCs) (YC
| S20)
|
| If you are a solopreneur or run an Ecom business and are looking
| for support with dedicated bookkeeping (including a human
| bookkeeper), check out https://www.doola.com/bookkeeping/
|
| Happy to support anyone looking for help with bookkeeping +
| business tax filings for their business going into the new year
| (we support Non-US tax filings as well if you are a Non-US
| founder)
| bagelss wrote:
| I'm interested in migrating over. We have one account in GBP
| currency, can you handle this too? It's with wise.com. Do you
| over 2024 catch up too?
| arjawn wrote:
| Hey we don't have multi-currency support (yet) but it's on
| the roadmap
|
| And we can help with 2024 catchup
|
| You can book a free demo here, excited to help if we can:
| https://www.doola.com/bookkeeping/book-a-demo/
| dceddia wrote:
| Wow, what a shock. I cancelled my account just days before the
| annual renewal earlier this month. I feel for all of the small
| businesses this is going to hurt. The service had been getting
| worse for an while and the last straw was when they sent an email
| saying the year-end financial report would be ready by _April
| 10th_ , 5 days before the tax deadline.
|
| I'm gonna have a go with plain text accounting for the
| bookkeeping for a bit. Looking at what Bench was doing, and my
| books in general not being too complicated I think it'll be fine,
| maybe better actually because I'll have a closer eye on things.
| Still using a CPA to file taxes though.
| Nelkins wrote:
| The fact that they are recommending Kick makes me view that
| company with suspicion. This whole thing is really leaving a bad
| taste in my mouth.
| jsnyoung wrote:
| exactly.
| bagelss wrote:
| Totally agree. There is no contact page or reviews online for
| kick. I can't afford to get into this mess again.
| conradwa wrote:
| We've onboarded a significant number of folks from Bench onto
| Kick before this happened, so this may have been why were were
| mentioned.
|
| Working fast right now to try to provide resources and help
| Bench users migrate and will be sharing updates here:
| https://x.co/kickfinance
| Nelkins wrote:
| Gotcha, thanks for that. I'm sure you're a solid company with
| happy users.
|
| BTW, that link to your X profile returns a 404. It should be
| https://x.com/kickfinance .
| jsnyoung wrote:
| You guys are lucky. I didn't even get an e-mail. I just found out
| I couldn't login and happened across the website. So what are the
| chances of getting any kind of refund for the services I paid for
| and will not receive?
| Networkplumber wrote:
| I'm wondering the same thing. I paid for Bench through
| Freshbooks, who said they'll be offering refunds for services
| not rendered. If they didn't get back to me with this, I was
| going to dispute the charge with my credit card company. If you
| paid by CC, you could try that.
| mjr00 wrote:
| Shocking, but not terribly surprising from a business
| perspective... From everyone I know who's worked there, the
| operation was just a thinly veiled wrapper around human
| accountants. The plan for profitability was that they'd
| eventually automate the human part away, but eventually never
| came.
|
| My condolences to the employees who now have a stressful new
| year.
| Spivak wrote:
| > The plan for profitability was that they'd eventually
| automate the human part away, but eventually never came.
|
| Every. Damn. Time. I've fought and lost this battle at so many
| companies with directors and executives who were genuinely
| completely delusional about how much of a human process could
| be automated.
|
| It's always the tasks that are easy and don't take up much
| time. If you end up solving one of the genuinely hard problems
| then you should just pivot to packaging and selling that as
| your business.
| daft_pink wrote:
| Wow. We need an alternative to Intuit.
| wilkystyle wrote:
| Off topic, but what is going on with the comments in this
| discussion? Seems like a ton of new accounts, and strange
| behavior like commenting gibberish or exact same comment text
| within minutes of each other, for example:
| strattonoak 39 minutes ago | prev | next [-] The no
| access to data smells like a ransomware event. Why is data not
| available to export out and everything is taken down and not
| accessible? Seems like it's way more work to take down access
| that to leave it up? theoak 40 minutes ago |
| prev | next [-] The no access to data smells like a
| ransomware event. Why is data not available to export out and
| everything is taken down and not accessible? Seems like it's way
| more work to take down access that to leave it up?
| LordDragonfang wrote:
| So: that specific comment was posted _three_ times, by accounts
| named strattonoakmont, strattonoak, and theoak. I googled the
| first and got this wikipedia page:
|
| > Stratton Oakmont, Inc. was a Long Island, New York, over-the-
| counter brokerage house founded in 1989 by Jordan Belfort and
| Danny Porush. It defrauded many shareholders, leading to the
| arrest and incarceration of several executives and the closing
| of the firm in 1996.
|
| It's the company from the Wolf of Wall street.
| jsnell wrote:
| My guess is that this page is ranking very high for the kind of
| search anyone would use for finding out more about the closure.
|
| So disgruntled customers are finding the page and complain,
| competitors are finding the page to use for lead generation.
| dang wrote:
| Yes, this seems to be exactly what happened.
|
| (But the specific accounts mentioned by the GP were a bit of
| a special case.)
| conradwa wrote:
| I can't imagine the frustration you're going through if you're a
| Bench user.
|
| Paying for a service and not getting what you expect, especially
| when it comes to your taxes is no joke.
|
| Instead of having to start from scratch, our team at Kick is
| moved quickly to build these resources to help prior Bench
| customers:
|
| 1. Free Bench migration
|
| 2. Free 2024 Bookkeeping review calls
|
| 3. Free Daily Live Q&As (coming soon)
|
| We're moving fast and sharing additional resources and updates in
| real time here:
|
| - https://kick.co/bench
|
| - https://x.com/kickfinance
|
| Other resources on the way include a Tax Extension Guide and
| Accountant Directory to make sure folks get a soft landing is
| this difficult time.
|
| If you're running into issues, my email me at conrad@kick.co and
| I'll do the best I can to route you to the right place.
| ezekg wrote:
| So you're planning on offering tax filings, or just
| recommendations? tbh this should have been included in the
| notice because I wrote y'all off immediately because taxes was
| the main pain point Bench solved for me (electing to file as an
| S-Corp).
| claudiogodoyb wrote:
| A friend of mine mentioned Taxfyle as an alternative to
| Bench. They offer free bookkeeping migration, a free Xero
| subscription, dedicated bookkeeper to do your books and
| professional tax support where they handle your taxes too.
| They seem like a good fit for you! Check them out here:
| https://www.taxfyle.com/
| yolo2122 wrote:
| Is Kick owned by, affiliated with, or invested in by Bench in
| any way?
|
| Also are any of the C-Level execs from Bench involved in Kick
| in any way?
| santoshalper wrote:
| This would be a great question to answer and would provide a
| lot of peace of mind.
| conradwa wrote:
| Kick is not affiliated with Bench in any way. We've onboarded
| a significant number of customers from Bench onto Kick before
| this happened, so this may have been why were were mentioned.
|
| We're working fast right now to try to provide resources and
| help Bench users migrate and will be sharing updates here:
| https://x.co/kickfinance
| yolo2122 wrote:
| Thanks Conrad however in the interest of clarity +
| transparency can you add some insight/details into how/why
| this statement came about in both the shut down email
| customers got today + what is currently posted on the
| Bench.co page?
|
| "For continued support with your bookkeeping, we recommend
| exploring Kick, a modern accounting software, which has
| created an exclusive offer to handle your ongoing needs:
| kick.co/bench."
|
| Having an "exclusive offer" listed in the initial closure
| communication/announcement + you having a landing page
| ready to go sounds like there was more to Bench just
| happening to mention Kick because your company has
| "onboarded a significant number of customers from Bench
| onto Kick before this happened"...
| ocdtrekkie wrote:
| Hopefully you'll get an answer from Conrad, but the
| landing page does not mention the shutdown, so I would
| point out when I was comparison shopping something else
| recently, their website had dedicated pages to why you
| should choose them over each major competitor, and a
| switching discount is also not uncommon.
|
| It's entirely possible this landing page is Kick's
| competitive offer, and Bench linked to it because it
| offers all the people they just screwed over by
| collapsing a discount.
| yolo2122 wrote:
| Good point! I like what I see so far in Kick. It's just
| given the level of pain Bench has just caused me, my
| businesses, and a couple very unlucky employees in my
| office + the financial cost = I have to make super duper
| sure Kick is not related to/involved with Bench in any
| way shape or form.
|
| If they asked Kick to be listed as an alternative in the
| closure email or asked them to do a discount nbd I have
| no issue there. I just want the full story given Bench
| events.
| solidgiant wrote:
| I was just sold bench.co for my three businesses and the sales
| person Luc Lewarne made me sign a payment agreement with
| Capchase. The agreement states that I still owe Capchase the full
| amount for a year, even if Bench.co shuts down...
|
| Does anyone have any contacts or experience with Capchase? I
| never even started my service, which was supposed to begin
| January 1st, 2025 and now I will have to pay out 12 months to
| Capchase?!?!
| ocdtrekkie wrote:
| I don't know the dollar figure here and I would hope Capchase
| is a company that will value their reputation over screwing you
| on that dollar figure, but I would definitely question why you
| signed an agreement to pay for a product even if that product
| is not deliverable. One of the primary value adds to the
| middleman in a transaction is generally that they take on some
| of the risk.
| ensignavenger wrote:
| Well in hindsight, that was a silly thing to do...
|
| First step- make sure you have read and understand your
| contract. Is there a cancellation period? What state laws may
| apply (Some states a allow a cooling off period, but often this
| applies only to consumer contracts, not B2B).
|
| Second, contact Capchase via email and see if they will will
| allow you out of the contract "peacefully". If they are smart,
| they will so "sure, no problem, of course" and cancel the
| contract. If not, name and shame them everywhere you have an
| audience.
|
| Third, if that doesn't work, you can either proactively sue
| them to cancel the contract, or just don't pay them and let
| them decide whether or not to sue you. Doing the latter may
| result in a negative report on your business credit.
| neilv wrote:
| > _I was just sold bench.co [...] made me sign a payment
| agreement with Capchase. The agreement states that I still owe
| Capchase the full amount for a year, even if Bench.co shuts
| down..._
|
| I might ask a lawyer if that looks like fraud. (And then
| wouldn't be surprised if the lawyer can quickly make it like
| the sale never happened, other than your time wasted, and the
| lawyer fees.)
|
| Or maybe ask your state AG's office if that looks like fraud.
|
| (Edit: I mean the appearance that Bench.co was entering
| contracts to provide service for a period, knowing that they
| probably wouldn't provide that service, and, further,
| attempting to obligate you to pay for service for the entire
| period anyway. Or something like that. I'm not a lawyer, so I'd
| ask one.)
| benatkin wrote:
| Do account execs get a heads up about a shutdown? If not,
| maybe there wasn't a good reason to mention the account exec
| by name here.
| neilv wrote:
| Which is part of why I didn't put the name in. The essence
| was that the _company_ might have signed contracts that
| they knew they wouldn 't fulfill.
|
| Of course, salespeople should have professional reputations
| (e.g., for honesty, or for dishonesty). But don't let them
| be a scapegoat for the more likely real culprit or bigger
| fish.
| thih9 wrote:
| Agreed. Also, even if they did get a heads up, hn is not
| the place to resolve this kind of dispute. Emailing them,
| or a lawyer sounds more productive.
|
| Shaming companies publicly is fine; shaming individual
| workers and posting personal data is bad taste to say the
| least.
| josephcsible wrote:
| Wouldn't "you have to pay even if we don't deliver the product
| you're buying" be considered unconscionable?
| ShakataGaNai wrote:
| Yea. That doesn't sound right. I'd say Op should talk to a
| lawyer ASAP.
|
| I mean, bad to agree to in the first place, but it doesn't
| seem like a contract where the other party is non-performant,
| should be enforceable.
| caseyohara wrote:
| I'm guessing Capchase is a financier of sorts. Capchase pays
| Bench for the full term up front, then the customer pays
| Capchase in monthly increments.
|
| So Capchase is delivering _their_ product, the financing.
| Which is why there would be a clause that the customer still
| owes Capchase even if Bench closes; Capchase has already paid
| Bench and wants to be made whole.
| runako wrote:
| This is how I read it as well. I hope OP got a significant
| discount on Bench service in exchange for this kind of
| agreement.
| CoastalCoder wrote:
| > I was just sold bench.co for my three businesses and the
| sales person Luc Lewarne made me sign a payment agreement with
| Capchase.
|
| I'm sorry for the troubles you had, but is it really fair to
| say the salesman _made_ you sign an agreement?
| lucatbench wrote:
| Solidgiant, this is Luc Lewarne. I assure you that I am just as
| shocked as you are. I woke up today, along with my colleagues,
| to an email telling us that Bench was insolvent, and that all
| operations and employment would cease effective immediately. I
| know what it is like to be mislead in a buying process - it
| feels terrible. I want to let you know, person to person, that
| I had no bad intentions or knowledge of Bench's future when I
| sold you our services. As for Capchase, I'm pretty sure they
| haven't processed a payment from you yet, which means they
| haven't sent us any funds. If you contact them, you should be
| able to get out of it.
| thih9 wrote:
| Please do not name individual workers, they were likely unaware
| and no longer work there.
|
| Shaming companies is fine, shaming individual workers is not;
| usually they are powerless, likely here too.
| acaloiar wrote:
| > We know this news is abrupt and may cause disruption, so we're
| committed to helping Bench customers navigate through the
| transition.
|
| No, you're not. The minimum for commitment is a longer notice.
| ssousa666 wrote:
| If any former Bench customers are looking for an alternative,
| check out https://www.usehaven.com (not my company, but I've
| worked with the founders in the past). Don't take my word for it
| - ask around and see how great their reputation is.
| ottoaj wrote:
| my wife's company was literally talking to bench support few days
| ago for her last year LLC & personal taxes that they have been
| delaying for months. this new is crazy.
|
| Anyone looking help with only LLC & personal takes then just
| email me here and we'll help you out: vip@joinotto.com
| yolo2122 wrote:
| Founder/Former CEO Ian Crosby's post about the Bench closure:
|
| https://x.com/ianwcrosby/status/1872724231999381790
| davidcbc wrote:
| Is there a version readable for people without twitter
| accounts?
| tarr11 wrote:
| https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1872724231999381790.html
| blakebilliet wrote:
| Hey everybody -- I'm the founder and CEO of Afino. We offer all
| of the same services as Bench and ready to help any founder
| affected by this sudden shutdown.
|
| Check out our services on our site (www.afino.ai) and book a
| priority meeting to talk to me and my team
| (https://app.reclaim.ai/m/afino/priority-intro)
| runako wrote:
| Awesome. Since you're here, could you share pricing? I know it
| may vary, but since you are offering to bring on Bench
| customers perhaps you could share pricing for similar service
| as Bench's offerings?
| blakebilliet wrote:
| You're right that it varies a lot but we're priced
| competitively with all of our peers. I haven't seen a quote
| that we can't beat. We're playing a long game here and aren't
| going to lose a good customer on price.
|
| Bookkeeping starts at $500/mo, Fed + State Taxes at $2,400.
| We do a long list of FP&A and fractional CFO services as
| needed. We get our prospects a detailed quote from just a
| 30-min call.
| paragkochar wrote:
| m,
| paragkochar wrote:
| Hey Everybody - I'm founder of http://Zinance.io - Most founder
| friendly Bookkeeping, Taxation and finance services for startups
| and SMB. We have most proactive and experienced team to take
| finance off your plate completely.
|
| I would love to help you navigate current situation with Bench.
| I'm here if need help - https://cal.com/zinance.io/h
| bolshchikov wrote:
| CEO of Finaloop (real-time financial solution) just offered a
| migration package and 75% off.
|
| https://www.linkedin.com/posts/activity-7278469880629067776-...
| michliao wrote:
| If you're a ecommerce brand, we specialize in ecomm bookkeeping
| and can get you migrated and caught up for 2024 immediately.
|
| DayZero - ondayzero.com - or send me an email
| michelle@ondayzero.com. Always happy to be a resource
| jakecarpenter wrote:
| Seems like my experience may not have been typical. I used Bench
| from 19-23 for a startup and always felt like I was getting great
| service. I agree that they were a bit expensive, but the
| financials passed external reviews and always made my investors
| happy.
|
| It is a shame to see them closing down this way, awful timing and
| awful treatment of their customers. As a founder, you need to
| fully understand your financials, but you should have a pro
| managing the day-to-day and even month-to-month.
| MayowaO wrote:
| Come to factsfinancegroup.com
|
| Real people.
|
| Won't bore you with technical talk, your books will simply be
| done. You will be tax ready and tax efficient.
|
| Last, but not least, you will have everything you need to grow at
| your fingertips.
|
| We simply want 100 clients.
|
| We'll focus on 100 of you and continue to the moon together.
| akyang wrote:
| I know there are already several founders of startup accounting
| companies in this thread, but just want to throw another option
| into the mix since my friend started it and there's a free
| 3-months deal: https://www.prometryx.com
|
| Looks like the pricing is pretty reasonable and they use QBO as
| the general ledger software, so data's not locked into some
| random platform. He told me to share and can also email directly
| at hello@prometryx.com to get a quote.
| pkkkzip wrote:
| hmmm another "unicorn" from vancouver that bites the dust, i
| remember one with an owl as mascot logo can't recall what they
| did or their names but many ppl from vancouver mentioned it while
| ago.
|
| I wonder why that place can't compete with American cities, i
| think even Toronto /Montreal is more successful than Vancouver.
|
| for one the low salary must be demoralizing on top of being one
| of the most expensive cities in the world.
|
| have there been notable canadian startup unicorn that turned IPO
| or major acquisition (100x ROI and up?) other than Shopify?
|
| seems like nobody can really compete with America when it comes
| to creating IPOs and billionaires.
| davidkopf wrote:
| I'm sorry for all those affected by the Bench Accounting
| shutdown. If any of you are solopreneurs, feel free to reach out
| to my friend Nate at Cookie Finance. They are a highly trusted
| accounting platform (US based) that provides full-service
| accounting/tax. Nate also shared with me that they've already
| worked with a lot of former Bench clients.
|
| His contact info is below.
|
| Nate Coughran info@cookiefinance.co
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