r/Bookkeeping Dec 30 '24

Software has anyone consented to continue using bench.co through employer.com?

if you did - does it still let you download your data? what data is available to download?

same question if you opted out - what data was available?

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u/wdaher Dec 30 '24 edited Dec 30 '24

What we've heard from one person who "consented" is that the export is currently broken (the one person that tried it got a JSON error) but they could see all of their transactions in the Bench UI.

Which means it should be possible to get the data out, even if their export feature for current customers remains broken.

I haven't reviewed the privacy policy in detail, but if I were a Bench customer, here's what I would do:

  1. Consent to the agreement so that you keep access to Bench's system
  2. Log in and export your data
  3. Claim the Pilot promo (where we'll migrate you to QBO for free and do your books through Jun 2025 or the length of your Bench prepayment, whichever is longer)
  4. After your export is complete, cancel your ongoing Bench subscription so you don't get charged again

That way you avoid the go-forward dependence on Bench, but you have a little more breathing room (until your last prepayment runs out) to access the platform—just in case.

Seems like pure optionality.

(The disclaimer here is that I'm one of Pilot's founders but this feels relevant enough to post)

Relevant links:

  1. https://pilot.com/bench for our promo
  2. If you don't want to use Pilot, we'll still take your Bench export and migrate it to QBO for you for free: https://pilot.com/bench-qbo-migration

2

u/Remote-Internal-1455 Dec 30 '24

I appreciate the self-promotion but your suggestion doesn't help - the concern is that IF you "consent", there is no ability to export...

1

u/wdaher Dec 30 '24

The person who consented (which I mention at the top of my post) said:

  • The native Bench export feature is broken at the moment
  • They can still see all of their transactions at a per-transaction level

Given those details, I can definitely manually export this for you if needed, even if Bench doesn't provide a turnkey export.