Tech Crunch reported on Monday that HR and payroll software provider Employer.com is purchasing Bench Accounting, the Vancouver-based online bookkeeping platform for small businesses that abruptly shut down on Dec. 27, leaving thousands of its customers scrambling before year end and with the 2025 tax season right around the corner.
Financial terms of the acquisition weren’t disclosed. On Bench’s homepage today, it has a message entitled “Welcome Back” that states: “We’re excited to share some important news: Bench is being acquired by Employer.com. Your service will continue seamlessly with the platform you’ve always trusted.” There is also a link for customers to log in.
According to Tech Crunch, San Francisco-based Employer.com said it will revive Bench’s platform and provide Bench customers with instructions to log in and obtain their data imminently.
Customers will be given the choice to port their data or keep their service under new ownership, Employer.com told TechCrunch. Bench’s previous recommendation to file for a six-month extension with the IRS to look for a new bookkeeper is no longer needed if customers decide to stay on, Employer.com said.
In a statement to Tech Crunch announcing the acquisition, Employer.com said Bench customers can expect to continue “working with the same expert in-house bookkeepers they know and trust.”
Employer.com isn’t backed by venture capital and is entirely self-funded, Tech Crunch reported, and its CEO, Jesse Tinsley, is behind a host of HR, onboarding, and recruiting-related businesses, including Recruiter.com and BountyJobs.
The abrupt closure of Bench Accounting, which specializes in accounting and tax services for SMBs, last Friday was met with dismay and anger from many of its more than 35,000 customers in the U.S. The startup had raised $113 million from high-profile backers such as Shopify and Bain Capital Ventures, Tech Crunch reported.
Bench had posted a “notice of closure” on its website last Friday that said: “We regret to inform you that as of December 27, 2024, the Bench platform will no longer be accessible. We know this news is abrupt and may cause disruption, so we’re committed to helping Bench customers navigate through the transition. From the entire team at Bench, it has been an absolute privilege to serve small businesses for the last 13 years. Thank you for being a part of our journey.”
One dissatisfied customer who received an email from Bench last Friday announcing the closure posted on Reddit, “I will say I was not satisfied with their service to be honest—they were slow and wouldn’t recognize patterns. Not to mention they started using AI and the personal connection with my bookkeeper was gone. I was categorizing most everything.”
Another said, “I got the email as well. Ironically I just onboarded with a local CPA after 5 years with Bench and getting annoyed with the service (the AI was the last straw). They are starting my books Jan. 1, convenient timing for sure.”
A Bench employee posted a message on Reddit last Friday that said workers were “shocked and disheartened by today’s news. We were truly blindsided and are reeling with the reality that is.”
This person continued:
To shed more light, I worked as a bookkeeper for the better part of a year and was also involved in the Tax side in my initial internship with the firm. Truthfully, I enjoyed working for all of my clients. Despite the many issues we faced as a team (largely due to poor management from our top management) we worked hard to deliver a service that was genuine. I know it was not ideal, especially over the last few years, but know that this was never the intention of any employees. We clocked in everyday ready to make our clients’ lives easier on the bookkeeping side. We dedicated ourselves to making accounting simpler for our users. And to that end, I’m proud of our teams’ effort in this aim.
I am however, upset and left betrayed by our leaders at the company. Time and time again, they placed unacceptable expectations on us that were clearly misaligned in delivering client success.
They were simply looking at their bottom lines and profitability. In this pursuit, they burned their clients and us, the employees. Just weeks earlier, there was an abrupt layoff that saw nearly 50+ fired. In hindsight today, this was just the tip of the ice for what has unfolded today.
For context, Before leaving for the holiday, there was NO indication to our teams that we were headed towards insolvency. In fact, our teams had been preparing for the better part of November and December to deliver a Tax Season to our lovely clients. This news is nothing short of shocking.
I know so many bookkeepers who were working tirelessly to get books caught up and I for one feel a deep sense of guilt for the incomplete promises to many of my clients. I feel a deep sense of being a let down to the clients I had worked so closely with to develop a relationship with.
This being said, I can first hand say how much Bench’s top leadership failed both us, the employees, and our valued customers. Bench’s Board of Directors and senior leaders failed our founder, Ian Crosby, the day they fired him and set this path of destruction. Ian was a CEO who 1000% cared for the clients and his employees. He wasn’t motivated by money, but rather a mission.
I say this as humbly as I can, Bench’s employees feel for every one of our clients.
We never imagined leaving for our 1 week holiday break and to never return back again. The email we got was a complete shock.
To our customers, I am sorry as a bookkeeper that we failed you.
Bench employed more than 600 staff as of last Friday, according to Tech Crunch.
Crosby also posted a message on LinkedIn over the weekend about Bench’s closure, saying he was “very sad” to see what had happened. Crosby, who said he was fired by Bench, currently leads accounting products for fintech company Mercury. He wrote:
I’ve avoided speaking publicly about Bench since just over 3 years ago when I was fired from the company I co-founded. I still don’t have a lot of appetite to talk about it tbh, but think at least a short statement is appropriate.
In November 2021 I went out for what I thought would be a regular lunch with one of my board members. We had just raised a Series C and turned down a highly lucrative acquisition offer. We had budding partnerships with companies like Shopify that were interested in the technology we were developing. We were winning.
The board member thanked me for bringing the company to this point, but that they would be bringing in a new professional CEO to “take the company to the next level.”
I had been battling with some of the board members over strategy. They wanted me to take the company in a new direction that I thought was a very bad idea. I wanted to continue with what was working and with what our partners had signed on to distribute. I was intransigent.
Rather than continuing to fight with me, they opted just to just replace me, thinking that they could run the company better themselves. I was totally convinced that their approach would destroy the company. I opted to resign from the board rather than fight. Because on the off-chance that I was wrong, I wanted to give them the best chances of succeeding.
I reasoned that if they were right and I’m just a wrong-headed founder who won’t listen, then I should just fully get out of the way so they can see their vision through. And on a personal level, I just didn’t think I could stand to watch them dismantle the company I had spent a decade building.
So I moved on. I started off fresh and built a new company (Teal). Earlier this year we successfully exited to Mercury. Things are going well and I’m excited for what we’re up to.
I hope the story of Bench goes on to become a warning for VCs that think they can “upgrade” a company by replacing the founder. It never works.
If you’re a Bench customer, are you staying put with the company under new ownership or are you going elsewhere with your bookkeeping needs? Let us know in the comment section below.
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Costadinos Papoulias December 30 2024 at 6:19 pm
I'm leaving for sure. The way "management" and their "leadership" handled this was completely out of line to say the least. How can they expect customers to have any confidence in their service? I hope most people leave them. The customers deserve better. The bookkeepers had great intentions but management failed all of us. This also speaks poorly for the industry too. Given how large they claim to be, how could they possibly allow this to happen? Anyway - I'm done with them and happy to discuss further with anyone...this really frustrates the heck out of me as a founder of three companies.