Looking for a Bench alternative?
Bench stopped operating without notice on 12/27/2024 and was bought out of insolvency three days later. In August 2025 its new owner, Employer.com, brought it under the Mainstreet name, and bench.co still sells bookkeeping as Bench. If the shutdown is why you are here, settle one question before you choose anyone: if your provider stops, do you still have your books?
What actually happened to Bench
On 12/27/2024, Bench Accounting ceased operations with no advance warning, locking customers out of the platform their books lived on in the middle of year-end close. Three days later, on 12/30/2024, Employer.com announced it had acquired the company out of insolvency.
In January 2025 Bench and its subsidiary 10Sheet Services Inc. filed an assignment in bankruptcy in Canada. Court filings reported roughly $2.8 million in cash against $65.4 million in liabilities.
On 08/11/2025, Employer.com consolidated Bench and its other acquisitions under the Mainstreet name. The Bench name is still in use: bench.co sells Bench bookkeeping plans and publishes their prices, which we checked on 10/02/2026.
The real lesson: whose ledger are your books in?
The reason the Bench shutdown hurt so much was not the shutdown itself — providers change. It was that customers' books lived inside a proprietary ledger they did not control, so losing the provider meant losing access to the records at the same moment.
That is an architecture question, not a vendor question, and it is worth asking of whoever you pick next. We work inside your own Xero, QuickBooks Online, NetSuite or Zoho Books file. If you stop working with us tomorrow, the file is already yours and nothing has to be extracted or rebuilt.
How the options actually differ.
| Salt | Bench | Pilot | In-house hire | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Works in your own accounting file | Xero, QBO, NetSuite, Zoho Books | Proprietary ledger historically; QBO on the Fractional plan | QuickBooks Online | Yes |
| Your data stays exportable | You own the file | Export concerns documented in 2024 | QBO file is yours | Yes |
| Countries served | 10 countries | US only | US only | One jurisdiction per hire |
| Catch-up and cleanup projects | Yes | Limited | Yes | Rarely — no capacity |
| CFO-level advisory | Separate service line | No CFO plan listed | Separate CFO plans | Only at CFO salary |
Competitor capabilities are as published at the time of review and change without notice. Assessments of fit are our own opinion. Last verified .
How to move without losing your records.
- 01
Export everything you can still reach
Pull your general ledger, trial balance, bank feeds and source documents to your own storage before anything else. Do this first, even if you have not chosen a replacement — access is the thing you cannot get back.
- 02
Establish which periods are actually closed
Do not assume the last closed month is genuinely reconciled. Tie the closing bank balance in the books to the statement for each of the last six months. This is where mid-transition cleanups usually find their surprises.
- 03
Open a ledger you own
Set up Xero or QuickBooks Online in your own account, under your own billing. Whoever does your bookkeeping should be a user in your file, never the owner of it.
- 04
Rebuild opening balances from a verified point
Pick the last month you can genuinely tie out and treat it as the conversion balance. Rebuilding from an unverified balance just carries the error forward.
- 05
Clear the compliance backlog in deadline order
Sales tax, VAT or GST first where penalties accrue per period, then income tax filings. Sequence by which deadline penalises you soonest, not by which is easiest.
Looking for a Bench alternative?
Sources
- TechCrunch — Bench to be acquired after abruptly shutting down (2024-12-30)
- Bench Accounting — Wikipedia
- Woodard Report — Employer.com acquires Bench after abrupt shutdown
- EIN Presswire — Employer.com rebrands and streamlines with Mainstreet (2025-08-11)
- Bench — pricing (2026-10-02)
- Pilot — pricing (2026-10-02)
Get a written migration quote in 24 hours.
Tell us where you trade and what shape the books are in. You get scope, price and a start date in writing within one business day — no obligation.