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Comment by conradwa | Hacker News Reader

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.

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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?

This would be a great question to answer and would provide a lot of peace of mind.

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

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"...

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.

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.

I am not related to any of the parties in this dolce, but I did discontinue a product once.

On the shutdown page I listed some alternatives people could try. I found them via Google, but i didn't first try them or talk to them.

They were really just a helpful hint for folk wanting to change to get started. (The thing I was killing was a product not a service so it wasn't going to actually stop working, it was just no longer being updated.)

So, in this case, a simple statement of fact (as above) would be good enough for me. But feel free to do your due diligence.

For what it's worth Google's index suggests kick.co/bench was indexed/last updated: Oct 16, 2024.

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).

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/

I used Bench in the past and they partnered with Taxfyle up until ~November 2023 (date of the email I received stating the partnership was ending).

The service was fine, interesting that their relationship ended just over a year ago.

I run a accountancy business in India for local customers and we are a team of more than ~10 CPA Indian equivalents. A few CFAs as well.

Let me know if anyone requires our services for Bookkeeping/Accounting.

I signed up to the paid account ($125 per month), added credit card details. Your system has me on free trial until early January.

I've followed all the steps required to unlock the "sorry to hear about the Bench situation" onboarding.

Now after jumping through all the hoops, I'm told that the "free onboarding" and call only happens after the payment is processed later in January.

Why wait?

It's difficult to vet your service without this assistance. Money aside, time is of the essence here.

Really hoping to be proven wrong here, but this feels like an opportunistic sales initiative that claims to be more, but is really just a "20% off for your first year" coupon code.

I tried to sign up for Kick and received an email that you don’t support my industry. Were an artist studio that makes and retails physical goods. Do you expect to support more industries soon?

I am with an accounting firm and if u need any help will be happy to provide that.

While you have documentation about migrating to your platform, you don't seem to have any documented promises around export and leaving your service.

Also, it seems a bit odd to me that the "balance sheet" ability is two non-free pricing levels deep into your service. Isn't that a baseline expectation?

Strange that kick seems to know and had time to build all this but customers didn't get any heads up?!

> had time to build all this

They didn't need a heads up to build this. It takes between half an hour and half a day.

Does Kick integrate with my existing quickbooks?

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