Employer.com is buying the bankrupt startup Bench Accounting, which suddenly shut down. It left customers without access to their accounting data. The episode proves that organizations need to keep a much closer eye on their critical data, as the demise led to despair for many Bench SaaS customers.
Canadian-based Bench suddenly closed its doors on Dec. 27. At the same time, customers were told the Bench platform would no longer be accessible from that day forward. More than a bitter pill for the 12,000 U.S. Bench users, as many SMEs were unable to access a copy of important accounting and tax data.
Baffled customers
Customers were quick to show their displeasure. Co-founder and CTO of e-commerce company Radiator Justin Metros said he has never seen a company say goodbye so abruptly. “That’s crazy.” A brand new Bench customer who transferred from QuickBooks was also extremely dissatisfied with the way things were going. His migration costs have now also turned out to be a waste of money.
Bench’s advice was simple: switch to Kick, which can count on investments from General Catalyst and OpenAI, among others. Those who want to move to Kick or another party were told they could download Bench’s data since Dec. 30. As of March 2025, this would no longer be possible, the company stated.
Savior in need
Now Employer.com appears to have bought Bench in the nick of time, TechCrunch discovered. The American HR specialist plans to get the Bench platform back online so customers can access their data again. Some of Bench’s earlier recommendations have disappeared again like snow in the sun, such as the suggestion to ask for a six-month extension from the U.S. Internal Revenue Service (IRS).
The outcry shows that SaaS services, for whatever business task, cannot be the only home for critical data. Although the Bench incident affected a small group, there is no guarantee that a larger customer base cannot be similarly affected. And if you just happen to be a customer at such a start-up, it’s important to secure your data before you suddenly lose access to critical information.
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