I'm a bit confused on whether I should use a book keeping service like Bench.co + an accounting software like Xero..or just use one of them? Trying to have the 'perfect' setup for my online business accounting. I mainly sell Books, Online Classes, Workshops, and Coaching service.
I agree with Chris. I also offer QuickBooks Online and and Xero-based solutions (even Wave Accounting), but I do not recommend bench.co yet because at one time I thought they were using proprietary software which makes me ask the questions: (1) How can you migrate in the future away from them? Chances are you would tackle this at the end of a given year, but there can be complications...and exporting/importing into a new solution may not be possible. You may want to know if this is possible with any solution, but its just that bench.co is newer and more likely you may need to do it ; And (2) If they are making their own software, will they get bogged down updating it in the future? The more users on their platform, the more feature requests, the more software developers required, and the more bugs. These are all good problems if generating good revenues, but I fear they may become a software company and not a bookkeeping company. My suggestion is to separate the two (again, under the assumption bench.co uses their own software). Choose QuickBooks Online, Xero, or Wave and you can "invite" an accountant directly to it. Or accountants like me do the reverse.. create an account for you and invite you to it. Then you have freedom to jump accountants in the future...and there are tens of thousands who serve QuickBooks Online and many that also serve Xero.