Switch · From Bench
Switching from Bench (now Mainstreet): rescue your data, move to books you own.
Bench shut down abruptly on December 27, 2024, was acquired by Employer.com, resumed operations in January 2025, and has been Mainstreet since August 11, 2025. If you’ve decided to move on, this page is the rescue: export the data still available from the Bench / Employer.com portal, migrate it into a QuickBooks file you own, clean up any gaps so the books tie out, then ongoing monthly with your senior bookkeeper. Independent firm — not Intuit, and not affiliated with Bench or Employer.com.
Switching from Bench (now Mainstreet) moves your books off its platform into a QuickBooks file you own: export what the Bench / Employer.com portal still holds, migrate it, rebuild any missing months, then monthly bookkeeping with your senior bookkeeper. Each piece is a written fixed fee agreed before work starts: migration $2,500–$10,000+, cleanup $1,200–$15,000+ where months are missing.
Certifications
Current certifications held by TechBrot’s senior reviewer: Intuit QuickBooks Certification Level 2 and QuickBooks Workforce Certification — verification on request. Intuit’s ProAdvisor program becomes Intuit ProPartner Accountants in early 2027; the certifications continue.
Switching from Bench, step by step.
What to export, how the data moves into a QuickBooks file you own, how missing months are rebuilt and verified, and how the books stay current after — set out in full below.
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Why Bench customers are switching.
The publicly documented sequence of events — reported plainly, in order. No speculation about the people involved; just why former customers are moving their books somewhere stable.
The platform went dark, without warning
Bench abruptly ceased operations on December 27, 2024. The platform became inaccessible to customers effectively immediately — books, statements, and historical records that lived inside Bench were suddenly out of reach, with data available to download only until March 2025. For the businesses caught by it, that was the moment they realized their records lived somewhere they didn’t control.
An acquisition by Employer.com, days later
On December 30, 2024 — three days after the shutdown — Bench was acquired by Employer.com. The brand survived, but ownership changed hands in the span of a long weekend, and customers were left to evaluate a service under entirely new control while still trying to recover their data.
A Canadian bankruptcy filing
Bench Accounting, Inc. filed an assignment in bankruptcy in Canada on January 7, 2025, and a Licensed Insolvency Trustee was appointed (trustee’s notice, January 16, 2025). A bankruptcy filing behind the brand you trust with your books is a clear signal that it’s time to move the records somewhere stable.
A return under new ownership, then a new name
Bench resumed operations in January 2025 as an Employer.com subsidiary, and on August 11, 2025 Employer.com rebranded it as Mainstreet. The name continued, but the continuity customers had counted on did not — and a service that can disappear and reappear under new ownership in a matter of weeks is a different risk profile than the one they originally bought.
You don’t own the books you depend on
The deeper lesson former customers draw is structural: when your bookkeeping lives entirely inside one vendor’s proprietary platform, your access to your own financial history is only as durable as that vendor. Moving to a standard QuickBooks file you own removes that single point of failure.
A provider that won’t vanish
Across the former customer base, the request is consistent: a stable home for the books, in software they own, maintained by a named professional they can reach by phone. Not the lowest price — the one that’s still there next quarter. That is exactly what a bookkeeping and advisory firm led by a Certified QuickBooks ProAdvisor is built to be.
How the switch from Bench works, step by step.
Six steps, in order: export, set up your own file, migrate, clean up the gaps, verify, then go live monthly. We scope it in writing after the free file review — you always know what comes next.
- STEP 1
Export everything available from the Bench / Employer.com portal
We start by pulling every record you can still access — financial statements, the transaction-level detail, prior-year filings support, and any chart-of-accounts export the portal offers. The priority is capturing the complete picture before anything else, so nothing recoverable is left behind.
- STEP 2
Set up a QuickBooks file you own outright
We provision a QuickBooks Online or Desktop file in your business’s name — your subscription, your data, your access. From the first day forward the books live somewhere you control, not inside a vendor platform you can be locked out of.
- STEP 3
Migrate the exported data into your QuickBooks file
The Bench export is mapped into a clean QuickBooks chart of accounts: balances, historical transactions, and opening positions are imported and structured the way an accountant — and your tax preparer — expects to see them. This is where proprietary records become standard, portable books.
- STEP 4
Clean up the gaps so the books tie out
Exports from a shut-down platform are rarely complete. Where months are missing, miscategorized, or unreconciled, we reconstruct the period from bank and card statements and reconcile each month until the file ties to reality. This is the step that turns a recovered pile of data into trustworthy books.
- STEP 5
Verify prior-period balances and reconciliation
Before going live month to month, we confirm opening balances, run reconciliation against statements, and check that the prior period agrees with what was filed — so the new file is a defensible continuation of your history, not a fresh start that loses it.
- STEP 6
Go live with ongoing monthly bookkeeping and a senior bookkeeper
Once the file is clean and tied out, your senior bookkeeper maintains it on a monthly cadence: categorization, reconciliation, and statements you can reach a person about. The whole point of the switch: a stable home, owned by you, that won’t vanish.
Signs you should move now.
Your data-download window is closing (or closed)
If you still have access to export from the Bench / Employer.com portal, that access is the asset — pull it now. If the window has already passed, don’t assume the books are lost: a cleanup can often reconstruct the period from bank and card records, but the sooner it starts the cleaner the result.
You no longer trust the platform to be there
After an abrupt shutdown, a bankruptcy filing, a return under new ownership and a rebrand, some owners simply want out — not because of any one feature, but because they need books that can’t disappear. That instinct is reasonable, and moving to a file you own resolves it permanently.
Tax season is coming and the books are in limbo
If filings are due and your records are stranded between a shut-down platform and an uncertain replacement, the migration becomes time-sensitive. Getting the data into a clean QuickBooks file before the deadline is the difference between a calm filing and a scramble.
Ready to move your books off Bench?
Start with a discovery call and a QuickBooks ProAdvisor maps your rescue: export, migrate to a QuickBooks file you own, clean up any gaps, then ongoing monthly. Free file review first, then fixed-fee — $2,500–$10,000+ for the migration, $1,200–$15,000+ if months need rebuilding.
TechBrot rescues the data and owns the migration.
The hard part of switching isn’t the export — it’s turning a recovered pile of data from a shut-down platform into trustworthy books, then keeping them that way. A QuickBooks ProAdvisor holding the Intuit QuickBooks Certification Level 2 maps the Bench export into a clean chart of accounts, reconstructs any missing months from bank and card records, reconciles until the file ties out, and verifies prior-period balances against what was filed — all against a written scope. From there the same named professional maintains the books monthly, so you have someone to reach. Independent firm — not Intuit, not Bench, not Employer.com.
Free
file review first — we look at your export before we scope
From $1,200
fixed-fee focused diagnostic scope; a migration is $2,500–$10,000+
What former Bench customers ask about switching.
Is my Bench data recoverable?
What actually happened to Bench?
Do I have to keep using Bench under its new owner?
How long does switching from Bench take?
What does switching from Bench cost?
Will I own my books after the switch?
Are you affiliated with Bench, Employer.com, or Intuit?
Can you help if I’m mid-year and my filings are due?
Decided to move off Bench?
Start with a free file review of what you exported.
Send us what you pulled from the Bench / Employer.com portal and a QuickBooks ProAdvisor reviews it free — then scopes the move in writing. A focused diagnostic is a fixed-fee scope from $450; a migration into a QuickBooks file you own runs $2,500–$10,000+; a full bookkeeping cleanup runs $1,200–$15,000+ when months are missing; ongoing monthly bookkeeping is quoted to your volume. Written scope before any work begins.
Tell us where the books stand. We’ll tell you which engagement fits, if any.
We reply within one business day. Written fixed-fee scope within 3 business days of your call. No hourly billing.