What is the Account Setup Form
The Customer Account Setup Form is the first step in your journey with Bench. This form allows us to collect key information on your business, to set you up for success with your bookkeeper.
We recommend carving out 15 minutes of your time within the first 2 days to complete this form. Once the form is complete, you will be connected with your Onboarding Specialist to finalize your account setup.
If you're ever unsure about a question, most fields include tooltips with extra context and examples—just hover over them for more details!
What’s Included in the Form?
The form covers a few key areas:
- Business details
- Bank accounts & credit cards
- Expenses & revenue collection
- Loans & leases
- Payroll & contractors
Here’s a quick breakdown of what we ask for and why:
Business Details:
We’re collecting this information upfront because documents related to your business—like tax returns, bank statements, loans, and more—may reference your DBA or a specific shareholder. Having this on file helps us accurately track and reconcile everything from the start, reducing the need for follow-ups down the road.
Doing Business As (DBA): If your business has another name it’s known as or registered with, please include this here. It is important for us to know in case both names are used interchangeably on any official documentation or bank statements.
Shareholder Information: Just like with your Doing Business As name, if any shareholders’ names might appear on official documentation or bank statements, it’s helpful for us to know upfront. This ensures a smooth onboarding process without any delays, as we won’t need to follow up for clarification later.
Bank accounts & credit cards
To ensure accurate bookkeeping and financial reporting, we need a complete list of all accounts used for business transactions. This includes checking, savings, and credit card accounts, regardless of their current balance.
What percent is personal vs. business?
We’re looking to understand how much the specific account or credit card is used for business each month. If it’s an account or card explicitly used for business, please mark it as 100%. If it's a personal account used for business, please provide an estimate of the percentage of transactions used for business. This helps us follow the appropriate protocols based on IRS guidelines and avoid any need for further clarification.
Expenses and Revenue:
We want to get a clearer picture of how your business operates, particularly how you receive revenue. We’ll also ask a few questions about your use of cash to ensure IRS compliance. This will help us gather the right documentation and set up the right account connections to accurately track and report your revenue each month.
PayPal, Venmo, Cash App: We are asking specifically if you use these processing systems for business expenses and if they are personal accounts or strictly business. If you use any of these accounts for revenue purposes, please indicate this later on in the revenue collection section.
Loans and Leases Information
We are looking to see if you have any loans taken out in the business name or personal loans that are used for business purposes. If you have a loan in your name that you make payments to using a business account or is used for any business expenses, please indicate this here. If it’s not indicated here, we will see it show up in your bank or credit card statements, and we’ll need to follow up.
Payroll and Contractor Information
We need your payroll information to ensure your books are accurate and complete. Payroll expenses, taxes, and liabilities are a crucial part of your financial records, and Bench includes them in your bookkeeping to give you a full picture of your business’s finances.
Here’s why we need it:
- Expense Tracking: Payroll is often one of the biggest business expenses. Including it in your books ensures your reports are accurate.
- Tax Compliance: Payroll taxes and withholdings affect your financial statements, and accurate records help when filing taxes.
- Financial Reporting: Having payroll data allows for better financial insights, like understanding profit margins and cash flow.
Which other Payroll system do you use? If you do not have a payroll system used to pay employees or independent contractors, please indicate how you pay your employees or contractors within the Account Setup Form.
An independent contractor is someone you hire to do work for your business, but they’re not an employee. They typically work for multiple clients, set their own hours, and use their own tools. You pay them for the work they complete, but you don’t withhold taxes, provide benefits, or control how they do their job.
For bookkeeping and tax purposes:
- You expense what you pay them under "Contractor Payments" instead of payroll.
- If you pay them $600 or more in a year (in the U.S.), you may need to issue them a 1099-NEC form for tax reporting.
Do you require Bench to keep track of expenses paid to 1099 contractors?: If you do not have a system for tracking contractors, we can do so for you within your Bench account. There is a section under “Tax Center” called “1099 Reports” where we can display the name of each contractor and add up how much you pay them within a year. This allows you to easily fill out and send 1099 forms to your contractors. If you would like us to track your contractors, please indicate that here by writing “Yes.”
Next Steps
Filling out this form thoroughly now will help avoid delays later. If you have any questions, your onboarding specialist is here to help—just send a message or book a call!
Let’s get started!