To download your Bank of the West statements, we'll need you to add us as an account manager with limited access. This lets us view your account activity without the ability to make changes or transactions. Setup takes about 5 minutes.

For Bank of the West Business Online Banking, the primary account owner generally needs to have an Administrator or Master Administrator role to create third-party logins and assign permissions.

The owner would typically need authority to access:

• Manage Shared Users
• User Administration
• Entitlements / Permissions Management

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1. Log into your Bank of West online banking.

2. Go to 'Services & Support'.

3. Click on 'Manage Shared Users' under Business Services.

4. Click 'Add Shared User'

5. Enter the following credentials:

First name: Bench

Last name: Bookkeeping

Username: bench[benchID]

Your Bench ID is the number that appears after /client/ in your browser's address bar when you're logged into Bench. For example, if your URL is app.bench.co/client/12345/..., your Bench ID is 12345, and you'd enter bench12345.

Email: thirdpartylogins+business.name@bench.co

Please replace business.name in the email with your actual business' name.

6. Set a temporary password, and share it with your bookkeeper/onboarding specialist.

7. Grant access to "Restricted Access" and "View Only" For

8. Message your bookkeeper to let them know this has been completed as the email invite link is not a monitored email.

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What happens immediately after setup

• The system sends:
  • an enrollment email, or
  • a temporary password / activation instructions
• The accountant or third party user completes:
  • identity verification
  • password creation
  • multi-factor authentication (MFA) setup

What the accountant will be able to do

With View Only permissions enabled, the accountant should usually be able to:

• View account balances
• View transaction history
• Download bank statements
• Export transactions (CSV, QBO, OFX, PDF, etc.)
• Possibly connect accounting software feeds (depending on permissions granted)

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User never receives the enrollment email

This is one of the most common problems.

Possible causes:

• Email filtered into spam/quarantine
• Typo in the email address
• Corporate email security blocking banking emails
• Invitation expired before activation

Typical fix:

• Admin re-sends the invitation
• Verify the email address exactly matches
• Try a different email domain if corporate filtering blocks it

“Access Denied” when downloading statements

Sometimes the user can log in but cannot access statements.

Usually caused by:

• “View account” permission enabled
• but “Statements/Documents” permission NOT enabled

The admin may need to specifically enable:

• eStatements
• Documents
• Export/download permissions

User can see balances but not all accounts

In many business banking systems, permissions are assigned:

• both by feature
• and by individual account

Example:

• User can access checking
• but not savings or credit card accounts

Fix:

• Admin must assign account-level visibility for each account individually

https://online.bankofthewest.com/BOW/Login.aspx