Our services and how this privacy policy applies
What information we collect about you and why
Your use of others’ personal information
Your rights over your information
When and why we share your information with others
Where your data resides and international data transfers
How we protect your information
How we use cookies and other tracking technologies
The mission of Bench Accounting USA Inc., Recruiter.com Ventures Inc. (dba Employer.com) and our affiliates, (collectively “Bench”) is to help every business owner thrive by providing financial insight and peace of mind in one seamless platform. To fulfill this mission, we collect information about you, whether you are a:
Whoever you are, your privacy is important to us. This privacy policy (“Privacy Policy”) outlines how we at Bench collect, use, disclose, and safeguard your personal information. It also describes the rights you have over your information.
Please read this Privacy Policy carefully. By using our Services (as defined below), you acknowledge that you have read, understand and agree to be legally bound by this Privacy Policy and other policies incorporated herein by reference.
This Privacy Policy was last updated and is effective on February 10, 2025.
Bench reserves the right to modify this Privacy Policy at any time, in our sole discretion. We may notify you of such modifications to this Privacy Policy by providing notice via one of the following methods: (i) by email to the email account used by you to access our Services, (ii) by posting the updated Privacy Policy to our website and updating the ‘last updated’ date listed above, or (iii) by posting a notice in the Bench app. Unless otherwise stated, any modifications to the Privacy Policy will be effective immediately upon posting the updated Privacy Policy to our website. By continuing to use our Services, you confirm that you agree to the updated Privacy Policy. If you do not agree with the changes to this Privacy Policy, you must immediately stop using our Services and close your account within 30 days of the change.
Our Services and how this Privacy Policy applies
Bench offers cloud-based bookkeeping, tax preparation and advisory (“BenchTax”), financial information storage and reporting, and related communication services to small and medium-sized businesses through its online platform at bench.co, accessible via our website and mobile applications. Through this platform, our customers and accountant clients can access the tools they need to power their businesses or the businesses of their clients. We refer to our platform, websites, and mobile applications collectively as our “Services”.
This Privacy Policy applies to our Services and other interactions you may have with Bench, such as visiting our websites, customer service inquiries, attendance at events, etc. By using our Services, or otherwise interacting with Bench, you agree to the collection and use of your personal information in accordance with this Privacy Policy. Personal information is any information or data relating to you including financial information that may be used to identify you, either directly or indirectly, or to contact you.
Our Services may contain links to other websites, products, or services that we do not own or operate. When using our Services, you may decide to share your data and any related personal information with a third-party service of your choice (for example, your accountant). Any processing of your information by these third parties is governed by their own privacy policies and terms. We recommend you carefully review their privacy policies and terms, as Bench is not responsible for such third-party services or how they manage your data.
Some of our Services are made available to you by our affiliates. Personal information supplied by you through our Services to our affiliates will be governed by this Privacy Policy.
Our Services are not intended for use by children and should only be accessed by individuals who are at least 18 years old and using our Services for business purposes. If we learn that we have inadvertently collected personal information of persons under the age of 18 years old, we shall immediately take steps to delete the information as soon as possible. If you learn that a child has provided us with personal information in violation of this Privacy Policy, then you may alert us at privacy@bench.co.
Our Services are also not intended for individual consumer use and should only be accessed by businesses, charitable organizations, or not-for-profit organizations. If we learn that an individual consumer has used our Services in violation of this Privacy Policy and our Terms of Service, we shall take immediate steps to terminate the use and delete any personal information collected as soon as possible. If you become aware of such use, please alert us at privacy@bench.co.
What information we collect about you and why
A. Customers & Accountant Clients
Whether you are a customer using Bench to power your business or an accountant client using Bench to streamline bookkeeping for your own clients, we collect and use your personal information to provide you with our Services. We collect the following personal information when you sign up for Bench, when you use our Services, or when you otherwise provide us information. We also may collect personal information from other sources, including business partners or referral partners. Generally, we use this information to provide and customize our Services for you, as outlined in more detail below.
- To set up your account and provide you with our Services (e.g., to confirm your identity, to contact you about our service, to invoice you, and to produce financial statements)
- To communicate with you via email, chat, phone, SMS, or virtual meetings
- To train our workers and improve our processes and the quality of our Services
- To comply with legal requirements
- To market products or features to you to help you get the most out of our Services
- To provide you with our Services and/or give account access to others within your business
- To charge for our Services, products, and features
- To provide you use of, and to improve, our platform and other related services (e.g., identifying ways to make our platform easier to use or navigate)
- To personalize the platform for you
- To advertise and market products or features to you to help you get the most out of our Services
- To provide you use of, and to improve, our platform and other related services (e.g., identifying ways to make our platform easier to use or navigate)
- To personalize the platform for you
- To debug, identify and repair errors that may impact intended functionality
- To detect security incidents and protect against malicious, fraudulent or illegal activity
- To comply with legal requirements
- To advertise and market products or features to you
- To provide you with customer support when using our Services
- To communicate with you via email, chat, phone, SMS, or virtual meeting
- To debug, identify and repair errors that may impact intended functionality
- To improve our Services and platform
- To share with existing or prospective customers or accountant clients your experience and feedback in using our Services
- To provide you with customer support when using our Services
- To train our workers and improve our processes and the quality of our Services
- To debug, identify and repair errors that may impact intended functionality
- To share with existing or prospective customers or accountant clients your experience and feedback in using our Services
- To provide you with our Services
- To provide you use of, and to improve, our platform and other related services (e.g., identifying ways to make our platform easier to use or navigate)
- To personalize the platform for you
- To advertise and market products or features to you to you to help you get the most out of our Services
- To provide you with a dashboard that displays real-time financial activity to enable you to track your businesses’ financial health
- To create reconciliation files so Bench can assist our customers with our Services
If you use our BenchTax service, we may collect more specific information about you and your business, including:
- personal characteristics (such as spousal and dependants, age, date of birth, gender, marital status, nationality)
- government-issued identification (such as your social security number, driver’s license number, taxpayer identification numbers)
- professional and employment information (such as your occupation, employer identification number, corporate-held credit and debit card numbers, employment records and compensation information)
- financial transactions (such as your bank account information, loans, investments, contributions, payments)
- To create and manage your BenchTax account
- To provide you with the BenchTax Services, including to set up tax payments to IRS and state departments of revenue
- To conduct fraud and risk monitoring
- To comply with legal requirements
- To provide tax documentation, file tax returns, payment coordination
- To verify your identity (e.g., to protect you against identity theft or fraud)
- To verify that we are speaking with you if you contact us
- To comply with legal requirements
B. Visitors
We collect the following personal information about you when you visit our website or contact us through our website:
- To communicate with you via email or chat
- To comply with legal requirements
- To advertise and market products or features to you to you to help you get the most out of our Services
- To provide you use of, and to improve, our websites and related Services (e.g., identifying ways to make our websites easier to use or navigate)
- To personalize your experience using our websites (e.g., by changing the layout of our webpages)
- To advertise and market products or features that may be of interest to you
- To personalize the platform for you
- To provide you use of, and to improve, our platform and other related services (e.g., identifying ways to make our platform easier to use or navigate)
- To advertise and market products or features that may be of interest to you
- To register you for the survey, contest or event, and provide you with the results or contents of the event
- To advertise and market products or features that may be of interest to you
- To personalize the platform for you
- To provide you use of, and to improve, our platform and other related services (e.g., identifying ways to make our platform easier to use or navigate)
- To advertise and market products or features that may be of interest to you
C. Benchmates
We may collect the following personal information about you when you work for Bench:
- To communicate with you regarding work-related matters (including compensation, and emergency contact)
- To verify your identity
- For tax reporting, record keeping, and other administrative purposes
- To comply with legal requirements
- To contact someone in the event of an emergency while you are engaged with Bench
- To comply with legal requirements
- To evaluate job performance, provide feedback, and guide career development
- To maintain compliance with industry standards and ensure workers have the necessary skills for their roles
- To document any workplace issues or violations, ensuring proper handling of compliance or behavioral concerns
- To comply with legal requirements
- To protect work-related information from theft, malware, and cyber threats
- Enforce security, data retention, and privacy policies
- Monitor and audit device usage and compatibility
- To comply with legal requirements
D. Prospective Benchmates
We may collect the following personal information about you when you apply for a position with Bench:
- To communicate with you during the recruitment process
- To book interviews with you and members of our team
- To comply with legal requirements
- To review your suitability and qualifications for a position/role
- To verify your legal eligibility to work in the role’s location
- To verify your identity
- To review your criminal history to comply with legal requirements
- To confirm your certification and/or education, if required for the role
- To review your suitability and qualifications for a position/role
- For future review and learnings for the sales hiring teams
E. Prospective Customers
In order to offer our Services to prospective customers who might find our Services useful, we collect personal information, such as names, emails addresses, and phone numbers, from public sources and business partners, current customers and accountant clients who provide referrals for our Services. If you visit our website, we may also collect information about how you access our Services, including information about the device and browser you use, your network connection, your IP address, and details about how you browse and interact with our websites and platform.
How we use your information
We use the personal information we collect from you (the “Collected Information”) to (i) provide you with our Services, (ii) fulfill a contractual obligation (for example, to process your subscription payments), (iii) improve our Services, or (iv) further a legitimate business interest. A legitimate business interest includes, but is not limited to:
Any information we collect in connection with a legitimate business interest may be shared with our affiliates and business partners to better understand business trends, such as how our products and services are used.
We may use information that is aggregated or de-identified so that it is no longer reasonably associated with an identified or identifiable natural person for any business purpose.
We may also collect and use your personal information for any other purpose to which you consent.
Your use of others’ personal information
In using our Services, you may provide us with the personal information of others (for example, the names and addresses of your accounting clients or employees), and if you are an accounting client or employee of one of our customers, we may receive your personal information from our customers or accountant clients. In these circumstances, we are only a “service provider” of such information.
As your service provider, we process (collect, use, disclose, etc.) such information as directed by you for the purpose of providing you with our Services. For example, we do not use your customers’ or employees’ information provided to us by you to independently market or advertise to them; we will only independently market or advertise to them if they are also using our Services directly.
You are responsible for the personal information of others that you disclose to us via our Services and for ensuring that your instructions regarding the processing of such information complies with applicable data protection laws.
Your rights over your information
Depending on your use of our Services and where you reside, you may have the right to request access to, correct, amend, delete, download, or object to certain uses of certain personal information (for example, by unsubscribing from direct marketing emails).
We strive to provide you with the ability to exercise these rights yourself via our Services. For example, you can access, download, update and correct most of your information from your account settings pages. If you cannot exercise a particular right via our Services, you can always email our privacy team at privacy@bench.co. Please note that if you send us a request relating to your personal information, we have to make sure that it is you before we can respond. In order to do so, we may ask to see documentation verifying your identity.
Please also note that there is a difference between the information we decide to collect for our own purposes (for example, your account sign-up information) and the information our customers and accountant clients direct us to store or process via our Services (for example, names of employees or clients). If you are an individual who wishes to exercise your rights over information that one of our customers or accountant clients may be storing or processing via our Services for their own purposes, you will need to contact the customer or accountant client directly. In this scenario, we are only a service provider acting at their direction, and we cannot decide how to process this information.
When and why we share your information with others
We restrict access to your information to authorized employees and contractors. We may share your personal information with third parties in the following circumstances:
As a customer or accountant client, we may share all of the categories of personal information described in the “What information we collect about you and why” section with service providers, including the following service providers to provide you with our Services:
We may also share all of the categories of your personal information described in the “What information we collect about you and why” section with the following third parties for certain other business purposes:
We also share certain categories of personal information with third parties to provide personalized online advertising and with third parties for their direct marketing purposes. Under the California Consumer Privacy Act (“CCPA”), some of this information sharing may be broadly considered a “sale” of Personal Information (as such term is defined in the CCPA). Except for this type of sharing, we do not sell your Personal Information. We share identifiers (such as name, email address, IP address and online identifiers), commercial information, internet or other electronic network activity information, and inferences drawn from personal information with third parties for these purposes.
Where your data resides
Our Services are managed by Bench which is headquartered in the United States and operates from locations around the world. Our Services are hosted in the United States and individuals located within the United States are permitted to use our Services. If you circumvent Bench’s measures restricting our Services to the United States and use our Services from the European Union or other regions of the world with laws governing data collection and use that may differ from U.S. law, please note that in doing so you are transferring your personal information outside of those regions to the United States for storage and processing. Also, we may transfer your personal information from the United States to other countries or regions in connection with storage and processing of data, fulfilling your requests, and operating our Services. By providing any information, including information from or about you or your devices, on or to our Services, you consent to such transfer, storage, and processing.
Data retention
Bench is a United States company, serving US persons and businesses, and as such, we and our affiliates may be subject to various legal compliance and reporting obligations that require us to retain your personal information for a specific period of time which may be beyond the time when you stop using our Services.
How we protect your information
We maintain security safeguards to protect your information, which are designed to ensure its confidentiality, integrity, and availability. While we strive to protect your information on our Services, we cannot guarantee absolute security of your personal information. To learn more about our information security measures, please see our Security Practices.
How we use cookies and other tracking technologies
We use cookies and similar tracking technologies on our website and when providing our Services. For more information about how we use these technologies, and an explanation of how you can opt out of certain types of cookies, please see our Cookie Policy.
Changes to this Privacy Policy
We may make changes to this Privacy Policy at any time to reflect updates to our Services, applicable laws, and other factors. We will notify you as outlined above when we materially change the ways in which we use or share personal information previously collected from you through our Services, but we encourage you to stay informed by reviewing this Privacy Policy periodically.
How you can reach us
If you would like to ask about, make a request relating to, or voice concerns about how we process your personal information, you can contact us by email at privacy@bench.co, or by calling us toll-free at 1-888-760-1940.
Employer.com
2261 Market St. #5056
San Francisco CA 94114
Attn: Bench Privacy Team