Crunch Reviews

Name: Crunch
Address: The Knoll Business Centre, Unit W8A, 325 Old Shoreham Rd, Hove, East Sussex
Rating: 4.11

4.1 Rating 305 Reviews

87 %

of reviewers recommend Crunch

Company Reviews

Metrics

Info

4.1

Based on 305 reviews

Customer Service
Communication Channels	Telephone, Email, Live Chat
Queries Resolved In	Over A Week

About Crunch:

Crunch takes the stress out of accounting by reducing both cost and time. We provide simple online accounting for contractors, freelancers, sole traders, limited companies, and small businesses.

With over 10,500 clients, we offer a range of fixed-fee packages and bespoke solutions so you can design a service to suit you. We help with accounting, tax reporting, Self Assessments, payroll, expenses, bookkeeping, and much more.

We’re not just another software provider - we offer unlimited support and advice through our client management team and chartered certified accountants.

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Phone:

033 3311 8000

Email:

reviews@crunch.co.uk

Location:

The Knoll Business Centre, Unit W8A, 325 Old Shoreham Rd,
Hove
East Sussex
BN3 7GS

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Anonymous

Anonymous // 01/01/2019

Filter: Rated 1 None 5 Stars 4 Stars 3 Stars 2 Stars 1 Stars Helpful

“I found the Crunch online system and app, practically impossible to use. But the main problem came when I asked for advice on several personal, and business tax questions. I asked to speak to an accountant 7 times, each time I was deflected, and either given contradictory advice from client managers, or told to search the topic and read an article on the crunch site. Several things were not filed with HMRC, despite me receiving emails from Crunch stating that they had been filed. Crunch is not cheap for a Ltd company, at £1000 a year - and this doesn’t include and personal filings. I now have an actual accountant, who is apauled at the advice crunch gave me. I’ve had to spend thouasands of pounds rectifying the problems caused by crunch. I really don’t know what crunch are providing...there are easier to use online systems for £3 a month. Crunch try everything to stop you speaking to one of their accountants, even though they advertise ‘unlimited advice from accountants’ so what you are paying for, I don’t really know. My accountant advised me to ask crunch for a full refund for any premiums I paid, which I have requested - but I haven’t yet heard anything back. The client managers all seem very nice, but you get different advice every time you speak to someone.”

Helpful Report

Posted 7 years ago

Hi Thomas, My name’s Luke and I’m the Client Experience Coordinator here at Crunch. I’m sorry to hear that you’re unhappy with the service you received during your time with us. Our Client Experience Manager, Andy, has been looking into your complaint and will be contacting you separately to discuss the issues you have described. Please leave this with us and we’ll be in touch as soon as we can. Kind regards,

Posted 7 years ago

“Used to be a great company. Now totally disorganized and give incorrect information via emails. Sorry crunch... what started as a good company now needs to up it's game if you want to compete with self-serve platforms such as Xero.”

Helpful Report

Posted 7 years ago

Hi Jamie, We're sorry to hear you're unhappy with the service. We'll be in touch as soon as we can to see what's been going on. Hold tight. All the best

Posted 7 years ago

“Late filings similar to the stories below despite chasing. I expect them to pay the Companies House and HMRC fines. Currently they haven’t accepted liability despite me telling them to get on with the accounts months before. Avoid.”

Helpful Report

Posted 7 years ago

Hi Jez, My name's Andy and I'm the Client Experience Manager here at Crunch. I'm really sorry to hear of your experience and will be in touch as soon as I can. Please leave this with me to review for now. Kind regards

Posted 7 years ago

“If I had the option to give Crunch 0 out of 5 I would. Firstly, my 2016-17 accounts were filed late. Admittedly I didn’t complete my accounts until December, however this was something I had always done with my previous accountants. I assumed it would be the same with Crunch especially as all the bookkeeping was done digitally so I assumed there wouldn’t be much that an accountant would need to do, especially as I’m a freelancer. I was never chased by Crunch or made aware of any deadlines but once I had submitted my accounts I was told they wouldn’t be filed in time and I would be fined £150. After exchanging several lengthy emails with my account manager where he argues with everything he said and blamed everything on me I was left with a fine of £150. Next it was time to do my personal tax, I followed the link in the automated reminder email I received to remind me to fill the form in before 14th December, on the 14th December, and filled in the form. A message appeared telling me someone would contact me. Nobody did contact me and it was only when my account manager chased me several weeks later that I told him I’d filled the form in and discovered that I had actually filled in 15/16’s form in error. I explained that I had followed the link in the email and he said he could see I had filled in the form within the deadline so I should only have to pay the £75 rather than the £175 it cost if you missed the deadline. However after various long winded and defensive emails from various team members it was concluded that I would have to pay £175. At one point I waited a week for a reply from one email only to be told I would have to pay the £100 extra because there was only a day left before the deadline and I had left it too late to complain. The fact that Crunch spent so much time and resource arguing over £100 is obsurd. It would have cost them that in time spent dealing with my complaint and due to the outcome they have also lost my business and good will. My experience with Crunch showed me they are after a quick buck rather than wanting to offer their customers a good and fair service.”

Helpful Report

Posted 7 years ago

Hi K, Thanks for sharing your experiences, I can understand that it’s always unpleasant to have to make payments that you had hoped to avoid. I am sorry if you feel that we’ve been unclear with our requirements however on review, all reminders about responsibilities and deadlines have covered the due dates of the company accounts. Your Client Manager assisted you throughout the year creating .csv files of your bank statements that would usually be charged as an additional bookkeeping service. We have a clear pricing structure for self assessments with early bird discounts, starting as early as July the following tax year, that is advertised via our marketing and newsletter emails. I’m sorry if you did not read these and the offers were not taken up. It’s always our aim to provide first class service and we’re sorry that you felt let down in this instance. If you’d like to discuss this further, my name is Luke and you can contact me on cx@crunch.co.uk Kind regards,

Posted 7 years ago

“Absolute mess. All the advice they gave me was either wrong or so poorly communicated as to be ineffectual. Filed my VAT 3 weeks late despite me calling up several times to try and push it along. Now I am still getting letters from HMRC asking me where the money I owe them is despite it having been paid immediately. I feel like I have been completely ripped off and effectively paid for nothing but headaches and a waste of time. It's worth paying a bit extra for a higher level of service. I can honestly say I'd have been better off going it alone with a spreadsheet.”

Helpful Report

Posted 7 years ago

Hi Joe, My name’s Andy and I’m the Client Experience Manager here at Crunch. I’m sorry to hear that you’re unhappy with the service and I’ll be looking into this straight away. I’ll be in touch as quickly as I can so we can review what went wrong and where we can rescue this for you. All the best

Posted 7 years ago

“Cumbersome portal. Late account filing with Companies House. Inaccurate VAT return advice. Notification of fine from Companies House not forwarded for almost two months. Continue to receive VAT overdue alerts despite deregistration six months ago. Regular price hikes over and above inflation. Internal communication very poor. External communication very poor. Despite apologies and assurances from Mr Tyrell, level of service is still woeful. Would not recommend to anyone in it's current state.”

Helpful Report

Posted 7 years ago

“The level of service received from crunch is awful. I had a payment issue last year and I am still trying to get the issue resolved. They've never apologised despite the problem being on their side and have put in minimal effort on their side to get things resolved. Worse is that if I want to leave , all my data is stuck with them and I have to keep putting up with prices hikes. I would strongly advise using a product that is more independent (i.e.Xero) and finding an accountant separately.”

Helpful Report

Posted 7 years ago

Hi Daniel, Thanks for sharing your experiences with us, my name's Luke and I'm the Client Experience Coordinator here at Crunch. I'm sorry to hear that the service you've received has fallen short of expectations, I'll look into this further and we will be in touch as soon as we can. Leave this with me, again I'm sorry to hear that you're not currently happy with the service right now.

Posted 7 years ago

“Poor customer service and lacked the ability to relate law to personal circumstances. Answers to questions I raised were generally in the form of heavy caveats and what seemed like copy and paste of law rather than how it impacted me. I had to do the leg work to work out how it impacted me. I expected more. I can read the tax law, I want my account to apply it to my circumstances. Additionally their software sometimes gets updated unknowing to you which can cause hours of frustration. For example, the process for uploading bank statements changed, nothing was communicated to me and after several emails asking for help the resolution required me to re-code around 9 months of bank statements.”

Helpful Report

Posted 7 years ago

“shocking and incompetent customer service and leveka if advice.”

Helpful Report

Posted 7 years ago

Hi there, Really sorry to hear that you've not had the greatest experience - there's not a lot for us to go on based on your review and that it's anonymous so if you could send me a personal email to andrew@crunch.co.uk I can have a look and see how we can help. Look forward to hearing from you soon, All the best

Posted 7 years ago

Update: As of 28/09/2017 we haven't had any response to our attempt to reach out and contact this reviewer and we're unable to trace any link to them ever being a client of Crunch.

Posted 7 years ago

“Been using them since 2014 and I sincerely am beyond fed up with their appalling accounting service and customr service. They're so unprofessional and when you desperately need them no one will help and you get bounced around. I've had enough and been too busy to change but will change accounting firm. Please save time and don't use them, pay more for morep rofessional and prompt service where they don't mess up your accounting!”

Helpful Report

Posted 7 years ago

“Crunch gets handsomely paid by their customers to turn them into ledgers of their own system. Great marketing: I chose Crunch to make better decisions about my finances and simplify things. The reality is that I am turned into a operator of their system and spend all my time and energy trying to work out instructions to place all information in the right format and in the right places, just for the system to process it, and for me not to miss deadlines and pay penalties. Yes the customer service is pleasant and accessible, but what you get is advice on these instructions; and while you get stuck in the minutiae you don't get the time to get advice on your finances and the things that matter to your business. The Crunch model is a lure and their marketing plain misleading if not totally dishonest.”

Helpful Report

Posted 7 years ago

Hi Fred, My name’s Andy and I’m the Client Experience Manager here at Crunch. Thank you for your recent feedback and I'm sorry to hear you've been experiencing issues with the service. I'd like to get in touch to understand a little more about how we can look to put things right and improve. We built our software to be as user friendly as possible and offer first class support to help our customers use it. There may be times where our support is needed more and it looks as though something hasn’t been as straightforward as we hoped. We're clear with our marketing how we operate and we are open with what the service is. We also provide a Premium Package which has an allocated bookkeeper help with the day to day transactions for people who want this. I'll be in touch to see if I can offer my support and see where we can look to improve. Many thanks

Posted 7 years ago

“I have been with Crunch since 2011 and I use to really rate them highly, but now they have gone down hill in the quality of service! The has been a few issues this year and I have wasted enough of my own time trying to resolve issues which relating to incompetence! I have finally decided to take my accounts elsewhere.”

Helpful Report

Posted 8 years ago

Hi there, I'm very sorry to hear you're unhappy with our service. My name's Andy and I'm the Client Experience Manager here at Crunch. I'll begin investigating what has happened and I'll be in touch as soon as I can. Please leave this with me and again I'm sorry that you're currently unhappy with the service,

Posted 8 years ago

“Having been with Crunch for a couple of years I feel the service has gone dramatically down hill in the last year. To start with support questions were answered quickly and they the accountants were on top of my annual accounts. This year my accounts were due to be submitted to HMRC on 28th February 2017 and my corporation tax paid and cleared the same day. After two months of asking Crunch where these were I received them late on February 27th leaving only that evening to check them and also hope my payment to HMRC went through so I didn't incur any fines, which would have been my responsibility. Being self-employed, as all of us are, I didn't need the added stress of this situation on top of my day job when I pay Crunch a monthly payment to handle this for me. My year end is 31st May, my accounts are quite small and updated regularly, therefore Crunch had 9 months to prepare them but left it until the last day with nothing but an insincere apology (no phone call from my client manager). Following this situation I have tried to reconcile my recent bank statements and found that all reconciliations since 31st May 2016 have been undone through a software error. I have contacted them to ask how it's happened and if they can reconcile all the transactions again as I don't feel I should have to do this. This was 2 weeks ago and unsurprisingly I'm still waiting for a resolution. On recent experience I wouldn't recommend Crunch as their customer service is really poor. Find another online accountant or pay for a local accountant who you may find more helpful and prompt with their support.”

Helpful Report

Posted 8 years ago

Hi Craig Please allow me to introduce myself as the Client Experience Manager here at Crunch Accounting, I’m sorry to hear you’re not having a great experience right now and I’d like to step in and offer my help in resolving your issues. I'll be in touch this morning to see what we can do to get things back on track for you. Please leave this with me, Many thanks

Posted 8 years ago

“They leave things until the last minute, until I complain, and after I have accrued fines. Just not what an accountant is for.”

Helpful Report

Posted 8 years ago

Hi Iain, I'm very sorry to hear that you're currently experiencing trouble with the service you're receiving. My name is Luke and I'm the Client Experience Coordinator here at Crunch accounting, I've passed this onto one of our managers so that they can have a look into your situation. Please leave this with us and we will be in touch as soon as we can. Kind regards,

Posted 8 years ago

“This company has appalling customer service. I was a customer for over a year and I wish I'd just gone with an accountant instead as not only would it have been cheaper in the end but the service would have been much better. They must cycle through staff pretty quickly as you're supposed to have an account manager but mine changed 4 times over the period. Without any introduction, by the way. This kind of thing, combined with the fact that the main staff you speak to are not actual accountants, makes for a very disjointed experience of customer service. They sell it well but it's not worth the money. Their software is slow - and you can get xero free anyway - and you'll spend ages trying to sort something simple out through email chains. Between the amount managers things also get lost, which means you have to spend precious time and effort chasing them up for things you're paying them to do. You can't trust the job to get done with Crunch. When it comes down to it, the quality of their advice is not great. For the most part it's regurgitated from what's on their website so if you don't understand it that way, they can't really help you. Get yourself a free or inexpensive accounts tracker like xero, and get an accountant to check our do your self assessment. I got tempted in by the cost of accountants but it's end up being a false economy. If you're going to pay someone, make it someone you can trust to get the job done and who will give you piece of mind. Your time iand sanity are worth that. Don't be fooled by their nice salespeople. Their service is awful.”

Helpful Report

Posted 8 years ago

Hi Pritpal My name’s Andy and I’m the Client Experience Manager here at Crunch, I’d like to reach out and see if there’s anything I can do to help you with your concerns. In order to deliver the best possible service, we always aim to respond to any queries received within a lightning fast turnaround and in order to do this we adopt a team based approach, for handling our Sole Trader clients. I can see that in the run up to the Self Assessment deadline you have spoken to a few of our Client Managers who helped ensure your return was filed successfully. I understand and appreciate that not having the same person handle your query over the last few days has added additional frustration to an already stressful time and I’m sorry that this has caused inconvenience. I will drop you an email to see if there’s anything I can do to help. Kind regards

Posted 8 years ago

“Spend your money on an online bookkeeping course, as you'll be doing it all yourself anyway. Lots of promises but very poor user experience, staff have very limited knowledge of actual accounting and expect you to do most of it yourself. To give an example I'm currently trying to reconcile my accounts, but because my credit card's CSV download (Barclays) doesn't provide a running balance, my 'account manager' doesn't know what to do. As such I have had to create my own CSV file and add all transactions (even though I have already done this in crunch), which I then upload so that their system will accept it. It still isn't sorted and because they require accounts to be completely up-to-date to do last years self assessment (?!?) I am now almost a week away from the deadline and my accountants have advised I go elsewhere! E-mail response is very slow (although when I cancelled my direct debit they got in touch straight away). Overall very bad experience and I wouldn't recommend them to my worst enemy.”

Helpful Report

Posted 8 years ago

Hi Rick, Please allow me to introduce myself as the Client Experience Manager here at Crunch Accounting, I’m sorry to hear you’re not having a great experience right now. I’d like to step in and offer my help in resolving your issues with the reconciliation so I’ll be in touch this morning. We’ve recently developed a new Crunch integration with Barclays as we were aware that their statements lacked some basic functionality. This is a great new addition to the service and it’s free of charge. I’ll provide you with more information when we review your account together today. Looking forward to helping resolve your issues, Kind regards

Posted 8 years ago

“What went right? The software should just be deleted and started again from scratch. Clunky, complicated and full of bugs. I would recommend using Wave Accounting's free cloud app and find a local accountant that you can work with as working with loads of different people creates a lot of miscommunications. The staff are great to speak to but the management and idea of the company is poorly executed which is why it actually gets a star. A shame because the company started off great.”

Helpful Report

Posted 8 years ago

Hi Chris, My name’s Andy and I’m the Client Experience Manager at Crunch. Thank you taking the time to share your experiences and very sorry to hear you’re unhappy with the software. I'll be in touch shortly to see where you’ve experienced problems with the Crunch platform. All feedback is greatly appreciated and I’ll report it back to the team. Thank you for your kinds words about our staff and I look forward to seeing what went wrong for you. Many thanks

Posted 8 years ago

“More like what HASN'T gone wrong...! I've been trying to get my company accounts finalised for 5 months, to no avail. Inexperienced customer service managers dodging questions and passing the buck. I've lost my patience. Sad really - considering I've been a customer for 2 years and have recommended them to friends. Service clearly in rapid decline, staff over worked, and the system slow. Also, for an automated system it is woefully clunky, unintuitive and does not update itself (so if you pay your VAT for example, it will still bombard you with clients). For the service they offer, I'd suggest trying to do what you can yourself or going to a 'proper' accountant.”

Helpful Report

Posted 8 years ago

Hi Richard, My name’s Andy and I’m the Client Experience Manager at Crunch. Thank you sharing your experiences and I’m very to sorry to hear that you're unhappy with our service. I'll be in touch shortly with an update on your Year End accounts. I’d also like to gain more insight from you as I’m keen to understand your concerns and where you feel we've under performed. Many thanks

Posted 8 years ago

“I've been with Crunch and witnessed their service going from bad to worse, long waits for accountant replies, issues with the system, very slow at replying basic queries. They were reluctant to cancel my subscription at the end to trading year when I decided to leave (for simplicity) even though I had given a month notice as they were saying that accounts had to be approved first, I am glad I persisted and cancelled my DD as in the end it took nearly 5 months to transfer to a new accountant and get basic accounts done. The accounts had to be rectified several times due to some silly mistakes, like moving all mileage expenses to public transport expenses! Good at sending reminders (that are automatically generated), in fact I still receive automated emails even though I have left them nearly 6 months ago! The worse of all is the inconsistent advice from different accountants, you dont get a personal accountant by the way so answers tend to come from different accountants (thats after long waits to get some advice) and they are not able to provide you with accountancy services that deviate from their restrictive system like setting up a company with different class shares, etc.. when you account for the extra time spent on calls, revisiting their work because you lost faith they not so cheap anymore, plus they charge separately for things like providing references, signed accounts, additional employees, SA, etc.. They basically are a call centre that rely on an IT system to do their accountancy, when you need a reply from an accountant takes ages.. when you want something that their system doesnt support you stuffed... I am so glad I have finally left..”

Helpful Report

Posted 8 years ago

Hi Pedro, My name’s Andy and I’m the Client Experience Manager here at Crunch Accounting. Thank you sharing your experiences and I’m sorry to hear you feel the level of service has declined. Any feedback is greatly appreciated and I’m keen to review what has caused your areas of concern and what we can do about it moving forwards. I’m sorry to hear you are still receiving correspondence from us and so I’ll deal with this asap. Please leave this with me to investigate and I’ll be in touch as soon as I’ve spoken to our team. Many thanks

Posted 8 years ago

“I joined Crunch Accounting as I set up a limited company while working as a contractor and it has been terrible. 1. I have had around 5-10 account managers 2. I have had around 5-10 accountants 3. With 1. & 2. my account has been passed on person to person and communication between people and departments has been terrible. 4. With all the information that was uploaded to the site, the accountants still were unable to write up the appropriate documents and kept asking for information that was already on the system, 5. On closing the limited company as moved back to PAYE, I was asked to completed the DS10 and other documentation, on completing this and sending the information back I waited over 3 months for Crunch Accounting to action. I had to keep calling throughout the time to see what was going on, but no one seemed to have a clue..... 6. I was offered a free self assessment as an apology (final one, as company closed), but Crunch accounting managed to mess up again. They took a P60 I sent to them (which covered the whole year, for all jobs), then added a wage from a P45, therefore inflating my wage and coming back to me, saying I will need to pay nearly £7,000 in tax...!? Wrote back to explain the error and have all amended, it was finally and reduced the tax to £1.80 only!!! But, like always and even though I had accepted the £1.80 tax, I was sent a further email from someone else this time asking me to check and approve the tax return and information.....HOW MANY TIMES TO I NEED TO CHECK THE SAME DOCUMENT??? I a nut shell: Terrible communication, terrible turn around of staff, incapability of doing accounting and never the same person dealing with you. Please do NOT use, I am sure there are more professional companies out there. I can't wait to be finished with!!”

Helpful Report

Posted 8 years ago

Hi Marc, I'm so sorry to hear you're unhappy with our service. My name's Andy and I’m the Client Experience Manager here at Crunch and I want to see if I can help. I'll review you concerns in full as this sounds very unusual. I'll ensure that we gather all team members involved and review asap. At Crunch you'll always have your personal Client Manager on hand but they work in teams who will help out with the general day to day admin aspect of the account. We do this to cover holidays etc and to ensure your Client Manager is free to respond to emails and calls in a lightening quick time. Please leave it with me and I'm sure we'll be able to sort this out for you now. Many thanks

Posted 8 years ago

Crunch is rated 4.1 based on 305 reviews