Our review of Crunch Accounting
If you need bare bones invoicing software with a few bookkeeping tools, then Crunch might be a good starting point for you. Feature-wise, Crunch simply doesn’t have the same range of tools which are available from other providers, so some small business owners are likely to outgrow it fairly quickly.
Whilst the pages do load quickly, the software does lack some of the most basic features that users might expect from bookkeeping these days. This lack of functionality also means that any time saved on with fast page load times is more than taken up by time-consuming data entry, or finding workarounds to tasks which other software providers have dedicated features for.
The lack of software support is the other huge drawback according to some user reviews. If you have questions, you’ll either need to find answers in the community forum, or start paying for accounting services so you can talk to a real-life person for help.
Review breakdown
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Ease of use
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Speed
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Features
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Support
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Price
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User Experience
Summary
Overall Score
User Review
( votes)Software Features
Ease of Use
Crunch has the most attractive user interface that we have seen. Creating an account takes less than a minute, leading to a dashboard of options designed to help users create documents in Crunch for the first time. For brand-new businesses this probably isn’t such a bad thing, but anyone with data to import into Crunch (like a list of contacts or opening balances) will quickly notice the absence of any data-import tool or set-up wizard. Set up is much more laborious as a result, especially if you’re not too sure where the information belongs, or whether you even need to enter it.
The sidebar menu houses the self-explanatory ‘Sales’, ‘Expenses’ and ‘Banking’ options. Clicking into these opens up more detailed menus, some of which also have their own dashboard to provide an overview of that section.
All in all, finding your way round and getting to grips with Crunch is pretty simple.
Speed
The pages load fast, and we didn’t experience any lag, but this is largely because they do very little. We’ll come back to this when we talk about Crunch’s features.
The actual speed that users can complete their bookkeeping is hampered by several factors though. The first of these is the absence of any sort of ‘quick create’ option for documents, such as invoices or quotes, and users will need to work through each menu instead.
Crunch’s software also lacks many of the tools which you’ll find with other providers, such as bulk editing transactions, or bank rules to automatically reconcile banking transactions. It makes it much slower to use in comparison to other providers, despite its fast page load times.
Features
Crunch originally offered bank feeds as part of their free tier, but this has now been moved to the £10.00 per month option. There is a way to manually upload bank statements for the current accounting period, but if you want to minimise manual data entry, or you bank with a provider which they do not support, then you’ll need to research other options.
Crunch’s bookkeeping platform is starting to move into standalone software terriroty, where it was once a gateway to their online accountancy services, but it's still unclear how you might use it with an accountant unless you're using the Crunch accounting service alongside it.
Stock control, projects, and cash flow forecasting, just to name a few, are all noticeably absent, but even the features that are on offer can be seen as ‘lite’ versions when compared with other competitors on the market.
Crunch's features list doesn't mention a business reporting function. Every business will need reports at some point, so it does impact how useful the software alone can actually be.
Crunch do provide an option for MTD compliant VAT returns and MTD Income Tax updates. These can be added on to the £4.00 per month package for an extra £4.00 per month, or they're included in the £10.00 price.
There is a separate app that you can download to capture receipts using your device’s camera. It’s designed to integrate with Crunch so users can store documents alongside transactions, although the current negative reviews suggest there’s much more work to be done here.
Support
They have a help centre that contains some basic guides to using the software, and their website has some really excellent articles about a range of business-related topics. You’ll either talk to the digital assistant if you're using the Free version, or from £4.00 per month you get a free 30 minute consultation with an advisor.
Price
Comparing Crunch on price alone is quite difficult. The free tier is too basic to be useful for most business, especially compared to other free versions of accounting software available, and including Crunch ads on your invoices might be quite off-putting for most.
Things do get better once you start paying to access more features, but you'll need to look at the £10.00 per month option for the more useful automations such as bank feeds and automated reconciliation. This is still cheap compared to most of the market, but even at that point you won't have the option for budget management, reporting, stock trackers, or even accountant collaboration tools outside of their own accounting service. The software simply isn't as feature-rich as other providers, but for smaller or simpler businesses this won't be an obstacle.
What level of bookkeeping knowledge will I need?
The software doesn’t do an awful lot and as a result it’s very stripped-back, so there aren’t many places to get lost. Clunky accounting jargon is kept to a minimum, and their help articles are decent.
Software Screenshots
The software looks great, and their expenses feature has dropdown menus that do a great job of making it clear which expenses you’re allowed to offset against your income, and therefore claim tax relief on. 10 out 10 for visual appeal.
The lack of features is going to be a massive downer for some users.
The user experience (UX as those in the biz call it) can be very disjointed. It would be useful to have some sort of quick create button to speed things up, such as creating documents or adding suppliers, without needing to go back to the dashboard or click through the menus.
Some of the on-screen banners recommending their partners can be quite distracting, too.
Echoing the same experience as ‘Cee W’ on the 12 Jan, we were also doxxed by Crunch accounting. They published personal addresses online, one has been online for over 6 months to our horror. We were met with complete neglect, frustration and confusion. We’ve mentioned this is illegal and they’ve turned nasty with lots of gaslighting. They’ve not resolved the situation and have attempted to double down on the gaslighting. Be deeply careful with Crunch they will doxx you put you at risk and behave like you’ve done something wrong to protect themselves. Disgusting. It’s horrendous, the doxxing abuse is… Read more »
Shocking quality of service
The quality of service has been drastically declining over the last year. I pay over £100 every month and it takes multiple emails to support to get help.
My financial year ended in November and my years end accounts have still not been completed.
Support doesn’t read the emails you send in and just answer some general text.
The bank reconcile seems to break every month too.
They raised their fee every year and the service is shockingly poor quality now
They only care about how much they can get out of you If you are after accountant that care about your account and setting you up for success, this isn’t it Crunch’s services are abysmal but if you just need the bare minimum it is somewhat decent Don’t expect your loyalty to be rewarded if you ever need extra support, but expect costs to increase yearly and their service to never improve (some issues raised 5 years ago still happening, they dont support some major business banks, the user experience is awful and you almost always need to involve support… Read more »
I am sure there are many out there who have an “okay” experience with crunch. I was tempted to join crunch, a few years back, i thought they looked progressive, everything looked new and fresh, slick website etc. At the time i had little to compare them too, as i was new to accountancy software. I chose a limited company structure for my business, and was hoping that it would be easy to use software. It is NOT! The software is basic and clunky. In fact it downright awful to use! Support from crunch, is adequate id say but lacking… Read more »
I am appalled at the fact I have been trying to leave these guys after an unimpressive one year. I still have to continue paying fees for another year in order for them to complete my accounts. I have already paid for the years accounting i require. But now I’m paying for almost 2 years and they still haven’t completed my accounts. I’m just getting question after question drip fed over a long period of time about minor issues. All issues should be raised in one email not spread out over months so that i keep paying. This is starting… Read more »