Getting started
Bookkeeping
Every startup needs accounting to better understand the financial health of your company and to do your corporate taxes.
- Always plan ahead
- Don’t wait until tax season to close your books
📺 Watch session with Puzzle
How to succeed with Puzzle
📖 Read Summary
- Puzzle is easy-to-use accounting software built specifically for startups. Being founders ourselves, we understand the needs of early-stage companies, so we designed a generative accounting system from scratch, to provide founders with up-to-date financial insights through automated updates on key metrics like cash flow, burn rate, runway, ARR/MRR, spending and revenue insights, and cash monitoring.
- Real-time visibility into your finances allows you to make better decisions and gain a competitive advantage. Whether pursuing investors, hiring employees, or managing spending - accurate, regularly updated books are critical.
- The COVID pandemic led to a surge in company formation and funding. But now the environment is shifting and capital is harder to come by. In this climate, founders who don't have a handle on their financial position will struggle to raise on favorable terms.
- Successful founders make financial management a priority from day one. Puzzle delivers easy, automated accounting tailored to the startup life cycle. Sign up in minutes and stay focused on building your business, not bookkeeping. With Puzzle, you can turn accounting into a strategic asset that helps drive growth.
Founder FAQs
Puzzle is built for founders by founders to help you build a better startup. We help you scale by:
- Simultaneously generating cash accounting (what you want) and accrual accounting (what accountants want) in a single solution
- Key financial insights such as cash, burn, runway, ARR/MRR, spending and revenue insights, and cash monitoring
- More time growing your business with confidence, less time preparing your financials
- Intuitive onboarding with on-demand accountants ready anytime
Puzzle provides accurate real-time data and has a robust network of experienced tax experts.
If you are a Delaware C-Corp, the most important tax deadlines are:
- Jan 31: 1099s
- March 1: Delaware Franchise Tax
- April 15: Federal and State Tax Filings
Get multiple, real-time views of your business. Cash, accrual accounting, metrics like burn, runway, ARR, MRR, spend analysis by new vs recurring and top vendors, revenue analysis by product, customer and accounting views, variance analysis and much, much more.
Feel confident as you go into fundraising by knowing your numbers and understanding the key drivers of your business. We give you real-time access to the financial statements and metrics needed for due diligence, with a network of on-demand experts available anytime.
Other systems provide raw transaction data but do not generate financial statements needed for tax compliance, reporting, and decision-making. Puzzle ingests data from these systems into our general ledger to create those reports needed for taxes, compliance, and fundraising.
Yes, Puzzle provides a few options to match your needs:
- Self-service setup - You can set up your accounting and finances on your own through our software. Puzzle automatically connects to your business systems to pull in data. The setup takes just minutes, after which you can access real-time financial reporting. There is a guided solution to do most of the work yourself to keep costs low until tax time.
- Get help when you need it - Get set up yourself, and if you need to, you can hire a bookkeeper, tax preparer, or finance expert through our network to assist you. We help match you to the right expert based on your budget and needs.
Every company needs to file taxes, which involves software (to generate financial reports) and services (humans that use the software). Two analogies might be the outcome of a website requiring software like Figma and a human designer. Or driving somewhere requires a car and a driver.
The end result of accurate, compliant financial statements is the same, it mostly depends on how you get there. If you use legacy, manual software like QuickBooks (used by Pilot), you get slow, error-prone financials. If you use automation-focused software like Puzzle, you get real-time, more accurate financials.
The difference is speed and cost.
If you don’t yet have a bookkeeper, we are happy to connect you to one of our experts. If you have a bookkeeper, please connect us so we can help train them and make sure they have the support they need to deliver a great experience to you.
📚 Resources
| Name | Exclusive Perk | Redeem Perk | On Deck Partner |
|---|---|---|---|
Get 6-month of their Startup plan FREE | |||
$1 Delaware Franchise Tax |
← Previous
