⚡ Quick Verdict:
- Pricing: Puzzle IO starts free, then $42.50/month. Easy Month End starts at $45/mo.
- Best for: Puzzle IO for startup founders who need a general ledger. Easy Month End for a finance team running a month end close.
- Key difference: Puzzle IO records your transactions. Easy Month End tracks who reviewed and signed off on them.
- Our pick: Easy Month End, on its higher 3.8 rating and audit evidence trail. Puzzle IO wins if you still need accounting software.
These two tools get compared a lot. They should not be.
Puzzle IO is accounting software. It holds your general ledger.
Easy Month End is workflow management for the close.
One records the numbers. The other proves someone checked them.
Picking wrong costs you a migration. Let’s sort out which job you need done in this Puzzle IO vs Easy Month End article.
Overview
We reviewed documentation, pricing pages, and user reviews for both tools.
Our writers also spent hands-on time with each platform.
Those notes sit in the “What Our Team Noticed” sections below.
By the end you will know which tool fits your finances.
What is Puzzle IO?
Puzzle IO is AI powered accounting software built for startups and small businesses.
It connects to your bank accounts, cards, and other tools.
Then it sorts your transactions automatically and builds the general ledger.
Sasha Orloff and John Cwikla started the company in 2019.
They built it for non accountants who never wanted to touch a ledger.
Here is a closer look at the platform.
Puzzle IO
AI native financial management for early stage companies. It automates most bookkeeping and shows your cash runway in real time.
Puzzle IO Pricing
Four plans, and the entry tier costs nothing.
| Plan | Price | Best For |
|---|---|---|
| Accounting basics | $0/month | Pre-revenue startups under $5k monthly spending |
| Accounting plus Insights | $42.50/month | Founders who want key metrics and reporting |
| Advanced Automation | $85/month | Accrual work, prepaid expenses, fixed assets |
| Accounting plus Scale | $255/month | Funded companies with an accountant on staff |
Pricing verified September 2026.
Free trial: The free plan is open ended, not a timed trial. No card needed to start.
Money-back guarantee: None published. You can cancel a paid plan and drop back to the free tier.
📌 Note: The free tier is aimed at companies spending under $5k a month. Grow past that and you move up a plan, so budget for the jump.
⚠️ Warning: Revenue recognition and fixed assets sit on the $85 Advanced Automation plan. If accrual work is why you are here, price that tier, not the $42.50 one.
Key Benefits of Puzzle IO
Here is what makes Puzzle IO worth a look:
- Automated bookkeeping: Puzzle automates 85-95% of repetitive bookkeeping. You save time on tedious tasks and spend less time chasing your financials.
- Transaction categorization: AI sorts expenses with up to 95% accuracy and checks itself for errors. Accuracy improves as it learns your spending.
- Real time insights: Cash flow, burn rate, and MRR update as data lands. You get an accurate picture of financial health without a month end wait.
- Built-in accrual automation: Revenue recognition, prepaid expenses, and fixed assets run without side spreadsheets.
- Easy setup: Self guided onboarding means you can set up the account without a finance expert.
- Connects to other tools: Stripe, Brex, Ramp, and Gusto feed in, which cuts manual data entry.
- Ready for tax time: Income and expenses stay tracked and up to date, so tax compliance work starts from clean books.
What Our Team Noticed
⚠️ September 2026 update: Accrual agreed to acquire Puzzle’s accounting firm business, including the ledger and close products. Puzzle will keep running independently for startups and small businesses using the software directly. Worth watching if you are signing a long plan.
Puzzle IO Pros & Cons
✅ Pros
- Free plan for companies under $5k in monthly expenses
- Automates 85-95% of repetitive bookkeeping tasks
- Real time cash runway and burn rate instead of delayed reporting
- Clean, intuitive interface that non accountants can follow
- Self guided onboarding needs no finance expert
❌ Cons
- AI transaction categorization still needs a human review
- Some users report frustrating support and onboarding experiences
- Less feature depth than QuickBooks for complex companies
- No multi preparer sign offs for a formal close
What is Easy Month End?
Easy Month End is a cloud platform for the month end close process.
It does not replace your accounting software. It sits on top of it.
Your finance team gets one checklist for month end, quarter end, and year end.
Every task has an owner, a due date, and a sign off.
The pitch is simple. Your finance team deserves better than a shared Excel tracker.
This walkthrough shows the checklist in practice.
🏆 Winner: Easy Month End
Workflow management for the close. Checklists, review comments, and audit evidence in a single platform your auditors can read.
Easy Month End Pricing
Three plans. No free tier, so factor that into the comparison.
| Plan | Price | Best For |
|---|---|---|
| Small | $45/mo | A small team handling one company |
| Company | $89/mo | Growing teams with more month end tasks |
| Enterprise | Contact For pricing | Group companies and multiple entities |
Pricing verified September 2026.
Free trial: A trial is offered so you can run one full close before you pay.
Money-back guarantee: None published. Plans are monthly, so you can cancel rather than claim a refund.
📌 Note: Enterprise pricing is quote based because it covers group company management. If you run several entities, ask what the per entity cost looks like before you commit.
⚠️ Warning: This is a second subscription on top of your accounting software. At $45/mo it is cheap next to a close that slips, but it is not a replacement for a general ledger.
Key Benefits of Easy Month End
Here is what the platform actually gives you:
- One close checklist: Every month end close task lands in one easily accessible tool. No more chasing a spreadsheet nobody owns.
- Task and team management: Assign work to team members and track progress in real time. You can see what is completed and what is stuck.
- Built-in sign offs: Review tasks with ease and keep track of approvals. Preparer and reviewer signing is recorded in the workflow, not in email.
- Audit evidence storage: Upload documents and collect audit evidence securely, so every file lives against the task it supports.
- Inbuilt audit log: Changes, review comments, uploads, and sign offs are all logged. Auditors get transparency without an email hunt.
- Group company management: Handle month end for several entities without the hassle of a separate tracker each time.
- Fits existing systems: It integrates with existing workflows, so the team works the way it already does and gets running quickly.
What Our Team Noticed
Our writer set up a close checklist in Easy Month End and walked it through a full cycle. Here is what stood out:
Easy Month End Pros & Cons
✅ Pros
- One checklist covers month end, quarter end, and year end
- Built-in sign offs keep track of approvals
- Inbuilt audit log records changes, comments, and uploads
- Group company management without a separate tracker per entity
- Works alongside your existing accounting software
❌ Cons
- No general ledger, so it cannot replace accounting software
- No free plan, unlike Puzzle IO
- Enterprise pricing is quote based with no public figure
- Solo founders with no reviewer get little from sign offs
Feature Comparison
Ten areas, side by side. Some of these only one tool even attempts, and we say so plainly rather than pretending both compete.
| Feature | Puzzle IO | Easy Month End |
|---|---|---|
| Starting Price | $0/month | $45/mo |
| Free Plan | ✅ | ❌ |
| General Ledger | ✅ | ❌ |
| Automated Bookkeeping | ✅ | ❌ |
| Close Checklist | ❌ | ✅ |
| Preparer Sign Offs | ❌ | ✅ |
| Audit Evidence Storage | ❌ | ✅ |
| Real Time Insights | ✅ | ✅ |
| Multiple Entities | ❌ | ✅ |
| Best For | Startup founders | A finance team |
1. Bookkeeping and Data Entry
Puzzle IO: This is the core of the product. It pulls transactions from bank accounts and cards, then handles transaction categorization automatically. The company puts automation at 85-95% of repetitive bookkeeping.
Easy Month End: No bookkeeping engine here. It manages finance team tasks around the books instead, so a task can say “reconcile the payroll account” without touching the entry itself.
⚠️ Warning: Automating data entry cuts manual work through the month, but neither tool removes the review. Some users worry about over-reliance on AI for categorization, and that concern is fair.
2. Real Time Insights and Key Metrics
Puzzle IO: Real time insights are the selling point. Cash runway, burn rate, and MRR sit on a visual dashboard. You can see your drafted financial position daily instead of waiting weeks for the close.
Easy Month End: Its real time view is about progress, not money. You see which tasks are done, which are late, and who is holding things up.
3. Balance Sheet Reconciliation
Puzzle IO: It produces balance sheets and matches transactions as they arrive. What it does not do is track who reviewed each reconciliation and when.
Easy Month End: Balance sheet reconciliation is a named feature. All your reconciliations live in one place with supporting documents attached, which is what makes faster balance sheet reconciliations possible.
4. Month End Close Workflow
Puzzle IO: Because the ledger stays current, the first month end feels lighter. But there is no checklist, no owner per task, and no way to lock the period against backdated changes.
Easy Month End: This is the whole product. A stress less checklist captures the month end process, assigns each step, and shows the current state at a glance. It automates the tedious parts rather than the accounting.
⚠️ Warning: Modern software can automate up to 75% of routine closing tasks, and the average finance team still spends 73% of the close on manual, repetitive work. Efficiency comes from standardising the process first, not from the tool alone.
5. Revenue Recognition and Prepaid Expenses
Puzzle IO: Built-in accrual automation covers revenue recognition, prepaid expenses, and fixed assets without manual spreadsheets. For a startup with annual contracts, that removes a real chunk of work.
Easy Month End: It will not calculate an accrual for you. It will make sure someone prepared it, someone else reviewed it, and the working paper is attached.
6. Tax Compliance and Audit Evidence
Puzzle IO: Tax compliance work starts from clean books, and Puzzle keeps income and expenses tracked through the year. Come tax time your accountant gets a ledger rather than a shoebox.
Easy Month End: It is built to collect audit evidence as you go. Centralising documentation means auditors test controls from one place, not by raising a ticket per file.
7. Team Collaboration and Sign Offs
Puzzle IO: Self guided onboarding gets one founder running fast, and that is the design goal. Team collaboration is thinner, since there is no preparer and reviewer split.
Easy Month End: Team management is the point. You leave comments directly in the audit log, so a question and its answer stay attached to the task instead of dying in a chat thread.
8. Integrations and Other Tools
Puzzle IO: It connects to modern tools like Stripe, Brex, Ramp, and Gusto. Each connection removes manual data entry, so a bank transfer or card charge arrives already coded.
Easy Month End: It integrates with existing workflows and systems rather than demanding you move. You can import a checklist you already keep in Excel and get running the same week.
9. Financial Insights and Dashboards
Puzzle IO: All your financial data sits in one dashboard, which is where the clear insights come from. Founders use it to answer runway and cash flow outlook questions from investors without opening a spreadsheet.
Easy Month End: Its reporting covers control and tracking for auditors. The financial insights come from your accounting software, not from here.
10. Pricing & Cost
Here are both plan sets next to each other.
| Tier | Puzzle IO | Easy Month End |
|---|---|---|
| Free | Accounting basics: $0/month | ❌ |
| Entry | Accounting plus Insights: $42.50/month | Small: $45/mo |
| Mid | Advanced Automation: $85/month | Company: $89/mo |
| Top | Accounting plus Scale: $255/month | Enterprise: Contact For pricing |
Puzzle IO: The free plan is the real advantage for an early stage company. Note that the price ladder is steep, and the $255 Scale tier costs more than both entry plans combined.
Easy Month End: Pricing is flatter and easier to plan. The entry and mid tiers land within a few dollars of Puzzle’s, so cost will not decide this for you.
💡 Pro Tip: Both figures come from each vendor’s published plans. Puzzle IO quotes per month and Easy Month End quotes per mo. Neither publishes an annual discount, so compare monthly.
Different Scenarios
| If You Need… | Choose | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Accounting software itself | Puzzle IO | It holds the general ledger |
| To spend nothing yet | Puzzle IO | Free plan under $5k spending |
| Audit evidence and sign offs | Easy Month End | Inbuilt audit log |
| A smoother month end close | Easy Month End | Owned tasks, tracked progress |
| Multiple entities | Easy Month End | Group company management |
| Runway and burn rate daily | Puzzle IO | Live dashboard, no wait |
💰 Your Budget
If you have no accounting software yet, Puzzle IO costs nothing to start. If you already pay for one, Easy Month End is the smaller addition at $45/mo.
🔌 Your Tech Stack
Running Stripe, Brex, Ramp, and Gusto pushes you toward Puzzle. Running QuickBooks or Xero and refusing to migrate pushes you toward the checklist layer instead.
👥 Your Team Size
A solo founder gets little from sign offs, because there is nobody to review the work. Two or more people and the ability to split preparer and reviewer starts to matter.
🎓 Your Experience Level
Puzzle assumes you are not an accountant and hides the mechanics. Easy Month End assumes you know what a reconciliation is and only asks who did it.
🔍 Your Auditors and Investors
Ad hoc requests for manual confirmations and working papers get old fast. A logged trail cuts the back and forth, and the delays with it.
🛟 Support Options
Both run on email and in-app support, not phone lines. A few Puzzle users report frustrating onboarding and service experiences, so test that first.
Switching Guide
Already on one of these? Here is what changes.
🔄 Switching from Puzzle IO to Easy Month End?
✅ What you’ll gain:
- A checklist that makes each month end repeatable
- Sign offs and an audit log auditors can read
- Group company management across entities
❌ What you’ll lose:
- Your general ledger and automated bookkeeping
- Live cash runway and burn rate reporting
- The free plan
📋 How to switch:
- Keep Puzzle running, because you still need accounting software
- Create the Easy Month End account and import your existing checklist
- Assign owners, then run one close before you drop the old tracker
🔄 Switching from Easy Month End to Puzzle IO?
✅ What you’ll gain:
- An AI native ledger that handles the bookkeeping
- Financial insights that stay up to date daily
- Accrual automation for prepaid expenses and fixed assets
❌ What you’ll lose:
- Preparer and reviewer sign offs
- Stored audit evidence and review comments
- Multi entity task tracking
📋 How to switch:
- Export your close documentation before you cancel
- Open a Puzzle account and connect your bank accounts
- Reconcile one full month in parallel to ensure the numbers agree
What Our Review Didn’t Cover
We looked at both tools from the view of early stage companies and small finance teams. We did not test a group with expanded international entities, or put either through a formal audit. Pricing and features reflect September 2026. If you manage clients as an accounting service provider, your priorities will differ.
Final Verdict
| Category | Winner |
|---|---|
| 💰 Pricing | Puzzle IO |
| 📒 Bookkeeping and General Ledger | Puzzle IO |
| ⚡ Real Time Insights | Puzzle IO |
| ✅ Month End Close Workflow | Easy Month End |
| 🔍 Audit Evidence and Sign Offs | Easy Month End |
| 👥 Team Collaboration | Easy Month End |
| 🏢 Multiple Entities | Easy Month End |
| 🏆 Overall Winner | Easy Month End |
🏆 WINNER: EASY MONTH END
Easy Month End wins 4 out of 7 categories.
Best for: A finance team with two or more people, companies facing auditors, and anyone running several entities.
💡 How we called it: Easy Month End carries the higher rating, 3.8 against 3.5, and wins the categories that decide whether a close lands on time. Puzzle IO is not worse. It is different, and plenty of teams pay for both.
Our final thoughts come down to a single question. What is broken right now?
If the books themselves are the problem, you need accounting software, and Puzzle IO is a strong pick for founders who chose Puzzle IO to escape spreadsheets. It gives an accurate picture of the money without a finance expert on payroll.
If the books are fine but the close drags, no ledger fixes that. You need workflow management, and that is where Easy Month End earns its place. It will not make reconciliations a breeze, but it makes them trackable. That is an easier life, and what a more efficient finance team runs on.
The honest answer for a growing company is often both. Puzzle keeps the ledger current so you can focus on the future. Easy Month End proves the work was reviewed. Teams that scale their company quickly add the second tool within a year.
More of Puzzle IO Compared
How Puzzle IO holds up against other accounting tools:
Puzzle IO wins on: A cleaner interface for non accountants, faster onboarding with no bookkeeper, live burn rate instead of delayed reporting
QuickBooks wins on: Feature depth for complex companies, near universal acceptance among accountants, a far larger pool of trained bookkeepers
Puzzle IO wins on: Startup metrics like MRR and runway out of the box, accrual automation without add-ons, a genuinely free entry tier
Xero wins on: Multi currency handling, a deep app marketplace, established payroll and inventory support
Puzzle IO wins on: Accrual accounting rather than cash basics, AI categorization at scale, metrics investors ask about
Wave wins on: Free invoicing for freelancers, simpler needs served without a paid tier, lower ceiling but lower learning curve
Puzzle IO wins on: Fixed assets and revenue recognition, funded startup reporting, integrations with Brex and Ramp
FreshBooks wins on: Time tracking for billable work, client facing invoicing, a service business workflow
More of Easy Month End Compared
How Easy Month End compares to alternatives:
Easy Month End vs NetSuite
Easy Month End wins on: A price a small team can approve, setup measured in days not quarters, no consultant required to change a checklist
NetSuite wins on: A full ERP under the close, consolidation across large group structures, depth for public company reporting
Easy Month End wins on: Purpose built close tracking rather than a module, review comments tied to each task, a lighter tool your team adopts willingly
Sage wins on: Being the ledger as well as the process, long standing accountant familiarity, industry specific reporting
Easy Month End vs Zoho Books
Easy Month End wins on: Preparer and reviewer sign offs, stored audit evidence per task, multi entity close visibility
Zoho Books wins on: Full accounting at a low price, a wide suite of connected business apps, invoicing and banking in one place
Easy Month End wins on: Covering the whole close, not just documents, sign off evidence auditors accept, task ownership across the team
Dext wins on: Receipt and invoice capture, supplier document extraction, feeding data into the ledger automatically
Frequently Asked Questions
⚠️ Name clash: Puzzle IO the accounting platform is unrelated to browser games on .io domains, to escape room companies, or to crypto puzzles. This page covers the accounting software only.
Who is the CEO of Puzzle io?
Sasha Orloff is the CEO and co founder of Puzzle. He started the company in 2019 with John Cwikla. In September 2026, Accrual agreed to acquire Puzzle’s accounting firm business.
What is puzzle software?
Puzzle IO is AI powered accounting software for startups. It runs a general ledger, automates bookkeeping, and reports cash runway and burn rate as transactions arrive.
How to do a month end?
Reconcile bank accounts, post accruals, review balance sheets, then lock the period. Locking prevents backdated changes after you finalise. A checklist tool records who completed and reviewed each step.
What is balance sheet reconciliation?
It matches every balance sheet account to supporting evidence. You confirm the ledger figure agrees with the bank statement, schedule, or invoice behind it, then attach that proof.
Is month end stressful?
Often. Manual processes make it error prone, and finance teams lose most of the close period to repetitive tasks. Weekly reconciliations and owned checklists reduce that stress.
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