Wave Accounting Reviews

Pros

Wave is ideal for freelancers. Set up is really simple and the interface is user-friendly. I have zero background in financial matters, and with Wave that's totally fine.

The price is also right. There's no subscription or hidden fees, they just take a perfectly reasonable percentage from invoice payments. I asked a financial advisor friend of mine before signing up, and she was pleasantly surprised by the low rates, and told me to go for it. I've been using Wave for over 3 years, and I have never once been hit with a fee outside of the basic rates.

Wave also provides a host of reporting and tracking tools in this basic account. They didn't influence my decision to sign up, but they've proven to be very useful.

And finally a small but really helpful feature, especially if you're a freelancer just starting out: immediate money transfers. Once someone pays your invoice, the money is in Wave, and takes 2-3 days to transfer. For 1% more payment, you can transfer money within minutes. For the cash-strapped freelancer, that can be mana from heaven.

Cons

There are no major cons that I can think of. One issue I have is mostly my fault: When I first started using Wave I didn't know what I was doing, and I ended up creating a whole bunch of client and work type records unnecessarily. It would be nice if there were some more in-your-face tutorials, maybe some hover tips for new users. But the messiness is mainly from me leaping in before looking.

Alternatives Considered

Quickbooks Online and Zoho Expense

Reasons for Switching to Wave Accounting

It was the cheapest option, and the most user-friendly looking. I have no background in finance and didn't want complex features built for accountants - Wave has those features, but only if you want them.

Pros

Wave accounting allows you to create professional-looking invoices that can be easily and timely sent to customers. I was able to customize the invoices with our company's branding. One of the best features is the ability to set up automatic reminders for unpaid invoices. The interface is user-friendly and has a comprehensive set of features that can elevate any small business to great success.

Cons

The difference between the website and the mobile app is "night and day". The website is pretty good. The mobile app could be better. It's slow to load, and when it does it's non-responsive, most of the time I have to close it and then open it again.

Alternatives Considered

Quickbooks Online

Reasons for Switching to Wave Accounting

Great features for a free software and an excellent option for small businesses with limited budget to pay for expensive accounting software.

Pros

Cost-effective: Wave Accounting is free to use for its core features, making it a cost-effective solution for businesses with limited budgets. It eliminates the need for expensive accounting software or hiring professional accountants.User-friendly: Wave Accounting has an intuitive interface that is easy to navigate, even for users with limited accounting knowledge. It simplifies the bookkeeping process and allows users to manage their finances effectively without requiring extensive training.

Cons

Limited scalability: Wave Accounting is primarily designed for small businesses and freelancers. As your business grows and becomes more complex, you may find that Wave lacks the advanced features and customization options needed to accommodate your expanding accounting needs.Limited customer support: While Wave provides customer support, free account users may experience limited access to support options. Paid support plans are available, but they come at an additional cost. If you rely heavily on customer support, especially for complex accounting issues, you may find the support options provided by Wave insufficient.

Pros

Invoice generation and bank reconciliation was helpful.

Cons

Preparing Financial report and other report was difficult, It doesn't show month wise data. and you don't have the option to customize your reports

Pros

I enjoyed the ease of use for this software. I currently have quick books but I still use my wave account because it's easier to navigate than quick books. I like that the software is free also. As a small business owner every dollar saved is good.

Cons

I wished that the software had more option for customer service. The option to pay for service is too much for a one time call.

Alternatives Considered

Quickbooks Online

Reasons for Choosing Wave Accounting

Needed additonal feature for my expanding business needs.

Switched From

Quickbooks Online

Reasons for Switching to Wave Accounting

The free option was helpful as I started out my business

Pros

The best feature about wave accounting app is that it is a free software and its very benifitial for small owners. Simple, easy to use, Good interface and saves alot of time.

Cons

It doesn't have a good customer support and tech support team and that cause a lot of problem. Also it cant be integrated with 3rd party apps that is one big limitation.

Pros

I especially like the ease of use and flexibility even in the free version. Outstanding option even for me as I transition from working as an accountant for 30 years to launching my own business.

Cons

I have a client who likes to be invoiced and pay through PayPal. I have not figured out how to integrate that in Wave, so I create a version in both platforms as a work around.

Pros

Wave Accounting is now available for all small or individual users. All your accounting processes designed for medium-sized, private or marketers can also be used. You can take action quickly and start working simply and easily via a web browser. It offers more simplified solutions especially for fast and urgent processes.creation of professional-level visual invoices, income and expense tracking provides much simpler and easier tracking. It offers a good solution especially for developing e-commerce.

Cons

Since it is web-based, you may experience technical problems related to connection speed. However, since the local problem is completely caused by you, the problem is not reflected in the system.

Pros

The feature that I use the most often is definitely the invoicing option. Once you set-up your company information, logo, etc. then it is ready for you to use continuously. Also, I love that we can duplicate invoices, it helps save time.

Cons

I really do not have any cons with Wave accounting that's why I've been using it for over 4 years and counting now.

Alternatives Considered

Quickbooks Online

Reasons for Switching to Wave Accounting

price and value

Pros

Mobile invoice creation is the best part about Wave for me

Cons

Multiple invoices submitted together to one cluent can be tricky to update and reconcile. This is more about the client being set on their ways, but Wave still needs to track your invoices.

Pros

I like how easy it was to set-up--that process was straightforward and the interface initially was easy to understand. Unfortunately as we needed to do more after adding a full-time employee, it proved impossible to work with or use.

Cons

For payroll you have no options, and even when they recognize this, they don't provide a solution. A good example--we had an employee who had maxed out her vacation hours, but we agreed to let her take a few unpaid vacation days. There was no way for us to do this within Wave (you get paid vacation time or nothing). I chatted and even emailed with various representatives--all of which were super unhelpful, and we ended up wasting a lot of time before just being told this isn't an option. That's another huge con--there is virtually no support. The chat bot is not only unhelpful, but real agents are usually unavailable or there's a 20+ minute wait. The system is also not improving like I'd expect. I was notified today that my card declined for some reason so I followed the instructions that Wave emailed me to try to fix it, and it's like someone wrote them without looking at Wave's website because none of the instructions match. Not only is there not a change payment button but there's a Q/A at the end of the page where a user specifically asked this question, and there's no answer! I kick myself for picking this software, and we're in the process of moving to Gusto right now.

Alternatives Considered

QuickBooks Payroll and Gusto

Reasons for Switching to Wave Accounting

Price and what we thought was ease of use. Now the price has gone up to match competitors (but the features have not), so it was a mistake.

Pros

I love the simplicity. We are just a small business, so the primary purpose of using this app is to categorize all my expenses, so once tax time rolls around, I just have to send the tax lady a breakdown of my income and expenses. Once a week or so, I'll log in to check all the transactions it imported from my bank account. It auto categorizes most of them which is awesome, I just have to click the check mark button to verify it was categorized correctly. Then once tax season rolls around, I just run the income statement report and send it to the tax office. I even have created a review account for the tax lady to be able to log in and see my business finances. We are just a simple business so we probably don't use some of the more advanced features, but it does what I want and best of all, it's F-R-E-E. I do also like the payroll and invoicing options if we need that in the future, although that is unlikely for our business.

Cons

For some reason, they disabled the ability for deposits to be auto categorized. This is my most common type of bank transactions, since all credit card payments are deposited into my account a few days after they process, so I have tons of transactions I have to go manually mark as the 'Sales' category. I did talk to customer support over chat about this though, and the lady agreed this would be extremely useful so they are looking into this.

Alternatives Considered

QuickBooks Desktop Enterprise and ZipBooks

Reasons for Choosing Wave Accounting

I just tried out Zipbooks, and although I was impressed, Wave just offered more for the price of free. Zipbooks only offered like 2 reports on the free plan, and I really needed the income statement report to show my categorized expenses.

Switched From

ZipBooks

Reasons for Switching to Wave Accounting

Quickbooks because they are the de-facto standard, and because I would trust their reliablility. However, I just didn't like their price. They have the deal to start off with for the first x months, but it always doubles in price after that period. If Wave didn't exist, i'd probably have gone with quickbooks or paid for Zipbooks.

Pros

I use Wave to keep track of my personal finances, from income to spending. In that lens, Wave performs quite well, allowing you to tag transactions that are automatically imported from your bank. It also lets you generate some simple reports such as your income statement, balance sheet, and cash flow. The interface is simple to use and understand, and I was able to pick it up (coming from an accounting background) in under a few minutes, without having gone through a walkthrough. The included ability to reconcile statements is also quite handy and allows me to verify that all transactions are posted appropriately. The inclusion of receipt tracking and tagging is also quite handy!

The best part about Wave is the price! If you don’t need features such as invoicing and payroll (some SMB’s may find these handy. From a personal perspective, I did not), the accounting software is completely free.

Cons

Wave still appears to be in its infancy, although the product has been there for a while. The user interface will frequently be updated (the reconciliation flow changed 3 times since I signed up about 6 months ago), and new features will constantly be added without any notification, often shifting often things around from where you expect them to be.

The reports from Wave are also very limited, so don’t expect any customizable reports as of 08/2019. You get about 12 reports total, some or all of which may not be very relevant to you, depending on your end goal. These reports are completely canned, system generated, and you do not have the ability to create new reports. This may change in the future, but as it stands, this is the current state of affairs.

The receipt tracking feature is definitely handy to have. While Wave will OCR your receipts and tag them to a category, it will actually post an entire transaction to the ledger when you save it down. For those of us with a bank account and credit card linked to auto import transactions, you’ll get a duplicate: one from the CC, and one from the receipt. It would be nice if Wave included some intelligence to automatically match the receipt and transaction together, but for now, you need to manually merge each.

Finally, as a small point, Wave does not obtain any service assurance through SOC1 or SOC2 reports, an issue that most people wouldn’t ever care about.

Alternatives Considered

Xero

Reasons for Switching to Wave Accounting

I mostly chose Wave over Xero for the price. As I’m using this for personal finance tracking, and not a small business, I didn’t want to have to pay Xero’s rather pricy monthly subscription.

Pros

I've used Wave since 2009!!! I feel like my company grew with it. It's helped me understand all I was doing right (and wrong!) financially in my business. It helps tremendously when filing monthly sales taxes. I keep a habit of staying organized, verifying all transactions and reconciling with my bank accounts. All of this, plus categorizing everything the right way makes tax time an absolute breeze - my taxes are done in two days and I don't need to freak out about it because everything is organized ahead of time and all I do is input expenses and sales.

Cons

What I least like about Wave is that a few years ago they stopped support for free accounts. Absolutely no human support whatsoever. Disagree with that big time!!!
Sometimes also a bank connection will be interrupted and you cannot reconnect for many many months and since there is no support, you are left without any help.
I am a small business of one person and I do not need any of the paid features that Wave offers so I could be upgraded to paid support, so I am always stuck in no human support land. It doesn't feel good, especially to someone who has used this software for as long as I have.

Alternatives Considered

FreshBooks

Reasons for Choosing Wave Accounting

Absolutely hated QuickBooks. It felt overwhelming, like I needed to go to school to learn yet another piece of software. Absolutely could not get used to the awful interface and I ditched it immediately, although I paid a few hundred dollars for a desktop version that was rendered obsolete by Intuit after 3 years. Apparently, that is quite a frequent practice from Intuit regarding QuickBooks.

Switched From

QuickBooks Desktop Pro

Reasons for Switching to Wave Accounting

Interface, ease of use and pricing - FREE!

Pros

I have been using Wave since around 2015 and my books were a mess when I first began because I was doing them (not my strength) and once I heard about Wave's bookkeeping services, I couldn't believe how affordable they were. It's super easy to set up and use, run reports and know about your financials. I tried switching to QB for about 1 month and hated it, so I switched back. Lesson learned and I'm sticking around!

Cons

One thing I had to get used to was because I had my bank account connected and until the month is reconciled, when a invoice is paid I mark it paid and then the 'payment' comes in again from banking. It was easy to catch and now my Wave bookkeeper keeps all that reconciled. Thank you!

Alternatives Considered

FreshBooks and Quickbooks Online

Reasons for Switching to Wave Accounting

I chose Wave because of a family recommendation and how easy it was for me to set up an account and get things moving. The others may have changed, but I still recommend Wave to anyone who is looking for an easy & affordable way to get their business going.

Pros

Easy to use if it works but it does not work most of the time.

Cons

1) Customer service - lowest level we have ever experienced. The careless approach, lethargic service, bank connection issues and processing delays are beyond imagination in this digital age.
2) They have many exciting features at a lucrative price but the company is in a mess and nothing works.
3) No guarantee on Payroll deposit to your employee account and we have experienced that employees are not getting paid as promised. Yes - Correct. It is that bad.
4) Bank connection issues about 95% time with most of the bank.

At our CPA firm, we were recommending this software to clients. Not anymore. Stay away from this product.

Pros

Other than the fact that the software is free to use, I mostly love that it was built for Small Businesses. I Have personally made use of the software since 2013 and recommend it to every business owner that I come across. Most people think that you MUST pay for accounting software to get a good product but this is simply not the case with Wave!

Cons

It is difficult to fault this. I guess if anything, I wish it integrated with more platforms such as WooCommerce, and Zoho CRM. With the intergration I would be able to streamline my business process a little better.

Pros

Right off the bat, perhaps the biggest pro of Wave Accounting is the fact that it is 100% free. A simple plug & play app that allows users the ability to have an accounting software to keep their books in order. Also, like QuickBooks, the feature that allows users to attach source documents with the transactions is a huge plus. It is very useful in Fiji because our Tax Authority conducts random audits & failure to produce source documents results in huge fines and penalties. The home look as soon as you login is very useful too. It shows the expenses breakdown over a certain period along with other charts like your Profit & Loss as well as your cash flows. Wave Accounting is really good for small & medium business owners who have limited accounting knowledge. The software does the work for them and it is very straightforward.

Cons

Perhaps the biggest drawback for me is the difficulty in producing specific reports. I tried to produce an Accounts Payable report to see the Tax Input the business had for the 1st Quarter of 2020. However, the options provided was limited and therefore key fields were left out of selection. Although you could import data from Wave Accounting to Excel, it is very limited. Also, being in Fiji, I noticed that features like Payroll & Banking options are not available here. This was a drawback especially because Bank Reconciliation had to be manually done on an external app or software.

Alternatives Considered

QuickBooks Desktop Enterprise

Reasons for Switching to Wave Accounting

I chose Wave Accounting because it was free.

Pros

The software is FREE for everything other than PAYROLL and PAYMENT PROCESSING. If you don't use those components, there is absolutely no charge. For the most part, it is user-friendly and straightforward, and the quality of its printed invoices, customer statements and reports is top-notch. I really appreciate the ability to create recurring invoices (subscription billing) and view monthly income/expense bar charts for a 1- or 2-year period.

Cons

This is bookkeeping software that stresses simple data entry. However, it doesn't have features such as audit trails for transaction entries. With this program, it is possible to generate transactions, generate reports, and then reverse the transactions without any way of knowing that changes were made. Wave attempts to categorize your income and expenditures, but doesn't currently have the ability to remember your categorizations. But the thing I like least about this software is a BUG that causes the program to download bank transactions and incorrectly categorize them as duplicates of previously downloaded transactions if the transaction amounts match. This bug makes it difficult to find transactions when you are attempting to reconcile your transactions.

Pros

It seems like it offers the ability to import credit card and bank statements, categorize expenses, and invoice people. Those are the features I want. But...

Cons

...I haven't been able to figure out how to smoothly and accurately use the features I want. This app is making my life harder than it was when I just manually typed in all my expenses into a Microsoft Word and added them up with a calculator.

Pros

On the positive side, this software's functionality is almost up to par with other options that cost a lot of money. Wave is free and for that price what they offer is unbeatable. It is a fully featured accouting software, as it is a web app, it means multiple people can use it simultaniously and it also works great for a virtual team. I like that it is made with non-accountants in mind. For example, when entering transactions there are "Accounts" - but these are only Accounts as a nun-accountant will understand: Cash, Bank, Owners Investment etc. - everything else is called "Categories". This makes it easier for someone not too versed in finances to understand - but behind the scenes Categories are Accounts, just like they always were (e.g. Office Supply Expense Account) - small and simple changes like this make it very easy to use even for a financial analphabet. Two mobile apps compliment the accounting software, one for writing invoices on the go, the other for scanning and (auto)recording expense receipts.

Cons

On the downside, and this can be a big one, you are not able to properly close a period. This means anyone with permission to enter transactions can go and change entries from last year, or add some. This can make things really messy and I hope they add a function where an administrator can close a period such as a month, so that no more changes can be made. Further, you can add other users, but the type of users are quite limited. I wish this could be controlled on a more granular level, e.g. there is the option to add a 'viewer' who cannot edit anything. The next level is somoene who can enter all types of transactions (you can turn of access to bank entries and writing invoices) but it would be nice if there was one where I can let someone add receipts with the mobile app but not do anything else.

Pros

Wave Accounting is a great online accounting platform for small businesses. It's easy to use and offers a variety of features to help you manage your finances efficiently.One of the best things about Wave is that it's free. This means that small businesses can access a professional accounting solution without having to spend a lot of money. Additionally, Wave is accessible online, which means you can access it from anywhere, anytime, which is very convenient for small businesses who want to manage their finances on the go.Wave also offers great integration with other tools like PayPal and Stripe, making it easy to manage payments and financial transactions. Additionally, Wave offers a variety of financial reports to help you understand the financial health of your business and make informed decisions.In conclusion, Wave Accounting is a great option for small businesses looking for a reliable and affordable online accounting solution. It offers a variety of features to help you effectively manage your finances and make informed business management decisions.

Cons

Wave Accounting is popular online accounting software for small businesses and freelancers. It offers a range of features, including invoicing, accounting, expense management, and payment management, all designed to help users manage their finances efficiently.However, there are a few points that can be considered disadvantages for some users:Limited Features: Although Wave Accounting offers a number of useful features for small businesses and freelancers, it may lack some advanced features that are often required by larger businesses.Confusing UI: Some users may find the UI a bit confusing at first, as it may take some getting used to.Limited support: Wave Accounting does not offer phone support, which may be a drawback for some users who prefer to speak to a live representative.In general, Wave Accounting can be a good option for small businesses and freelancers looking for affordable and easy-to-use accounting software. However, it is important to consider these potential drawbacks when deciding whether Wave Accounting is right for your specific needs.

Pros

Wave is a great piece of accounting software that rivals Quickbooks and Xero. The biggest winner, which it obvious to anyone who has researched Wave as an accounting platform for their small business: it’s FREE! Both Quickbooks and Xero have fairly low-cost pricing models for small businesses that range all the way to fairly high-cost for larger businesses. Wave, on the other hand, is specifically tailored to the small business, and offers only features popular with those businesses. But, because of this, their base accounting software is completely free. Their only products you would be billed for would be payroll or credit card processing, both of which are priced competitively to Quickbooks/Intuit’s and Xero’s offerings as well.

Wave also offers a lot of the same features, including automatic bank and credit card feeds, customized charts of accounts, multiple businesses on one account, smart expense categorization (software learns over time), and more.

Cons

Wave does have its limitations and is more basic than Quickbooks or Xero, especially to us accountants who can see the glaring differences. However, even as an accountant and bookkeeper, I recommend Wave to a lot of my smaller clients whose biggest consideration is cost, simply because you can’t beat free. Plus, a lot of the additional features that offerings like Quickbooks or Xero feature, smaller businesses will not always utilize anyway, so Wave fits them perfectly. All-in-all, there are no large drawbacks.

Pros

Wave Accounting is a really great idea. Simple bookeeping for people that don't have "accountant-minds." It gets into a space where programs like Xero and Zoho Books are a little too complicated for non-accountants and creators.

It's got a fantastic UI.

Easy to use.

Fairly easy to setup.

Way more intuitive than competitors like Zoho Books and Xero Accounting.

Cons

Support is really slow. I get that it's a free service, and therefore you have paid support working for free customers. But support takes days to get back to you. So once you're setup, it's fine. But if you have a question or two doing setup, like I did, it takes an extraordinarily long time.

Granted, most people using this might not have to deal with multi-currency and Paypal in particular, but it's something to keep in mind.

Also, the bank connections sometimes fail. Although this is a problem with all of these services who use Plaid to get bank data.