Wave is one of the best business software available today. Wave money review is comprehensive, full of pros and cons.
The Wave Business Accounting Software was developed by Accountants and extends functionality. The software allows you to produce professional invoices and a wide range of reports. Overall Rating: 4.1 Stars (out of 5)
Online accounting software that provides features including invoicing, billing, payment tracking, payroll management, finance management, credit card processing, and receipt scanning. Wave Accounting is designed to help businesses streamline bookkeeping processes. With Wave’s bank reconciliation tools, businesses can manage all bank account and credit card information in real-time to improve bookkeeping efficiency and accuracy. Businesses can also generate reports that include various data such as sales tax, balance sheet, cash flow, profit/loss, plus more. Wave’s dashboard includes an invoicing tool that collects invoice payments. A small business owner can choose customizable invoicing templates based on unique business needs. Invoices can be sent via email and the software’s credit card processing feature allows users to collect payments online. Recurring invoices and automatic payment features are available for regular customers.
What is Wave Accounting?
Wave Accounting, part of Wave’s suite of financial products, is a web-based accounting platform designed to help small businesses manage income, expenses, payments, and invoices.
How do you use Wave Accounting?
Wave Accounting requires no downloads and is accessible from web-connected devices. Data can be imported from other apps, such as Quickbooks. From an online interface, users can access visual dashboards, reporting, invoicing tools, and more.
Who uses Wave Accounting?
Wave Accounting is used by small business owners, freelancers, accountants, bookkeepers, and tax preparers.
How much does Wave Accounting cost?
Wave Accounting is free. Upgraded plans with more features are available for other Wave products.
Does Wave Accounting have an app?
Yes, the Wave Invoicing app (for iOS and Android) provides on-the-go access to invoices.
PROS
- Free (payments and payroll incur fees)
- Smart selection of features for very small businesses
- Excellent invoice and transaction management
- Great dashboard
- Multicurrency support
CONS
- Simple record templates
- Invoice customization could be stronger
- No dedicated time-tracking features
- No comprehensive mobile app
WAVE SPECS
| Double Entry | Yes |
| All Major A/R, A/P Forms | No |
| Mobile Access | Yes |
Wave is a double-entry accounting website with a price tag that appeals to freelancers and independent contractors, though some very small businesses with employees could use it, too. It’s free, unless you sign up for payroll or customer payments. Since we last reviewed Wave, the service has added new tools and enhanced existing ones, such as integration with H&R Block for tax filing (H&R Block acquired Wave in July 2019), an improved transactions page, a new Activity tab in the expanded customer profiles, and the ability to attach receipts to transactions.
While Wave remains a fine accounting service for small businesses, our current Editors’ Choice winners are FreshBooks and Intuit QuickBooks Online because they offer the best blend of features, flexibility, and usability.
Great Setup Tools
When you sign up for a Wave account, you first encounter the site’s onboarding process. You provide your name, business name, and industry, then you choose which direction to go first in the setup process: invoicing, accounting, or payroll. I chose accounting to start. The next step in this multiscreen wizard asks several questions about your business. You supply your answers by selecting from drop-down lists and then move on to options that include connecting your bank, managing transactions, and defining sales tax. If you choose a step that requires additional prep work, you’re directed there.
You can also set up Wave by visiting the website’s toolbar and Settings menu, but you’re less likely to miss something important if you use the dedicated setup feature. The Settings menu is always available, so you can add and edit information here as you go along. By browsing through Wave’s settings before you begin, however, you can learn more about the site’s capabilities, especially if you didn’t go through the whole setup process.
Connecting to your financial accounts is an especially important task since Wave is built on this exchange of data. The site does allow manual entry of transactions, but it’s nearly impossible to run your business this way because you can’t see when deposits and withdrawals have cleared until you get your monthly statement. You can download both business and personal transactions. There are categories labeled Personal Expense or Withdrawal and Deposit from Personal, so you can separate these transactions for bookkeeping purposes. The site refreshes your data every time you log in.
Wave offers multiple levels of user access permissions. Other settings appear in the menu to the left.
User Management is the first selection in the Settings menu. Wave has exceptional multilevel user access options for a free site. You can invite other users to access Wave and assign them to one of several roles: Admin, Editor, Payroll Manager, Viewer, or Black Advisors Tax Pro. Other settings options include Invoice Customization, Dates & Currency, and Sales Taxes.
Who is Wave for?
If you’re a freelancer wondering why an accounting software hasn’t been created just for you, you can stop looking now.
Ideal for micro-businesses or freelancers who work independently, Wave accounting features are completely free, so you’ll only have to pay if you choose to accept payments online using Wave Payments or sign up for Wave Payroll.
If you’re self-employed, you probably won’t need Wave Payroll, but Wave Payments can help you get paid a lot faster, since it allows your customers to pay you directly from the invoice that you email them. Wave Payments also accepts all major credit cards.
But a word of caution: If your business is growing, or you have plans to add employees, you’d be better off starting with a product such as QuickBooks Online, which can grow along with your business and offers better payroll functionality.
Wave’s features
Wave offers a ton of features, all designed with small business owners in mind. These features include the addition of Wave Plus, a service provided by Wave that will do your monthly small business bookkeeping, provide tax services, or assign a personal coach to you.
While the idea is good, the pricing seems out of line for their core audience. I don’t know of one freelancer who has budgeted $149 a month for bookkeeping services.
The other downside to Wave is their payroll service. Full-service payroll is only available in eight states: California, Florida, Illinois, New York, North Carolina, Texas, Virginia, and Washington, meaning that if you utilize payroll services in any of the other 42 states, you’ll be responsible for making all payroll and tax payments and filing all the required tax forms with the appropriate agencies.
However, most people already use a payroll software so that they don’t have to worry about filing reports and making payments and deposits, so this may not be an issue for you.
This QuickBooks alternative currently integrates with apps such as Etsy, Shopify, and PayPal, while offering additional integrations through Zapier, including payment, appointment scheduling, CRM, and e-commerce apps.
Wave’s accounting functions are completely free and contain a lot of features, including:
- Sales
- Purchases
- Accounting
- Banking
- Reports
Sales
The Sales feature allows you to perform a variety of functions, including preparing an estimate for a customer. If the customer accepts the estimate, it can be easily converted to an invoice.
Wave invoice creation screen allows you to select colors and add a logo. Source: Wave software.
Wave includes custom invoice creation, (shown above) so you can add your business logo and accent colors to any invoice. There are also a variety of invoice templates you can choose from when creating an invoice, and you can easily add your invoice preferences during setup, eliminating the need to pick an invoice template each time you invoice.
There is also an option to add notes to any invoice. The recurring invoice option can be a real time-saver, since it allows you to automatically charge your customer’s credit card each month, eliminating the need to wait for payment. A new feature, currently in beta testing, will allow you to accept payments for products directly from your website, making Wave a good option for online sellers.
You can also sign up for Wave Payments to get paid from an invoice. Unfortunately, Wave is not geared towards accepting a check as payment, so there are some extra steps involved when recording a payment that is not made by credit card.
You can manage customers in Wave, but there is limited opportunity to add additional information such as credit limits or appropriate tax rates. Wave has also stated that customer statements will soon be added to a future Wave release, which will allow you to automatically remind your customers when their payment is late.
Finally, you can add a product or a service to Wave, but there really isn’t a way to manage inventory, making Wave a much better option if you provide services. If you’re tracking sales tax, you’ll have to enter each appropriate rate in the Sales Tax screen in order to apply it to an invoice.
Because Wave is primarily designed for single users who typically accept payments by credit card, the process to record a payment received by check seems to be unnecessarily complicated, so if you’re interested in using Wave, you should probably encourage your customers to pay by credit card.
Purchases
You can easily add a vendor bill to Wave and choose the currency that you wish to pay it in. Wave also automatically processes uploaded receipts to Purchases, so you can snap a photo of your lunch receipt and upload it to be properly expensed. It’s simple to add a vendor in Wave, but the application only tracks basic information for each vendor entered.
The Add a Product or Service option (shown below) is where you would enter any products or services.
Wave lets you choose whether the product or service is purchased to be sold, or if it should be added to a bill. Source: Wave software.
Accounting
You can connect your bank account to Wave, which will automatically import and match your banking transactions with your recorded income and expenses. There is also an option to manually upload a bank statement into the application or add manual transactions, which is a nice feature if you’re not comfortable connecting your bank or credit card information.
A reconciliation feature is also included in Wave, with a brief tutorial provided. Your chart of accounts is also easily accessible, so you can add a new account, change the name of any account, or edit the default chart of accounts.
Banking
The banking feature lets you manage all of your connected accounts, add a new account, or verify your identity to increase payment time, which is done using Wave Payments. Wave has also added an insurance option, which allows you to obtain a quote for business insurance through Next Insurance. While this is a nice idea, it seems like the insurance option would be more at home under Integrations or Resources.
Conclusion
This article will give you an overview of wave money review and wave accounting. It can help you save business time and money.