The fact that it is free makes it a great option for those just starting out or those who want to keep their overhead as low as possible. Wave is a free invoicing and accounting software that helps small businesses keep track of their bookkeeping needs from one location.

Wave offers its payroll service — which includes annual tax forms and employee direct deposit — for users based in the U.S. and Canada. For most U.S. states and Canada, Wave charges $20 per month for its payroll service plus $4 per month for each employee or independent contractor. It’s the perfect all-in-one bookkeeping tool that will work wonders for your creative businesses! Premium packages are available for additional chat/phone support ranging in price from a monthly fee of $9 or $19. Alternatively, you can pay 3 months at a time at a rate of $49. Wave doesn’t skimp on basic features for small businesses, but it also has some limitations, considering it’s free software.

How Easy Is Wave Accounting To Use And Deploy?

While this section comes at an additional cost, it’s probably worth the investment to have all company functions recorded within one software tool. It’s also a plus given that not all accounting software tools offer this functionality. Wave is a freemium accounting tool designed for freelancers and small businesses. With features like invoicing, accounting reports, payroll, and bookkeeping services, Wave is a great option for service-based businesses with standard accounting needs. Many free plans are very limited, designed to upsell you on paid features. Wave Accounting, however, offers every single accounting feature for free. Not only are the features free, but they aren’t limited either.

• The “focus on customers” section contains “income by customer” and “aged receivables” reports, both of which help you track the relationship between your money and your customers.
• However, Wave’s features are easy to use and get the job done.
• This means that Wave can’t calculate your cost of goods sold, which is important if you deal with inventory.
• One thing to note is that third party data entry isn’t automated, so there is a time investment involved to enter the data.
• It is annoying, we admit, but if this is the price of using the software for free, we would take it.

It incorporates visuals for tracking cash flow, profit and loss, payable and owing, net income, and expenses. S not the perfect pick for business owners who want to add accounting features as they grow. And its email-only customer support means users are largely on their own if they encounter bookkeeping an immediate problem. However, these features might not be enough for bigger businesses that need more than a simple money manager. If you need more powerful features — such as repeating bills, time tracking or more reporting templates — it’s worth a shot to look at Wave’s paid competitors.

Also, be prepared that the software is a tad slow even when no other programs are opened. Wave’s accounting, invoicing, and receipt scanning features are completely free to use. However, Wave charges fees similar to paid software for credit card payments and payroll. Based on our extensive case study, presented later in this review, Wave performs well in tracking sales tax, reporting, banking, and invoicing. From these results, we conclude that Wave is an ideal choice for small service-based businesses that struggle with chasing payments and monitoring expenses. With Wave, you can manage employee payroll with features like tax form generation, time sheets, and more.

Accounting

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. Wave helps small businesses and freelancers manage double-entry accounting. It features a simple UI and applications for payroll and online payments and includes 2 months of free chat support. Wave Payments is an add-on payment processing service that allows your business to accept credit cards, debit cards, and ACH payments.

There are different business reports you can view to make informed decisions about your business. They include income statements, balance sheets, cash flows, and sales tax reports. This makes Wave unable to handle taxes in countries like Australia where prices must be quoted inclusive of all taxes such as GST. There is no way to set an invoice total and have Wave calculate the tax portion as a percentage. This is not a problem for businesses that deal in wholesale transactions that are not subject to sales tax, but is problematic for retail businesses whose pricing includes GST. A credit card processing tool, Payments by Wave, built initially on integration with Stripe credit card processing. However Wave does not report merchant fees correctly for countries where Stripe charges a tax such as GST.

Odoo Accounting

S billing, payment acceptance, and invoicing features all work together to ensure you get paid on time. In other words, Wave has many of the invoicing perks you get with invoice-heavy software like FreshBooks, but at no cost.

Unfortunately, it’s notably difficult to get in touch with Wave’s customer support team. There is a live chat widget with a chatbot within each account, which can be helpful for basic questions.

PRODUCT FEATURES

This may influence which products we review and write about , but it in no way affects our recommendations or advice, which are grounded in thousands of hours of research. Our partners cannot pay us to guarantee favorable reviews of their products or services. You can rest assured that we will work closely with you to create actionable business plans and accurate financial reporting. We offer our toolkit of financial intelligence that will be your greatest asset for business growth. Despite some of Waves great features, QBO still has a wider range of tools for diverse and changing companies. Wave does not offer the same reporting capabilities that help companies evaluate their performance. That’s what everyone has been wondering since Wave broke onto the cloud accounting scene in 2010.

Income and expense tracking is unlimited, and you can even manage multiple businesses in your Wave account. Small product-based businesses usually spend money and time building up an inventory of items to sell to their customers.

Can I Use The Software While Away From My Office?

Ability to create and send invoices, monitor payment statuses and receive notifications. Although accounting and invoicing are separated into two different product sections on the Wave website , they don’t require separate accounts. These solutions are integrated within your dashboard and you’ll access them both through your single Wave login. You can invite your accountant to Wave via email and designate their user role. Wave recommends “editor” permissions for bookkeepers and accountants, which gives full access to purchases, accounting and reports, as well as limited access to sales. We believe everyone should be able to make financial decisions with confidence. Put your wallet away, you won’t need to enter in any credit card ever, unless you want to use our payroll service.

• Although accounting and invoicing are separated into two different product sections on the Wave website , they don’t require separate accounts.
• You can also add team members to your account with specific user roles and levels of access to sensitive information.
• 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.
• It includes apps that can help with all kinds of business, from services to those with a large inventory or sole traders to those with a large staff.
• It’s designed for people who are not familiar with managing their finances, so if you’re looking for something more advanced, consider taking a look at its paid competitors.

Users new to online accounting will appreciate the ease of navigation. All the basic features are there to perform daily financial tasks, plus a few features unique to Wave. Initially, there are many similarities between the two applications. At first glance, it really does seem that Wave offers the same accounting features as QBO.

Stripe Billing works on top of Stripe Payments, allowing businesses to accept debit cards, credit cards and mobile wallet payments worldwide. Other features include multiple payment methods such as 3D secure authentication, ACH and instant payouts, all for an additional cost. The software also supports currency conversion and international bank cards. It’s helped me understand all I was doing right (and wrong!) financially in my business. I keep a habit of staying organized, verifying all transactions and reconciling with my bank accounts.

Now, Wave accounting will be generating automatic payments by sending a credit card pre-authorization request to the customer. You can choose from either send professional invoices, manage your accounting, run effortless payroll, or are not sure yet. 302 Website is a company that provides financial services and software for small businesses. Wave is headquartered in the Leslieville neighborhood in Toronto, Canada. In this section you can quickly and simply create invoices, even recurring ones, and for reasons unknown, this is the place where your estimates and statements are born as well.

In addition to its help center, Wave also has a community forum where you can ask questions to fellow users. Before you contact Wave’s support team, it’s a good idea to check the community for similar issues if you want to get to your solution faster. When you open Wave’s “reports” page from the navigation bar, you’ll find the 12 report templates divided into five sections. Each section and template has a brief explanation about what it is and what it can do for your business.

As of November 30, 2020, Wave Accounting software, including email support, had its availability limited to business customers in the U.S. and Canada. On June 30, 2021, Wave Accounting discontinued its Wave Stripe connection for users outside the U.S. and Canada. These users are no longer able to send invoices using Stripe-enabled payment services.

Wave Accounting

At $80 per month, QuickBooks Online Plus dominates the free software, especially in banking and inventory. If you want to print checks or hold inventory for resale to customers, QuickBooks Online is worth the money. FreshBooks offers you time tracking, expense tracking, payments, reports and so much more. If you are still using Wave plus a second tool to handle all your accounting, it might be time for an upgrade. While the invoicing platform is not easy to integrate with popular third-party payroll apps like Gusto or OnPay, Wave does have its own payroll software. Small businesses that plan to hire employees at some point might need to change accounting software systems in the future or upgrade to Wave Payroll.

However, there are a few features the software is still lacking. There’s no project management and limited time tracking, which rules the software out for a lot of businesses. Hopefully, with Wave’s track record for updates, it will add these features soon and improve customer service response times.

Assisted Bookkeeping Options

For the other 42 unfortunate states, you’re on your own, though Wave does promise to guide you through the process. But as I stated earlier, if you’re paying folks, you should be probably be using another accounting application anyway. 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.