Wave Accounting Review

Summary of our opinion

Don’t have time to read it all? Here’s a summary of our opinion on Wave Accounting, to assist you in understanding whether Wave Accounting is a good choice for you or not. 

For those who don’t have time to read our entire Wave Accounting review, here’s a summary of our test:

• Wave Accounting is accounting software very suitable for freelancers, SMB’s and entrepreneurs
• Business owners should be aware that it does not have any project management tools and only tracks time to a limited extent, both of which may prevent some firms from using it, however for a free tool, it is powerful
• Great for Etsy shop owners and other eCommerce businesses using Wix or Squarespace

In summary, Wave Accounting makes it quick and easy to to process bills and accounting through its online accounting tools and applications. For a full in-depth review, the following is our opinion of Wave Accounting in detail.

Wave Accounting pricing

The usage of Wave program is free and there’s zero concealed costs or free trials offered. There are also no restrictions placed on the users’ access to the program. Users of the Wave program get access to all of the free services that are offered for company accounting and invoicing.

Additional services, such as bookkeeping help, tax preparation assistance, and payroll and accounting consulting, may be purchased for a variety of costs, ranging from a single-time charge to recurring monthly or yearly payments.

Wave makes money from its optional money management products. Depending on your business needs, you can choose to pay for online payment processing, payroll, and 1:1 advisors. 

This allows their core software, namely invoicing, accounting, and business banking (currently only available to sole proprietors in the US) to always be free.

Wave is one of the finest free alternatives available since, unlike other free plans, it does not restrict you to a specific amount of invoices, clients, or transactions. This makes Wave among the best free-to-use accounting software options available.

The firm keeps the program fully free by using the cash that it earns from providing services like as credit card transactions, Wave payroll, and accounting. At any moment, you may also terminate your account.

The Wave accounting software is completely free and contains the following features:

• Invoicing without limits
• Contact management
• Monitoring of expenditures
• Payables to creditors
• Limitless estimates
• Standard stocktaking
• Reporting

Additional Wave Add-Ons and Pricing

Plan	Price
Wave Payroll	$20 to $35 per month, plus $6 for each worker or independent worker
Wave Payments	2.9 percent – 3.4 percent and 30 cents for every transaction
Wave Tax Service	Starting from $899 per annum
Wave Bookkeeping	$149+/month
Wave Accounting & Payroll Coaching	$229

How to access Wave Accounting

Wave Accounting is a 100% online solution so you won’t have to download and install anything on your computer. 

Wave supports multiple deployment options, including: Cloud, Software as a Service (SaaS) and web-based. 

In addition to the web version, Wave Invoicing offers a mobile app, on iOS and Android. These applications are highly rated by users (4.5/5 for iOS and 4.2/5 for Android).

Wave Invoicing is free, but works especially well with their paid feature—Payments by Wave (customers click “pay now” on your invoice and you can accept faster online payments).

Required configuration

In order to access Wave Accounting, all you need to do is use your internet browser. Users just need to ensure they have an up-to-date browser and a decent connection and Wave Accounting should work just fine. 

Who is Wave Accounting for?

Wave is a free, all-inclusive internet accounting system that might be useful for entrepreneurs operating little businesses.

Users that need nothing more than basic bookkeeping and invoicing functions will find Wave Accounting to be an excellent choice among company accounting software.

Small enterprises, established companies, and independent contractors alike will find Wave’s pricing structure for Wave Money, Wave Advisor, Wave Payroll and Wave Payments to be competitive.

Ease of use

On the whole, Wave Accounting is a simple and straightforward program. Invoices can be made quickly and easily, even by those without accounting experience, thanks to the intuitive design.

The software’s layout and interface are both straightforward and easy to use. You may also find answers to frequently asked questions and other useful information in the Wave Help Center.

Features

For a 100% online solution, Wave Accounting offers a very wide range of features. This topic covers the main features, of which we will review the main elements.

Dashboard

The main page of Wave Accounting has a dashboard that provides an overview of your numerous actions.

On the Wave website, you will get an overview of your actions, and despite the fact that bookkeeping and invoicing are divided into two distinct product categories, you do not need separate accounts for any one of them.

These solutions are included into your dashboard, and you’ll be able to log in to Wave and access any of them using the same credentials.

Wave Accounting

The product provides limitless revenue and expense tracking, double entry accounting and tailored sales taxations.

Users can also export accounting reports and financial statements as well as making limitless amounts of links to banks and credit card companies.

The accounting capabilities of Wave are offered at no cost to users and include a wide variety of functionality, including the following:

• Sales functions
• Transactions
• Accounting
• Bank functions
• Reporting functions

Wave Invoicing

In addition to being free, this offers an unlimited number of invoices and send out payment reminders on its own.

Once an estimate has been authorized, users have the opportunity to convert it into an invoice and may also collect online bank and credit card transactions inside the invoices itself utilizing Wave Payments (charges are applicable).

Wave Plus (paid)

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.

The pricing at $149 a month for bookkeeping services is somewhat prohibitive for many users however. 

Wave Payments

In addition, if you want to receive paid from an invoice, you may join up for Wave Payments. Wave is not designed to take checks as a form of payment; hence, additional procedures are required if a payment is made using a method other than a credit card.

Wave gives you the ability to manage your clients, but it does not provide you many options for adding extra details including credit limitations or the proper tax rates.

Additionally, Wave has announced that client statements would be included in a future Wave version, allowing you to immediately notify consumers when their fees are overdue. 

Purchasing

Wave makes it simple to add a bill from a vendor and choose the monetary unit that you’d want to use to settle the transaction. You may also take a picture of your receipt for lunch and post it to Wave so that it can be correctly expensed. Wave will automatically process any receipts that are uploaded to the Purchases section.

Wave makes it easy to add a new vendor; nevertheless, the program only keeps track of the most important knowledge details for each vendor that is added. You may insert any items or services that you provide by selecting the option to “Add a Product or Service.”

Reporting

Wave offers 12 reports, each of which may be converted to an Excel sheet but have only a limited amount of room for user modification. You also have the option of saving any document in a PDF format.

In addition, there are financials, a report on sales tax, a report on customers, a report on aged receivables, a report on aged payables, and a report on account balances that may be accessed.

Billing

Wave also offers time-saving automations, such as recurring invoices, automatic billing, and receipt scanning.

Sales tax management

Wave’s ability to file taxes is without a doubt one of the app’s most useful features. You can easily file your taxes using Wave since it interacts directly with H&R Block.

You will however be required to pay an extra cost in order to complete the filing of your taxes using this connection, which includes the automated import of data from Wave directly into H&R Block.

Accountant integrations

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.

Wave also offers personalized bookkeeping, accounting, payroll and tax assistance through its Wave Advisors service.

Tax payments

Customers in eight different states are able to take use of Wave’s optional Payroll app, which offers integrated payroll services in New York, California, Illinois, North Carolina, Texas, Virginia, Florida and Washington state.

Wave will handle the transfer of proper tax payments and the filing of all necessary tax papers for these eight states.

Businesses in the remaining 42 states will be required to do this task on their own, despite Wave’s assurances that the company would assist them throughout the process.

Invoice Templates

One of the most well-liked aspects of Wave’s invoicing functionality is the system’s capacity to automatically produce user-friendly templates that may be customized.

You are able to tailor the invoices to reflect your company’s branding, and you also have the option of setting up recurring invoices and accepting credit card payments automatically for customers who have previously done business with you.

After the invoices have been handed over, you are able to easily check their status and see whether they’ve been received, payment made, or if they are late.

Accounting is simple thanks to the freemium Wave Accounting that’s included with your service. All transaction information is quickly synchronized with this program, so there is no need to enter it manually.

Taking Customer Payments

Wave users have the ability to collect payments made through credit card in person, over the phone, or online. You will be able to take payments through ApplePay, card transactions, and bank transfers if you include a “Pay Now” button into your invoices.

It is standard procedure for funds to be deposited in accounts inside 48 hours, with records of each payment is kept so that you will be ready for tax season when it comes.

Please take into account that you will be responsible for paying credit card processing fees for any and all transactions connected to this matter.

Integrations

Wave only supports a small number of connectors, but it does include support for the much-requested Zapier integration, which can link Wave to more than a thousand different add-ons.

Wave now has direct connections with Etsy, PayPal as well as Shoeboxed as its integrations of choice. You may also utilize the new Checkouts tool to build buttons on websites using platforms like WordPress, Squarespace, and Wix. API is accessible to software developers.

It’s possible that small firms who have future hiring plans for workers may need to update to a more advanced version of their accounting software or switch to using Wave Payroll.

Customer Service & Support

Wave customer support is available by submitting a support request from the Wave website. You can also access support from within Wave. For new Wave users, chat support is available through Mave, the chatbot, for 60 days after purchase to help with any product setup issues. 

After the 60 days, chat support is only available for Payments and Payroll customers. Wave Accounting response times are noted to be slow. 

You can also visit Wave’s Help Center to browse through a variety of application categories, ask a question, or access one of the Wave Guides. A user community is also available to join.

One-on-one support is available for Accounting customers through Wave’s paid Accounting Coach option.

Security

Wave utilizes a number of security measures to keep your data safe including:

• 256-bit data encryption
• Amazon Web Services for storing data
• Read-only versions of banking information
• Regular data backups
• 24/7 monitoring of servers

Wave customer reviews

Wave’s users consistently give the service high acclaim, and the service itself has earned an A+ rating on the Better Business Bureau’s website. Wave is recognized by the BBB.

Even though the majority of reviews are good, the business has just been given a rating of 1.54 out of 5 stars by the BBB. The most of the bad evaluations center on the company’s sluggish servers, bugs, and downtime.

The software is simple to learn and it’s ease of use is often cited as the most positive feature of the program, along with its low cost (free) and the lack of restrictions.

Wave Accounting: Overall verdict

For a free product, Wave Accounting packs a powerful punch and will greatly benefit solopreneurs and very small businesses starting out with limited requirements. 

Some features are lacking that would be found in other accounting software, such as project management, time tracking, phone support and inventory tracking management, however for a free product, limitations are to be expected. 

The software is however quite intuitive so you don’t need any accountancy experience to successfully use it and packs a lot of good features including duplicate transaction management, expense transaction automation and cash-basis accounting. 

All in all, a good solution for small business owners looking for simple, easy accounting software that won’t cost an arm and a leg.