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About Wave

Automate key invoicing & bookkeeping tasks and get more time for what you love with Wave’s small business software. Try for free today!

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Pros:

Since it is free, I expected customer service to be non-existent, but they do respond and resolve issues through their messaging system. You can also share info with your accountant.

Cons:

It was disappointing when UK bank syncing stopped. Would prefer more options on personal designs for Invoices and Receipts.

Wave ratings

Average score

Ease of Use
4.4
Customer Service
4.0
Features
4.2
Value for Money
4.6

Likelihood to recommend

8.4/10

Wave has an overall rating of 4.4 out 5 stars based on 1,622 user reviews on Capterra.

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Filter reviews (1,622)

Kari
Kari
HR Lady in US
Verified LinkedIn User
Human Resources Software, 2–10 Employees
Used the Software for: 2+ years
Reviewer Source

Alternatives Considered:

I LOVE Wave!

5.0 3 years ago

Comments: Overall, I highly recommend Wave if you are running a business and want low costs and an easy way to manage your finances. My business is simple and Wave makes it so much easier for me to stay on top of things and know where I need to focus my energy.

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!

Ashley
Office Manager in US
Automotive, 2–10 Employees
Used the Software for: 1+ year
Reviewer Source

Alternatives Considered:

Accounting without a Cost

4.0 8 months ago

Comments: I loved this software/app so much that I actually decided to open a personal account and use it for mine and my husbands personal finances! I had been using the good ole trusty excel for this. But this makes everything so much nicer. It imports all my husbands charges and then I can code them and see just where our money is going. Not to mention, it has help the business I work for be more successful in bringing in a bigger profit! If you are trying to decided between software's and don't know where to start, try Wave for your business accounting needs.

Pros:

The first greatest thing about Wave is that is FREE!!! If you are just starting out, or a small business where overhead and expense need to be kept to a minimum, I recommend this app. It has all basic functions you need like, quotes, invoicing, statements, entering bills, receipts, reconciling bank statements, etc. All of these services including reporting are included in the free software! It has payroll functions for an additional charge, which we have opted out of for the time being. You can even link your bank account to it and it will import all the your debits and credits for reconciling. Also, this software is super user friendly and you do not need to be a tech expert to understand it. It will set you up with preloaded items it thinks you need for your business and then you can change them or delete them. You can also add new ones super easy while doing this or after the fact. I really love that its cloud base and can be accessed anywhere. This makes it key for me when traveling for work.

Cons:

Honestly Wave is pretty awesome that it was hard to find cons with it. The only drawback for me is the reporting. I wish I was able to customize them and select certain data to analyze. The reports are basic and standard, they just don't quite cover what I am looking for in my reporting.

Mary
Co-Founder in US
E-Learning, 2–10 Employees
Used the Software for: 2+ years
Reviewer Source

Alternatives Considered:

One Stop Money Management Platform

5.0 2 months ago

Comments: My overall experience has been outstanding. The business has used Wave for nearly 6 years.

Pros:

I like the ease of use and the ability to create both individual invoices and recurring invoices. I also like the ability to take a range of payments from card to direct deposit (ACH). Finally, the ease of managing transactions makes my life easier as a small business owner.

Cons:

The recent price increase, while understandable, is never fun.

Robert
ceo in US
Accounting Software, 2–10 Employees
Used the Software for: 1+ year
Reviewer Source
Source: SoftwareAdvice

Worst Customer Service EVER

1.0 2 months ago New

Comments: Horrid. Eventually you will have a question and need help. Even with the 16 dollar per month they were completely un helpful and dismissive. All you have is chat that they send you pre written script blurbs. While the chat people are PC your in a hell of where they can not do anything.
It was like calling 911 and instead of someone sending help they just sit there and say "Oh that sounds bad, I understand, Golly darn."

Pros:

At first it was useful. Glitchy but free.

Cons:

Customer Service Help Desk The non existent manager No phone to call even with a paid membership

Angela
Owner in Canada
Arts & Crafts, Self Employed
Used the Software for: 2+ years
Reviewer Source

Alternatives Considered:

Love the Starter Version of Wave

5.0 4 months ago

Comments: I've used Wave for quite a while now & Love it. I will eventually move up to one of the paid subscriptions as this program has enabled me to be more professional with invoicing.

Pros:

Having a free version for small business owners is truly amazing. The fact that it works so well and is very easy to setup & use is a blessing

Cons:

I realize every business needs to make money - the latest update which now makes you download the invoice to send as opposed to being able to send from within Wave is nothing more than a small extra step.

Soma
Lead Educator in Australia
Arts & Crafts, Self Employed
Used the Software for: 2+ years
Reviewer Source

Compact invoicing software

4.0 5 months ago

Comments: Was positive till a section of the app was discontinued for non-US subscribers.

Pros:

I love ease of use and functions that match my business needs. Allows branding and customisation of invoices. Love that I can clone invoices saving time for repeat services to same clients ( art coaching in my case)

Cons:

Disappointed that they removed wave receipts for non-US clients. This particular feature was critical to document hard copies of receipts on the go, into the online wave system. Now their is nothing else to integrate the hard copies of receipts into the wave system

alton
owner in US
Arts & Crafts, 2–10 Employees
Used the Software for: 1+ year
Reviewer Source

Wave gets two thumbs up

5.0 2 months ago New

Pros:

The software is beyond easy to use. I can design and customize my invoices which helps my business stand out from the rest. Invoices only take a few minutes to create, and clients can pay by clicking directly on the email link.

Cons:

I cannot think of any negatives at this time.

Bryan
Owner in US
Professional Training & Coaching, Self Employed
Used the Software for: 1+ year
Reviewer Source

Alternatives Considered:

One of the best SMB accounting tools out there

5.0 2 months ago New

Comments: I'm not an accountant by any means, but I know most failed businesses fail because of poor accounting practices; Wave made it easy for me to track due invoices as well as my costs to make sure I kept running in the black and made me look super professional.

Pros:

As a SMB or sole-consultant Wave takes all the annoyances of invoicing and tracking payments in/out super simple.

Cons:

I've honestly not run into an Cons while using Wave (formerly "Wave Accounting).

Serene
Head of Production and Development in UK
Retail, 11–50 Employees
Used the Software for: 2+ years
Reviewer Source

What I am Experiencing with Wave

5.0 2 months ago New

Pros:

Wave automates over 86% of manual repetitive accounting tasks such as invoicing and billing.

Cons:

I slightly dislike that Wave lack capabilities for global enterprise organizations but it has a robust backend integration capability.

Darlene
Front Office in US
Health, Wellness & Fitness, 51–200 Employees
Used the Software for: 6-12 months
Reviewer Source

Wave is great

5.0 2 months ago New

Comments: Can not complain. I even recommended to a few friends who started their own small business and they love it.

Pros:

I like that you can use Wave for free!! It's convenient to send invoices. The app is easy to navigate which is much appreciated.

Cons:

I saw that there was no live support to speak with someone, other than that it has been helpful.

Andi
Founder & Owner in US
Verified LinkedIn User
Marketing & Advertising, 2–10 Employees
Used the Software for: 1+ year
Reviewer Source

Alternatives Considered:

Wave Shows Me the Money!

5.0 5 years ago

Comments: Before I used Wave, I was behind every month on my invoicing. I hated sending invoices, and I really, REALLY hated being the Collections person, asking my clients to pay their bills. Then I found Wave, and my whole life changed. I was able to get set up super quickly, connect to my bank, add my clients' contact information, and set up the template for my invoices. Now, I have "Monthly Invoicing" on my calendar, and it takes me about 15 minutes to handle the task (instead of 2 hours). My favorite emails are, "Congrats! You Got Paid!" from Wave. I feel fantastic!

Pros:

Wave has absolutely changed my business for the better. It used to take me about 2 hours a month to do my invoicing, which I hated doing, and so I avoided it. Now, I handle monthly invoicing in about 15 minutes. Plus, as new clients come in or one-off projects are completed, I can send the invoices quickly—like 5 minutes. So ease of use is absolutely the first thing I love about Wave. Second, as a small business owner, I am in charge of acquiring new clients, executing the work, invoicing for the work, and then acting as collections when clients are late in paying. With Wave, I check a simple box that sends reminders to the client when things are past due. What a relief! It's coming from "my accounting department" rather than me. Hallelujah! Third, the payment process is so easy for my clients! They can pay any way they want—check, credit card, bank, whatever. It's so easy for them, and I have had zero complaints. It's also fantastic to know when clients have (or haven't) viewed the invoice. And getting the emails from Wave announcing that I've been paid are the best emails of the day. The fact that all of this amazingness is free? That's just the icing on the cake. Thank you, Wave!

Cons:

My only issue with Wave is probably a rare use-case. I manage invoicing for a client of mine. (Side note: Wave made it SO EASY for me to be an admin of her account but not the manager, and I can log into my account to access hers. It is AWESOME!) She sells programs, and her clients generally pay in one invoice. Occasionally, her clients need to pay in installments. It was not easy to set up a recurring invoice for only three months to send to the client, especially without a credit card on file. I had to create three different invoices, and label them as Installment #1, #2, etc. However, I recognize that this is probably a one-off user scenario that not many people would need. And I can't complain when the tool is free, and I found a workaround.

Brooke
Founder in US
Design, Self Employed
Used the Software for: 2+ years
Reviewer Source

Alternatives Considered:

LOVE LOVE LOVE

5.0 4 years ago

Comments: Wave no longer integrates with CapitalOne Spark Business Checking & Savings. CapitalOne is going through some changes so I don't blame Wave too much but manually uploading bank statements every month is a hassle. Though I love Spark, I'm hopefully that Wave's banking that is coming soon will be a good future solution. I love Wave for everything else. It's the most rounded and affordable solution for my small business finances.

Pros:

It's everything I need in one place. As a small business, Wave is the best solution for me. I can invoice my clients for free, and easily keep my finances up-to-date making tax season worry free.

Cons:

Wave no longer integrates with CapitalOne Spark Business accounts, so I have to manually upload two bank statements every month into Wave; One for my checking and one for my savings account, both of which are Spark.

Verified Reviewer
Verified LinkedIn User
Venture Capital & Private Equity, 51–200 Employees
Used the Software for: 6-12 months
Reviewer Source

Alternatives Considered:

Not made for Today's business market

3.0 3 years ago

Comments: Recommended by out bank, we tried them out. Big mistake. There is no telephone support, only chat support, which stops working about 30 minutes before closing time (they say they work 9-5 EST). Their process for us to start accepting credit cards took 3 months. Everytime we get paid online, funds get withheld until you provide supporting documentation which takes weeks to process and multiple, escalating questions. Overall, a waste of time with a system that was supposed to take the hassle out of online invoicing.

Pros:

The app allows you to be able to keep track of your expenses on the go

Cons:

Billing and payments: every time you get paid with their credit card system, they withhold payments until you provide supporting documentation and their back and forths take forever. You can also not connect other systems like PayPal or Stripe. So you are stuck with their merchant processing if you want to accept payments on the go.

Laura
Laura
Photographer in US
Verified LinkedIn User
Photography, Self Employed
Used the Software for: 2+ years
Reviewer Source

Alternatives Considered:

Best accounting software to grow as a small business

5.0 2 years ago

Comments: The overall experience with Wave has been very good. With some hiccups on the roadmap, Wave has evolved by leaps and bounds from a pretty basic software to quite a powerhouse, even for the free version. If my business grows and I will feel the need to add more features such as payroll and tax advisor use, I will still remain a Wave believer!

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.

Dedre
Dedre
CEO in South Africa
Verified LinkedIn User
Luxury Goods & Jewelry, 2–10 Employees
Used the Software for: 2+ years
Reviewer Source

Easy to use free invoicing app, but it has limitations

5.0 last year

Comments: Overall, besides the minor cons, it is still my favourite app to use for invoicing since it is so easy to use and straight-forward with a very slight learning curve.

Pros:

We started using Wave for our small business as it was free to use, and extremely user-friendly. Setting up your database of products/services and adding customers are easy and makes sending invoices a breeze. Financial reporting is also easy with a variety of filters to use in order to produce the financially statements and/or reports based your chosen criteria. You can also send a monthly bill or statement to your customers.

Cons:

Online payment gateways are limited to only 3 options, including PayPal, Stripe and Square. As a South African company, these options are not beneficial or even available in our country. So customers cannot pay invoices automatically upon receipt of the invoice. This is an inconvenience and we use a manual EFT workaround. Support and use of Wave Accounting in South Africa has been discontinued.

Suzanne
Professional Photographer in Canada
Verified LinkedIn User
Photography, Self Employed
Used the Software for: 2+ years
Reviewer Source
Source: GetApp

Alternatives Considered:

Wave error messed up my entire system and they want to charge me $3000 to fix it

4.0 5 years ago

Comments: It was good while it lasted, before their system made my data unusable. They really tried to be helpful, I chatted with several friendly people online, all of whom were unable to resolve my issues. They were unable to refer me to a WaveApps specialist in my area. Ultimately their solution was to offer me one of their bookkeepers at a cost of $3000 to fix the problem they created. No thanks.

Pros:

It was wonderfully easy to use, the invoices looked professional and payment processing features were handy.

Cons:

TLDR: Major syncing, reconciling and support issues Two of my accounts synced twice (so I had four accounts in Wave where there should have been two) and they were unable to fix this. Their suggested fixes did not work. They have chat and email support but no phone support and even though they logged in as an admin they were unable to fix this problem. A recent update to their system caused my entire past four years of records to be unreconciled, and the only fix was to go back to the beginning of time and compare each transaction ever made. They offered me a bookkeeper to do this for me for $269/month for a minimum of 12 months, despite my being very diligent about keeping my account up to date for the past four years. I have switched to another system now.

Samantha
Owner in US
Law Practice, 2–10 Employees
Used the Software for: 1+ year
Reviewer Source
Source: SoftwareAdvice

Alternatives Considered:

Not enough features and virtually NO customer support

2.0 2 years ago

Comments: It was fine when we had one part-time employee. But for all the real-life scenarios that pop up when you have full-time employees, it's useless. The customer service is also super disappointing and unhelpful. We only use it for payroll, which should not require much in terms of software so I can't imagine trying to use it for accounting.

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.

Verified Reviewer
Verified LinkedIn User
Leisure, Travel & Tourism, 51–200 Employees
Used the Software for: 2+ years
Reviewer Source

Great Software. Super Affordable.

5.0 3 years ago

Pros:

For a small business, or probably even a larger one, it's a really great software with all of the accounting and billing basics needed, and it's basically free. The online payment system works really well for getting payments from clients. They can either pay with a credit card or ACH, which is great. You can turn off credit card payments too if you don't want to have a fee taken from your payments, which I also find as a nice feature. The invoices look very professional, can be white-labeled, so it just has your branded information on it. The invoices are also really easy to make. We had been trying to use Excel as an accounting system when we first started our small business, and found Wave soon after. It was a huge upgrade, and not very expensive. The reports are great, and it's easy to track expenses and monies brought in. It solved all of our accounting needs as a small website building business.

Cons:

The one thing we really think can be improved are the recurring invoices. It doesn't make the invoice numbers in order based on that client's invoices, so they're oddly out of order. It's not a huge deal, but would be much better if it kept the invoice numbers specific to each set of clients.

James
James
Owner in US
Verified LinkedIn User
Professional Training & Coaching, Self Employed
Used the Software for: 2+ years
Reviewer Source

Alternatives Considered:

My go-to invoicing and accounting tool for my small business!

5.0 4 years ago

Comments: Nothing but amazing! I'm so glad I switched from Square for my invoice and payment processing.

Pros:

It is so easy to use, and customized specifically for small business owners. I absolutely LOVE the invoice feature - it's the primary feature that I use - and it just works so well. My completed payments rate is 100% and I believe is at least in part due to how easy the process is to view/pay invoices.

Cons:

Sometimes I wish the payment speed was faster after a client makes a payment, but then they introduced instant deposits and I'm happy to pay the small fee to get my money faster!

Corinne
Owner/operator in Canada
Health, Wellness & Fitness, Self Employed
Used the Software for: 2+ years
Reviewer Source

Satisfied daily user since 2015

5.0 5 years ago

Comments: I'm a sole proprietor of a service-based clinic, and I sell a very small amount of retail product (less than $500 per year). I use Wave to generate customer invoices, track payments, organize expense receipts, calculate taxes payable, and run reports. The app does allow for a "Personal" account which I do not currently use to my advantage but I plan to incorporate that into daily use next year to help keep better track of my overall financial situation.

Pros:

Wave is free to use which makes it excellent for my small business. It has an app to facilitate easy upload of receipts for my expenses. Being cloud-based enables me to access my accounting from my clinic or my home office (or on the go) with ease in real-time. It syncs with my RBC account to import my transactions and is very user-friendly. Customer service is friendly and responsive.

Cons:

My complaints about this software are very minor. There is an option to "save and send" invoices by email with a single mouse click, but to print the invoices takes three clicks. My other complaint is that there is no simple Customer Statement to print. The Customer Statement that is available shows every transaction posted, so for most of my clients there will be three entries for each visit to my clinic; one invoice date, one copay payment, and one insurance payment applied. I would prefer to be able to generate this statement showing a list which includes ONLY the invoice date and total amount charged. They are very minor complaints. I am quite pleased with this product.

Arthur
Arthur
CEO in South Africa
Verified LinkedIn User
Transportation/Trucking/Railroad, 51–200 Employees
Used the Software for: 2+ years
Reviewer Source

Wave Accounting Review

5.0 2 years ago

Comments: An overall exceptional experience using Wave for my accounting needs. The only drawback is the automated banking transaction allocation as well as payroll management are not available in my country.

Pros:

The basic version of the software is free and includes many features not found in paid versions. You don't need to purchase expensive add-ons to make it work for accounting, bookkeeping, or invoicing. Wave offers additional services that will help you improve your skills within the program. Wave automatically syncs your accounting and invoicing, making it a great choice for small businesses that want to consolidate and automate their bookkeeping and billing. Wave's invoicing capabilities are unlimited and completely free. Wave's invoicing features are also customizable and easy to use. Wave allows you to create customer profiles and send follow-up emails. You can also receive reminders and receipts for payment. Wave also offers a mobile app that lets you track and send invoices. Wave accounting has an intuitive interface that is simple to use. Wave accounting is different from other accounting software. Wave accounting is easy to use and requires no prior knowledge. It is easy to use, and you can learn quickly as you go.

Cons:

Wave's accounting software can be used for free. It's a great choice if you have a small business or don't need more advanced features. Wave's functionality is limited for businesses looking to grow. Wave does not provide multiple plans to increase its functionality, which limits its scalability. It offers limited customer service. Wave Accounting offers only self-service customer support. Wave Accounting offers only one-on-one support to Accounting customers through Wave's paid Accounting Coach option.

Ibrahima sadou
Président chez APTIC in Guinea
Accounting Software, 2–10 Employees
Used the Software for: 2+ years
Reviewer Source

A simplified accounting management experience with Wave Accounting

5.0 2 years ago

Comments: Wave Accounting is popular online accounting software designed for small businesses and entrepreneurs. It offers a range of features, such as bank account management, invoicing, and accounting, to help businesses track their money and keep track of their finances in one place. It is often praised for its intuitive user interface and free features, which makes it accessible to businesses on a budget. However, some people may find certain features to be limited or lacking compared to other more advanced accounting software.

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.

Josh
Senior Copywriter
Verified LinkedIn User
Marketing & Advertising, 5,001–10,000 Employees
Used the Software for: Not provided
Reviewer Source
Source: GetApp

I want to like Wave, and have been trying for years

1.0 9 years ago

Comments: ..., but I need them to help me figure it out. I have a full-time salaried job as a copywriter and a few self-employment careers, like freelance writing, voice acting. I've always found doing my taxes to be a nightmare. I'd spend months stressing about it and trying to calculate income and expenses. Originally, I was adding up all my expenses with a calculator. When I discovered I could put things into Excel, it got a bit easier add numbers. And then about 4 or 5 years ago, I started using a new accountant, and he suggested Wave to me. I was excited to hear that it would important my bank and credit card statements, and that I could then quickly and easily categorize everything. I was sure this would save me so much time and stress. But I found Wave very hard to use. I wasn't sure how to create my own categories. I could never tell if my statements had been uploaded completely, and I would often wind up with duplicate transactions. And I still can't find a way to view the categories after I've allocated transactions to them. I tweeted to Wave a lot, and they were nice enough to send one their IT guys to sit with me in a coffee shop for a few hours. He watched as I tried to do things and he gave me help. He said this was useful to him, to see what people might be having trouble with. And, I figured I would then be ok. But I'm still having a lot of trouble. I'm not asking a lot. All I want to be able to do is import my bank statements and credit card statements, and categorize all the transactions. And being able to invoice people would be nice too. And it seems that his app has those features. But I still find it very complicated. I don't understand the categories. I can't find where the totals are. And lately, my mbna Mastercard has been saying it can't link to Wave. So tonight, I went in and started deleting all the transactions from 2014, hoping that I could start fresh and be sure that everything was imported correctly. But now I see that mbna won't give me the data files for before August (that's an mbna problem, not Wave) and I can't undelete what I deleted. And there's no way to get support without paying for it. But I don't want to pay until I'm confident the site can do the simple things I need it to do. Anyway, I'd love to support a local Toronto company. And I appreciate that someone from the company sat with me in person. And I see people reviewing positively, saying it makes a freelancers life easy. Someone even tweeted today that Wave makes doing accounting fun. But I just don't understand how people are able to use this site. If someone from the company, or one of the satisfied customers, could explain to me how to use this site properly, I'd love to be converted. But at this point, I fear I need to cut my loses and simplify my life by paying for some other software. I just want to be able to file my taxes and concentrate on my creative projects.

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.

Wave Response

9 years ago

Thanks for sharing with us your experience. Firstly, thanks for being such a valuable customer over the years. We especially appreciate your patience trying to make WaveApps work for your financials. We have available Premium Support for customers who are getting started with Wave. We suggest those looking to best learn work arounds, and setting up proper customizations subscribe to our chat and phone support (unlimited - 9am-5pm EDT M-F) - $49 for three months. You can place a call and speak to one of our product specialists to help you work through your challenge. If you could reach out to me [email protected]. We'll try to match you with a member of our team to help troubleshoot since you have invested your valuable time into Wave to manage your business financials. Jennifer from Wave

Miguel
Owner in US
Computer Software, 2–10 Employees
Used the Software for: 1+ year
Reviewer Source
Source: SoftwareAdvice

Accounting, with all the bells and whistles, no costs.

5.0 7 years ago

Comments: My business accounting needs are not big. My business is small and provides a limited number of offerings that are easily tracked with any application. So, when I was looking for an accounting solution to further simplify and automate some functions, I was surprised at the number of products and the wide range of prices out there. I stumbled across Wave by accident and decided to give it a try. Besides being free, the list of standard features was greater than all other products out there... from free competitive services to paid basic subscriptions. Wave is truly amazing and I have found it extremely helpful. I use it primarily to bill clients: I create invoices, submit them via email, receive payments online, and request receipts to be sent to clients after payment. Wave provides notifications and simplifies all of my accounting in one place. I would not use any other product.

Pros:

Wave is free, and packed with features one would typically pay for in other premium products. Wave is the perfect accounting solution for small businesses. For starters, it offers all the essential features ANY business needs... plus more. Manage estimates, invoices, and statements with ease. It even supports recurring invoicing, manage payments, and build a massive library of products and services to choose from for your estimates and invoices. Wave even manages receipts, bills and vendors to track expenses. Like more control than just simple single entries? Wave supports traditional double-entry accounting as well, for increase control of your business accounting needs. Need to accept credit card payments? Wave has a built-in merchant account feature that let's you collect payments online through your invoices. Make email invoices, or attach them as PDF files. And when you get paid, Wave notifies you. Funds are transferred to your connected business account in a couple of days. Reporting? Wave has you covered. All essential reports are available at your fingertips: financial statements, taxes, customers, vendors, and other general reports. And if your business has employees, Wave can handle your payroll. But this feature is a premium... everything else is part of your free account.

Chris
IC in US
Consumer Goods, Self Employed
Used the Software for: 2+ years
Reviewer Source

Great alternative to Quickbooks for small biz users

4.0 6 years ago

Comments: I have two small e-commerce business, and needed a way to track my inventory purchases, sales, shipping expenses, etc. I also had two independent contractor businesses, needing to track expenses such as mileage, supplies, etc. With Wave, I have each venture as a separate company, I can customize the chart of accounts for each one, create invoices for my independent contractor gigs, track invoice status so I don't overlook if something doesn't get paid on time, and review my income and expenses each month. I sometimes do consignment sales for clients in my e-commerce business, and Wave helps me keep track of those sales and settle up with clients each month. Truly a lot of great features offered, and I don't even use all of them (like Banking & Payroll). So glad I found Wave, and I have recommended it to many others.

Pros:

Wave offers a lot of the basic accounting functions needed for small business users, and the best part is that it's FREE TO USE! Woo hoo! I used QuickBooks in my previous career, and liked the detail it provided, but once I started my own small e-commerce business, I didn't want to spend hundreds of dollars on software, or get locked into a recurring monthly subscription. I was thrilled to find Wave and amazed that it was FREE!

Cons:

I wish there was a keyword search function in the Transactions section. Sometimes I need to look for a specific transaction but don't remember the exact date it occurred, so have to scroll through several pages to find what I'm seeking. A workaround is to export an Income Statement, then search or sort in Excel, but obviously that takes several extra steps and time. But since it's not costing me anything, this is a minor inconvenience.