Wave Accounting Review Features, Pros & Cons

While this is a nice idea, it seems like the insurance option would be more at home under Integrations or Resources. Finally, Wave’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. Wave Accounting also uses double-entry accounting, which is much more accurate than basic single-entry accounting. Most accounting software use the double-entry system, though FreshBooks’ cheapest plan is a notable exception.

Just choose one of the options — Professional Invoicing, Better Bookkeeping, or Reliable Payroll — and Wave will guide you through the entire setup types of accounts in accounting and creation process. 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 Add a Product or Service option (shown below) is where you would enter any products or services.

Wave’s key accounting features

You can also sign up for Wave Payments to get paid from an invoice. Unfortunately, Wave small business accounting software 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. If Wave isn’t a good fit for you, read through our article on the year’s best free accounting software.

The market is stacked with competitive accounting software options though, so check out our comparison page to see how the best of the best compare side by side. Enter some basic information about your business’s accounting software needs and we’ll send you up to five personalized quotes for absolutely free. Compared with free software like Wave, QuickBooks plans are expensive. The most basic plan, Simple Start, costs $30 per month, and the top-tier Advanced plan costs $200 per month, which is a sizable investment if you’re running a business on a tight budget. When you reconcile your books, you’ll navigate to the “Reconciliation” tab within the Accounting menu.

1. The Wave Launchpad (shown above) is a nice starting point for new users.
2. Wave is the cheapest accountancy software you’ll be able to get your hands on, but it’s not the only worthy contender out there.
3. If that’s not something you are interested in, you can always use the premade invoice templates and look professional.
4. Wave is a streamlined accountancy platform that likes to keep things simple.

Is Wave Right for Your Business?

It includes unlimited invoices, expense management and tracking, as well as double-entry accounting software. Its automated reconciliation saves you a significant amount of time and makes the bookkeeping process more efficient. As mentioned earlier, Wave accounting features are free, but you’ll pay a fee if you use Wave Payments or Wave Payroll.

The offers that appear on the website are from software companies from which CRM.org receives compensation. This compensation may impact how and where products appear on this site (including, for example, the order in which they appear). This site does not include all software companies or all available software companies offers. However, there are also a few negative Wave accounting reviews. What users are not satisfied with is the Wave accounting app, as it is not as fast as the website version.

Customizable invoicing

Wave offers accrual-basis accounting only, not cash-basis accounting. Support for non-paying users is limited to the chatbot and self-service Help Center. Only integrates with in-house apps, like Wave Payments and Wave Payroll; does not integrate with card readers for in-person payments. Many, or all, of the products featured on this page are quickbooks online mobile app android from our advertising partners who compensate us when you take certain actions on our website or click to take an action on their website. Even though Wave’s greatest advantage is that it can be used free of charge, prospective customers that need its premium features could probably save more elsewhere.

They seem to be knowledgeable about the software and able to solve most issues quickly. Wave offers customer support only in the form of email and live chat. There is no phone support available, which might be an issue for some users.

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With a Pro Plan subscription, you can connect your bank account with Wave and automatically import your transactions. Yes, switching from other accounting apps or products to Wave is easy! See our step-by-step guide on how to import bookkeeping data into Wave here. We provide different levels of support, depending on the plan and/or the add-on features you choose. Bank data connections are read-only and use 256-bit encryption.

Wave is PCI Level-1 certified for handling credit card and bank account information. With the Pro Plan, automatically import, merge, and categorize your bank transactions. It’s always available, and it’s backed up for extra peace of mind.