Wave Accounting Reviews

The freemium entry point is ideal especially considering this is a cloud product, there is no need to management an IT infrastructure.

Lack of features, cost assemblies, inventory management & items system.

Wave is free, but it’s powerful. Wave is suitable for any small to medium business. Wave handles all our accounting needs.

Wave has two major areas of improvement. 1. Their customer service is difficult, especially if you have an urgent matter. Their chargeback dispute process is not easy and confusing. Again, customer support regarding chargebacks is difficult considering you have a few days to submit a dispute package.

At first glance, I was excited. As time went on, I regret my decision

It's another corporate charade to lure in unsuspecting victims to fee snatching secret policy changes and edits that happen all the time! Same old game, just new packaging

The best thing about WAVE is its ease of use. It was so easy to learn to use this. Additionally the invoices are really customizable. There is a huge amount you can do with just the free version but if you upgrade to the paid version you can access a lot more of the accounting features and payment features.

I like that for security reasons the software logs you out at the end of the day. The invoices look very professional and are downloadable and can be sent with a pdf attachment. When a partial payment is made you can send a receipt reflective of how much was paid, how, when and with how much balance left. The software will also alert me when a payment is overdue. You can also add tax and discounts to the invoices.

The only gripe I have is that when I made changes to the invoice parameters, I was unable to delete the old parameters because they had been used in previous invoices. It would be nice to be able to "inactivate" or send to "archive" these parameters.

I loved Wave Accounting. There was seldom any problems and they had some great ideas on how to do things like bank recons, which are much easier than other accounting software.
And all for free. Can't beat that.

They were taken over by H&R Block and then it was downhill from there!

For a business owner, Wave Accounting is an amazing product. Basic features are free. This helps save money and it is easier to use than products like Quickbooks or Sage.

I wish some of the invoicing search features would be a little easier to use.

Wave is absolutely amazing! We started with a paid subscription for payroll and transitioned into the free version. Both are great and easy to use. They make tracking expenses and invoicing simple and quick. I used to spend hours every week inputting information into a manual system. Now, when an invoice is paid, it automatically goes into the income without me having to do anything. It is the best thing ever!

There is nothing that I dislike about the software. If there is something, I haven't found it yet!

I love the fact that you can see at a glance the total amount due from all outstanding invoices. I also use the customer and product management very heavily, and it works perfectly for my application. It is easy to use, and the interface is user-friendly, understandable and nicely modern.

Setting up master data can be time-consuming.
It would be nice it I could set up an email template, so that if I send similar emails to all my invoice recipients, I can just do quick minor changes to the template, rather than have to copy-paste from notepad.

I am able to complete any and all financial tasks that I need to for my business via Wave. Yes, they take a small percentage from each transaction in order to make a profit however other softwares do that too and they have a monthly charge to use their platform which Wave doesn't!

I would love to have saved templates for receipts and emailing invoices to customers but I have saved the text on Google Docs and just copy and paste it or I have to type in the info I want to send to my client each time. It is not a big deal but it would be nice to be able to select specific saved templates based on what I am emailed such as invoices.

It saves much money when it comes to price. The customization options and functions are pretty accurate and helpful. Data sync is excellent, and the presentation is outstanding

The reporting has to be more accurate, and features like app access are missing. Customer service is practically nonexistent.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Setting reminders to be sent to clients for payment is the most important feature from wave in my opinion. Also being able to create recurring invoices you you don't have to do the same thing every week or every month. My other favorite is customer statements. Pulling out customer statements and sending to your clients gives you points in terms of professionalism. I also appreciate that when Wave stopped operating in South Africa they recommended Zoho and gave us a year of free use of Zoho. Even though I did not like changing, this was a very thoughtful move by wave.

For some reason wave starting giving limited access to its South African customers and partnered with Zoho for customers to migrate. Even though the apps are similar, they're not the same and it took a little bit of time to now learn Zoho a new app.

Wave is ideal for freelancers. Set up is really simple and the interface is user-friendly. I have zero background in financial matters, and with Wave that's totally fine.

The price is also right. There's no subscription or hidden fees, they just take a perfectly reasonable percentage from invoice payments. I asked a financial advisor friend of mine before signing up, and she was pleasantly surprised by the low rates, and told me to go for it. I've been using Wave for over 3 years, and I have never once been hit with a fee outside of the basic rates.

Wave also provides a host of reporting and tracking tools in this basic account. They didn't influence my decision to sign up, but they've proven to be very useful.

And finally a small but really helpful feature, especially if you're a freelancer just starting out: immediate money transfers. Once someone pays your invoice, the money is in Wave, and takes 2-3 days to transfer. For 1% more payment, you can transfer money within minutes. For the cash-strapped freelancer, that can be mana from heaven.

There are no major cons that I can think of. One issue I have is mostly my fault: When I first started using Wave I didn't know what I was doing, and I ended up creating a whole bunch of client and work type records unnecessarily. It would be nice if there were some more in-your-face tutorials, maybe some hover tips for new users. But the messiness is mainly from me leaping in before looking.

Wave Apps software features not only very beautiful interfaces for their products' dashboard, but the platform is at once very feature-heavy and thoughtfully well designed. The aesthetically-pleasing graphics for content such as cash flow, profit and loss, and expense breakdowns on the primary dashboard are sharp and clean in addition to being so helpfully data-driven, and all that is just on the landing page. As you navigate through categories of sales, purchases, accounting, banking, you experience how well-constructions the pages are for options within each section including sales, purchases, accounting, etc. I love just how many of the feature-heavy options are completely *FREE.* Wave Apps offers select premium services, such as Wave Advisors and bookkeeping, even business insurance with "NEXT," while offering things such as accounting, invoicing , etc. free of charge. It's an excellent product for anyone looking for a beautiful interface, but also wanting lots of features without needing to immediately spend money for quality products.

So many elements within Wave are intuitively navigable and to use with simple data entry. One area that was a little more challenging for me to set up with the chart of accounts section in the accounting area of the interface. It's so nice that it's deeply customizable, but the challenge was that it took me a little extra time to understand and knowledgeably input the data of my assets, liabilities/credits, income, expenses, equity. This is something that would be challenging for anyone not familiar with basic accounting on any software, so I probably would've benefitted from a few "help" pop-ups/set-up assistance here than perhaps some other areas. Where my limitations with setup start is however where Wave's premium products with bookkeeping and accounting are so valuable to the user. There are many great pop-up notices throughout the platform that inform you about new features of ways to most effectively use Wave Apps features, which is great, and of course, they're complete with beautiful graphics.

Its free for small businesses that just need a good business accounting software! You can take ACH and CC payments if you want and turn them off on invoices you don't want it on. The rates are reasonable enough for using these services. The reports are easy enough for doing taxes. It's awesome and cheap for those that are one man shows or freelancers.

The thing that is the most annoying is when you want to do a recurring billing. It doesn't use something like Maintenance contract #1 then go to #2 or something like that it makes recurring billing invoice names that were the most recent of any invoices. Maybe I am not using it correctly, but each time I have to go and change invoice names then manually send it to the client.

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!

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!

It was free to use the accounting services
I was able to invoice customers using Stripe as a Payment Gateway which was great value
The Design and User Interface is very professional compared to others that I have seen
The Payment Gateway was also very professional when sent to customers, it added to the credibility of the business

My particular Bank would not allow me to sync my account with Wave, but that was a local issue not a general issue.
I was very very happy with the invoicing. but I always felt that the ledger views were not as robust.

This is a very complete software that allows you to build quotes and convert them into invoices in a fraction of a second without much effort.

Wave is excellent especially when it comes to credit card processing which is done automatically with a very low 1% fee.

It is very easy to set up and use and the cost is low or even free. Personally, I recommend buying this package because it comes with support: from setting up your account to the specific categories for your company .

The other advantage of Wave is the presence of a number of applications to send invoices when you are away from your workplace.

So even when you're away from home you can download them. In this case, all you have to do is take the photo on the spot.

The problem on the Wave software is not so numerous, but we notice that it is impossible to close a period correctly.

All members who are able to make transactions have the possibility to change or add entries from the previous year.

For me an administrator must have the ability to close a period so that no changes are made. User growth is also very limited.

The lack of audit trails for transaction entries is also a case of imperfection at Wave . Admittedly, it is possible to generate transactions, then generate reports, then cancel the transactions, etc.

But there is no proof that these changes are made yes or no, because the software is unable to remember its categorizations.

The keyword search function is absent from Wave in the transactions section and sometimes it makes us lose a lot of time.

It is FREE in the cloud, works on ALL platforms Windows 7,10, Android, iphones. Accepts all credit cards including Amex for 2.9% I am saving $420+ yearly by not having QB, I don't have to print invoices. Since WAVE is in the cloud I email my invoices and receipts.

I wish it had more storage of customer service that has been performed in the past but I suspect that would require some expense. It only had 3 invoice templates and there wasn't much customization on those. You can't compound taxes on your invoices, let me rephrase, you can compound 1 tax but no more. Since my only taxes are State and County I found it best to compound none for fear of forgetting which one I had compounded

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.

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.

Love this product because of the cost! Free! So many great tools that it offers to include invoicing. You can create all of your own products and services and include your terms & Conditions. Clients can pay directly from the invoice. You can get paid the same day if you attach your business card to your account. It has a payroll feature as well for an additional charge. I love the fact that the reporting is so simple and easy to read. I would highly recommend purchasing this set up package. It comes with consultations and assistance to work through all the process of setting up your account and different categories specific to your business. It was definitely worth the extra money spent. I also like the fact that there are apps available to send invoices if you are away from the office. Also, you can upload receipts directly from wherever you are by simply taking a picture and categorizing it on the spot. No more having to deal with Receipts in the shoebox LOL.

On the Invoicing I wish there was an option to add tipping. Our clients like to add a tips for our service and while Square offers this feature, Wave does not. There was a weird vetting process that nobody told me about and at first I thought it was a scam and I didn’t reply. But then I confirmed with the consultant I had been working with and they verified that this was in fact something that I had to go through. It seemed kind of sketchy at first, but it had validity with regards to the financial process.

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

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.

On the positive side, this software's functionality is almost up to par with other options that cost a lot of money. Wave is free and for that price what they offer is unbeatable. It is a fully featured accouting software, as it is a web app, it means multiple people can use it simultaniously and it also works great for a virtual team. I like that it is made with non-accountants in mind. For example, when entering transactions there are "Accounts" - but these are only Accounts as a nun-accountant will understand: Cash, Bank, Owners Investment etc. - everything else is called "Categories". This makes it easier for someone not too versed in finances to understand - but behind the scenes Categories are Accounts, just like they always were (e.g. Office Supply Expense Account) - small and simple changes like this make it very easy to use even for a financial analphabet. Two mobile apps compliment the accounting software, one for writing invoices on the go, the other for scanning and (auto)recording expense receipts.

On the downside, and this can be a big one, you are not able to properly close a period. This means anyone with permission to enter transactions can go and change entries from last year, or add some. This can make things really messy and I hope they add a function where an administrator can close a period such as a month, so that no more changes can be made. Further, you can add other users, but the type of users are quite limited. I wish this could be controlled on a more granular level, e.g. there is the option to add a 'viewer' who cannot edit anything. The next level is somoene who can enter all types of transactions (you can turn of access to bank entries and writing invoices) but it would be nice if there was one where I can let someone add receipts with the mobile app but not do anything else.

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.

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.