Wave Accounting Reviews

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.

Wave Accounting is a great choice for small businesses looking for free, easy-to-use, and comprehensive accounting software. Here are some of its benefits:Free: Wave Accounting is free software, which is a big plus for small businesses looking to save money.Easy to use: the software is easy to use and does not require special accounting skills. The platform is user-friendly and intuitive, making it easy to manage your finances.Comprehensive: Wave Accounting offers a full suite of features for managing accounting, including invoicing, payroll, expense and income tracking, and detailed financial reporting.Accessible anywhere: Wave Accounting is a cloud-based solution, which means you can access it anywhere with an internet connection.Integration with third parties: The software is integrated with many third-party tools such as PayPal, Shoeboxed, Etsy and many more, which makes it easier to manage your business.All in all, Wave Accounting is a great choice for small businesses looking for free, easy-to-use, and comprehensive accounting software.

Although Wave Accounting is a good choice for small businesses, there are some points that can be problematic for some businesses. Here are some of its drawbacks:Limited customer support: Wave Accounting offers email-only customer support, which can be a problem for businesses that need immediate assistance.Limitations in payroll management: Payroll management in Wave Accounting is limited to certain regions, which may not be suitable for companies that have employees in different regions or countries.Limited customization: Invoices and quotes in Wave Accounting are not very customizable, which can be a problem for companies that want to customize their documents to make them look more professional.No automatic bank reconciliation: Wave Accounting does not allow automatic bank reconciliation, which can be a cumbersome task for companies that have many transactions to manage.Advertising in the software: Wave Accounting displays advertisements in the software, which can be a distraction for some users.In sum, although Wave Accounting is free and easy to use accounting software, it has some limitations that may not be suitable for all businesses, including limited customer support, limited payroll management, limited document customization , the absence of automatic bank reconciliation and the presence of advertisements in the software.

I like how I can track my payments and it is easy to do so.

I don't like how the system is so complicated and needs a ton of information for payment processing. It can be very difficult to figure out or explain to someone. There is not great customer service either.

Wave Accounting allows you to easily design and send beautiful branded invoices that tell your clients "I'm a professional!" Everything is handled online, and the app works exactly as well as the desktop version. Oh: and did I mention you get everything you need for free? This is truly stellar software.

For some reason, Wave Accounting hides the invoice title in an accordion drop-down. For years I sent invoices named "Invoice 24...", until I found this one day.

I love Wave. It makes custom invoices very easy. They are easy to send, easy to create and it is easy to get paid online. Accounting reports are easy to create and easy to understand.

I used to have bank accounts and credit card accounts linked so they would automatically sync. Due to constantly changing security settings, I now have to manually export and then import the data. It all still works, but not as seamlessly as it used to.

Recieving payments on time even before it is cleared to your account . Liquidity is very vital to us .

Some drop menu falling below my screen so i need to minimize to see it

The app it self is user Friendly, you track up the daily expense, credit card charges and more.

Nothing so far. The app is so user friendly and very easy to access as well.

Wave is fairly easy to use and covers the bases when it comes to basic accounting. I used Wave for a few years before switching to Quickbooks - the only reason for the switch was so that I could share my books with my accountant and make tax time easier. So, if you need to sync to Quickbooks for your accountant, Wave might not be the best choice. But, to keep track of your expenses, reconcile your books and do basic bookkeeping, Wave is a great choice for free software.

Had a hard time getting the right info to our accountant. Ended up switching because it was easier to use the same software as the accountant.

The software is accessible to all levels of business, in particular (small, medium and large companies)

The software is very limited in terms of language of use

All feature are easy, simple, fast, and accurity.

In my opinion , I am satisfied in this software.

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.

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!

Wave helps me do so much. I can issue invoices, track them (I.e. I can see when a client has viewed it!), and allow clients to make payments directly through the invoice. I can also customize my invoice, which is great. I could do all of this from day 1. I'm a solopreneur and launched my business this summer. I was able to issue professional invoices from day 1 and track my expenses using their receipts app. The other thing I love about Wave is that they are very interested in feedback from their customers. I've had a few interactions with them and it's always been really pleasant. It's also free which helps me out a lot. I do use the credit card payments, which has a fee like any other service would.

Their mobile app could use some work, and I've given them this feedback. The receipts app is great to take pictures really quickly, but I generally have to use the browser to do anything else.

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!

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.

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.

This makes my accounting SO EASY! Not only am able to easily keep track of my expenses and costs associated with my business, but I'm able to create, issue, and track invoices. AND, to top it off, the invoices are so nice looking (which, as a designer, is a big deal to me).

I can not only issue invoices, but track whether they have been opened, viewed, and/or paid. And when it comes to figuring out my taxes, the system makes it so simple to get whatever information I need.

Finally, while I don't use it yet, I will be enabling online payments this upcoming year so my customers can pay their invoices online. Based on my experience thus far, I have NO doubt it will be great!

This is a difficult one as I really don't have a dislike....

If I really think about it, I guess I wish I could have different addresses (for me) on difference invoices based on the customer. I have two locations so it would be nice to be able to just issue invoices with different business addresses based on the customer.

The cost is compelling -- free! -- but beyond that I find the software is advanced enough to do what I need without being utterly overwhelming like other options. I'm not accountant and there's only so much geeking out I want to do. I can send invoices, get paid, track all my expenses and payments, handle business AND personal finances from the same account, and it all works really well with my bank and integrates decently with Stripe via Zapier.

I'd love Wave Payments to allow for payments in more than one currency. I can invoice in USD and CAD (my main), but I can only accept online payments via Wave in CAD. No biggie.

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 accounting has been a great experience right from the start, its easy to use, easy to send and enter bill in fraction of seconds, and the support is great!

The last update change the format of the expense section and I really dont like it, it make it more complicated, I feel that it try to look more and more like Quickbook but thats exactly why its great ¨ITS NOT LIKE QUICKBOOK¨ and I hope they keep it that way!

The software is FREE for everything other than PAYROLL and PAYMENT PROCESSING. If you don't use those components, there is absolutely no charge. For the most part, it is user-friendly and straightforward, and the quality of its printed invoices, customer statements and reports is top-notch. I really appreciate the ability to create recurring invoices (subscription billing) and view monthly income/expense bar charts for a 1- or 2-year period.

This is bookkeeping software that stresses simple data entry. However, it doesn't have features such as audit trails for transaction entries. With this program, it is possible to generate transactions, generate reports, and then reverse the transactions without any way of knowing that changes were made. Wave attempts to categorize your income and expenditures, but doesn't currently have the ability to remember your categorizations. But the thing I like least about this software is a BUG that causes the program to download bank transactions and incorrectly categorize them as duplicates of previously downloaded transactions if the transaction amounts match. This bug makes it difficult to find transactions when you are attempting to reconcile your transactions.

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.

Wave is a great piece of accounting software that rivals Quickbooks and Xero. The biggest winner, which it obvious to anyone who has researched Wave as an accounting platform for their small business: it’s FREE! Both Quickbooks and Xero have fairly low-cost pricing models for small businesses that range all the way to fairly high-cost for larger businesses. Wave, on the other hand, is specifically tailored to the small business, and offers only features popular with those businesses. But, because of this, their base accounting software is completely free. Their only products you would be billed for would be payroll or credit card processing, both of which are priced competitively to Quickbooks/Intuit’s and Xero’s offerings as well.

Wave also offers a lot of the same features, including automatic bank and credit card feeds, customized charts of accounts, multiple businesses on one account, smart expense categorization (software learns over time), and more.

Wave does have its limitations and is more basic than Quickbooks or Xero, especially to us accountants who can see the glaring differences. However, even as an accountant and bookkeeper, I recommend Wave to a lot of my smaller clients whose biggest consideration is cost, simply because you can’t beat free. Plus, a lot of the additional features that offerings like Quickbooks or Xero feature, smaller businesses will not always utilize anyway, so Wave fits them perfectly. All-in-all, there are no large drawbacks.

The Wave interface is very intuitive to use, and there was no intimidation when dealing with complicated matters like invoicing or expense tracking. Out of the accounting services we tested, Wave had the best user interface. Additionally, the integrations with Zapier and PieSync are excellent.

Bank reconciliation is known to be inaccurate with Wave, with many reports that data doesn't sync with the bank for months at a time. This is likely due to the banks breaking the connection with Wave's 3rd party service (Plaid) on a regular basis, but ultimately this is out of Wave's control.

This app has everything I need to do my small business bookkeeping, financial tracking, and reports. It is so easy to access on any device. Super useful for someone who's used to on-the-go applications like me. I can easily make an invoice anywhere I go because of the accessibility feature. I can also duplicate and change dates if I need to in order to make recurring invoices. There is a self-help that you can simply search for tips and strategies with very detailed and easy-to-follow instructions. Even non-professionals can simply rely on this app to calculate income and expenses. It auto-generates reports for income reports and balance sheets. I love how easy it is to enter my data or purchase receipts information and sort them by category. The best part is I can simply link my bank account to it so sorting income and expenses is a breeze! Editing is also a great feature for varying monthly income. Honestly, this is all you need to do your bookkeeping! You don't need a professional account or bookkeeper to catch up on your reports. This will surely save you from being audited. Reports are generated instantly so you need to wait longer.

I think maybe create a formula for reimbursement instead of multiple strategies to enter reimbursement. This will save entrepreneurs from getting to multiple entryways.

Wave allows me to keep track of finances for multiple enterprises - self-employment business, a non-profit, and personal finances. Each account was set up using the Wave wizard and very few changes have been made to the overall function beyond that. The non-profit I manage has a series of account codes that were easily added and applied to transactions. I use multiple income streams for my business and they are all imported automatically. Wave charges for things like payroll administration, credit card processing and bank transfers - all at industry standard rates - and that's how they keep the base platform free.

The mobile expense app helps me keep track of receipts and does a really excellent job of deciphering receipts, even in multiple languages and currencies! The mobile invoice app is great for sending quick invoices or following up with clients on payment.

Also allows viewing and reporting for authorized agents who can't change any data - a needed feature for the separation of financial powers required with most non-profit setups. My accountant can take a peek too.

One feature that is present in most accounting systems is the ability to categorize an expense as a reimbursed expense and then assign it to an invoice - at cost or with a markup. With Wave, I needed to set up a separate "reimbursed expenses" account and then - via double entry - add the expense onto invoices with a "reimbursed expense" account code. If entered at cost, the balances zero out in the reporting. If there is a markup, the income category is "reimbursed expense", which isn't helpful for year-end accounting.