Sage Intacct vs. Wave Accounting

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Sage Intacct
Score 8.6 out of 10
N/A
Sage Intacct is a cloud ERP system targeted at high-growth small and medium-sized businesses. Intacct includes applications for core financials and accounting, purchasing, order management, and financial reporting and business intelligence. It also integrates with 3rd party software like Salesforce.N/A
Wave Accounting
Score 8.3 out of 10
N/A
Wave Accounting is a free, cloud-based accounting platform exclusively for small businesses. It supports double-entry bookkeeping and permits unlimited user access, invoicing, and expense management. Wave Accounting integrates with Wave's invoicing, receipt scanning, payment processing and payroll apps.
$0
Pricing
Sage IntacctWave Accounting
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
Starter
$0
Pro
$16
per month
Pro - billed annually
$170
per year
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Sage IntacctWave Accounting
Free Trial
NoNo
Free/Freemium Version
NoYes
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional DetailsMust contact sales team for pricing.
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Sage IntacctWave Accounting
Features
Sage IntacctWave Accounting
Payroll Management
Comparison of Payroll Management features of Product A and Product B
Sage Intacct
7.0
Ratings
10% below category average
Wave Accounting
6.2
Ratings
22% below category average
Pay calculation7.00 Ratings7.10 Ratings
Benefit plan administration6.40 Ratings7.50 Ratings
Direct deposit files7.10 Ratings1.20 Ratings
Salary revision and increment management6.90 Ratings7.70 Ratings
Reimbursement management7.80 Ratings7.40 Ratings
Customization
Comparison of Customization features of Product A and Product B
Sage Intacct
7.9
Ratings
3% above category average
Wave Accounting
8.5
Ratings
11% above category average
API for custom integration8.10 Ratings9.90 Ratings
Plug-ins7.80 Ratings7.00 Ratings
Security
Comparison of Security features of Product A and Product B
Sage Intacct
8.8
Ratings
6% above category average
Wave Accounting
6.4
Ratings
26% below category average
Single sign-on capability8.80 Ratings6.40 Ratings
Role-based user permissions8.70 Ratings6.40 Ratings
Reporting & Analytics
Comparison of Reporting & Analytics features of Product A and Product B
Sage Intacct
7.9
Ratings
0% above category average
Wave Accounting
6.3
Ratings
22% below category average
Dashboards7.70 Ratings6.00 Ratings
Standard reports8.10 Ratings8.00 Ratings
Custom reports8.10 Ratings5.00 Ratings
General Ledger and Configurable Accounting
Comparison of General Ledger and Configurable Accounting features of Product A and Product B
Sage Intacct
8.1
Ratings
4% above category average
Wave Accounting
7.0
Ratings
11% below category average
Accounts payable8.50 Ratings7.10 Ratings
Accounts receivable8.30 Ratings7.10 Ratings
Cash management8.10 Ratings8.50 Ratings
Bank reconciliation7.90 Ratings8.50 Ratings
Expense management8.20 Ratings7.50 Ratings
Time tracking7.80 Ratings9.80 Ratings
Fixed asset management8.00 Ratings9.80 Ratings
Multi-currency support8.30 Ratings10.00 Ratings
Multi-division support8.80 Ratings7.10 Ratings
Regulations compliance7.80 Ratings5.00 Ratings
Electronic tax filing7.20 Ratings5.90 Ratings
Self-service portal7.50 Ratings8.00 Ratings
Global Financial Support8.10 Ratings9.00 Ratings
Intercompany Accounting8.70 Ratings4.00 Ratings
Journals and Reconciliations8.70 Ratings8.50 Ratings
Enterprise Accounting8.30 Ratings4.00 Ratings
Configurable Accounting8.00 Ratings5.00 Ratings
Centralized Rules Framework8.00 Ratings1.00 Ratings
Standardized Processes8.30 Ratings7.00 Ratings
Primary and Secondary Ledgers00 Ratings9.00 Ratings
Localizations00 Ratings5.20 Ratings
Inventory Management
Comparison of Inventory Management features of Product A and Product B
Sage Intacct
6.6
Ratings
11% below category average
Wave Accounting
8.1
Ratings
10% above category average
Inventory tracking7.60 Ratings5.60 Ratings
Automatic reordering5.50 Ratings9.90 Ratings
Location management8.30 Ratings8.10 Ratings
Manufacturing module5.20 Ratings9.00 Ratings
Order Management
Comparison of Order Management features of Product A and Product B
Sage Intacct
7.7
Ratings
0% below category average
Wave Accounting
7.6
Ratings
2% below category average
Pricing8.10 Ratings9.90 Ratings
Order entry8.20 Ratings10.00 Ratings
Credit card processing7.70 Ratings2.30 Ratings
Cost of goods sold6.30 Ratings10.00 Ratings
End-to-end order visibility8.10 Ratings8.20 Ratings
Order Orchestration00 Ratings5.80 Ratings
Order exception Resolution00 Ratings7.00 Ratings
Best Alternatives
Sage IntacctWave Accounting
Small Businesses
QuickBooks Self-Employed (discontinued)
QuickBooks Self-Employed (discontinued)
Score 8.9 out of 10
QuickBooks Self-Employed (discontinued)
QuickBooks Self-Employed (discontinued)
Score 8.9 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Zoho Books
Zoho Books
Score 9.0 out of 10
Zoho Books
Zoho Books
Score 9.0 out of 10
Enterprises
SAP S/4HANA Cloud
SAP S/4HANA Cloud
Score 8.6 out of 10
SAP S/4HANA Cloud
SAP S/4HANA Cloud
Score 8.6 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
Sage IntacctWave Accounting
Likelihood to Recommend
8.6
(0 ratings)
6.0
(0 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
9.9
(0 ratings)
7.8
(0 ratings)
Usability
8.0
(0 ratings)
7.0
(0 ratings)
Availability
7.2
(0 ratings)
6.7
(0 ratings)
Performance
7.0
(0 ratings)
2.9
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
8.8
(0 ratings)
2.1
(0 ratings)
In-Person Training
8.2
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Online Training
2.0
(0 ratings)
4.7
(0 ratings)
Implementation Rating
8.8
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Configurability
7.1
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Ease of integration
10.0
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Product Scalability
7.3
(0 ratings)
3.0
(0 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
7.0
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
8.3
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
Sage IntacctWave Accounting
Likelihood to Recommend
It is well-suited for nonprofit accounting with its ability to track expenses and revenues by both department and funding source. It is easy to set up vendors and customers for invoices and bill payments. It is less appropriate for proper budget management and purchasing with multiple approvers, particularly when edits are required.
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Wave is free to use, and they have some premium features you can pay for. For someone just starting out as a small business, freelancer or independent contractor, this is a Godsend. You can look professional, have something easy to manage, and yet also have excellent records come the end of the year. You won't spend a bunch of time having to learn the program, it's very intuitive and you get a host of great features that will make getting paid easy.
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Pros
  • Custom, real-time financial reporting. I am able to streamline my reporting to pull in various account groups and calculations which save me time from having to do it in Excel.
  • Out of the box standard reports for clients who don't require as custom of reporting or even as a great starting point to build out reports.
  • Integrations with other platforms, such as Airbase, various banks, Rippling, etc.
  • The dashboard module is extremely helpful in my monthly review of various entities.
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  • The dashboard provides instant views of month-by month income & expenses for the past 12-24 months, a breakdown of current year expense by category, and net income for the past year and year-to-date.
  • Invoicing has easy templated set up has lots of per invoice options such as single/recurring payment options, due dates.
  • Year end reports are easy to generate in either pdf or csv format.
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Cons
  • Downloading bill register reports for all the entities at the top level would be helpful.
  • An increase in the Time frame of the Auto-Log out feature for security will be helpful.
  • I think there is some room in the automation part that can be improved.
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  • One area of improvement for Wave would be combining the various mobile applications into one app.
  • Another room for improvement would be on the dashboard level. It would be great if they could use more bar graphs and get away from pie charts for things like expenses.
  • Some of the other areas from improvement have been addressed by recent updates so I am excited to see what else Wave brings out.
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Likelihood to Renew
Sage Intacct continues to well-satisfy our needs and is an easy-to-use product. Service reliability has been excellent. The ability to integrate Sage Intacct with best-in-class companion products that handle expense reporting, budgeting, etc... makes Sage Intacct an excellent value. We continue to be extremely well-satisfied with the results and performance of our experience using Sage Intacct.
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Easy to use for clients with no accounting background and the price is right.
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Usability
The ease of use as a seasoned user is wonderful; however, new users struggle to adapt to the program efficiently. Better training videos--all in one location--would be beneficial. The use of a "sandbox" environment is a great tool for new employees or for the fiscal department to test certain journal entries or other transactions to verify accuracy of data.
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Wave [Accounting] is very simple and easy to use. Minimal training was required for all our users as the interface is very user-friendly, especially for small businesses looking to use something to track their financial data, Invoice and make payments. I loved using Wave [Accounting]. It lookes professional and [has] all the features we were looking for.
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Reliability and Availability
There has only been one occurrence where Sage Intacct was not available to me, however I had already been working a number of hours trying to get a project completed. It honestly allowed me to step back and take a much needed break.
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WAVE is always available when we need it ! Peter
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Performance
As fas as integration is concerned I don't feel this slows Sage Intacct down at all. However, sometimes I do feel it takes some larger reports more time to load due to all the detail. As well as, I "move very fast" in my motions so sometimes I double click on fuctions too quickly and the system seems to think that I have a duplicate request.
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Wave does tend to slow down when filtering your transactions screen especially by date. This is more of an issue when trying to trouble shoot certain transactions or clean-up a set of books.
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Support Rating
Only a few times have we had to reach out to support, and every time we did, we received a relatively quick response and a solution was found fairly quickly. Only once was there an issue that took longer than a week to resolve, but it still did eventually get solved.
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I've only had to reach out to support once and they were quick to respond and offered valuable insight to resolve my issue quickly. The team is knowledgeable and if the person you're dealing with doesn't have an answer for you, they get back to you quickly with an answer. It was clear that the support team is genuinely concerned about users making the most of the software.
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In-Person Training
I have taken in person training classes at several of the annual Sage Intacct user conferences. It is very interactive and the trainers are very easy to follow and understand. They are great at getting everyone in the class involved. They also make sure everyone has learned to task before moving to a new one.
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No answers on this topic
Online Training
The free training is very minimal. For what we pay for the service, I would like more training. We end up training new users in-house because the provided free training is not nearly comprehensive enough. That being said, the training provided, for the material covered, was adequate and relevant for the given topics.
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easy to use and east to train on ! Our WAVE clients enjoy the ease of use
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Implementation Rating
I would not use a thrid party administrator to implement your system, especially if you are going to be modifying the system at all. Use Intacct implementors as they will be able to better support you on any issues that come up after you go live.
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No answers on this topic
Alternatives Considered
As a CPA in public accounting, I was exposed to many systems. I was in on the ground floor with the implementation of NetSuite for a client; it was clunky, the reporting was ugly, and it wasn’t user friendly. Sage Intacct is a great option for mid-size organizations who have outgrown Quickbooks.
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Wave's price point was in line with what my company needed to manage basic accounting (payable and receivable accounts). It made it easy for me to issue monthly invoices to clients and track when invoices were paid. The software makes these tasks easy to manage and inputting data for accurate accounting and invoicing is a breeze. It really offers a lot of flexibility, so you can use the software the way you need it.
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Scalability
There is so much that we have yet to learn with and about Sage Intacct, I am excited for the future.
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Once they out grow what is ability to move up to a more robust system?
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Return on Investment
  • Sage Intacct has made a very positive impact to our business objectives; it has provided strong ROI through automation features that reduce manual data input and associated risk of error, enhancing accuracy and operational efficiency.
  • It empowers us to make data-driven decisions that further refine our strategic plan by bettering the process of financial close with real-time and detailed reporting.
  • This also extends to multi-entity management, which eased consolidation and thus supported growth and scaling. This feature-rich software finally serves to drive productivity further and facilitate resource usage.
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  • Wave has enabled our accounts payable to maintain a 99% closure rate by leveraging auto reminders through the email system.
  • Our quote to invoice process is a single click, saving time and effort. Even minor changes during that transition occur simply and easily.
  • Aside from payments, Wave has been free for our usage. Our bottom line is better because we're not investing in software but instead embracing an entire ecosystem.
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ScreenShots

Sage Intacct Screenshots

Screenshot of Accounts Receivable: Automate accounts receivable processes.Screenshot of Revenue Recognition: Automated and compliant revenue recognition with complete support for ASC 606 and IFRS 15.Screenshot of Real-Time Reporting: Real-time reporting with up-to-minute financials across multiple business dimensions. Show only the metrics that matter based on the user viewing the dashboard.Screenshot of the times and expense management dashboard, which is customized to reflect the user's role, displaying relevant information that aligns with their position, thereby presenting each individual with the data most pertinent to their responsibilities.Screenshot of the detailed company metrics used to forecast business growth.Screenshot of the order management workflows, which are automated to accelerate quote-to-cash sales