Wave Accounting Information Reviews & Insights

Score8.2 out of 10

179 Reviews and Ratings

Community insights

TrustRadius Insights for Wave Accounting are summaries of user sentiment data from TrustRadius reviews and, when necessary, third party data sources.

Pros

Comprehensive and Versatile Software: Users have found Wave Accounting to be a comprehensive and versatile solution for bookkeeping and budgeting. It has been praised for its ability to effortlessly track and categorize financial transactions, streamline invoice creation without redundant data entry, as well as generate various financial reports.

Cloud-based Accessibility: The cloud-based nature of Wave Accounting is highly appreciated by users, providing them with easy accessibility from any computer while eliminating concerns about computer glitches or server problems. This feature has been mentioned by numerous reviewers.

Powerful Invoicing Feature: Users have lauded the invoicing feature in Wave Accounting for its power and user-friendliness. They can easily create and send invoices, keep track of due dates, and mark off paid invoices. The software also provides automatic invoice numbering, facilitating quick reference to different invoices.

Wave Accounting Reviews

10 Reviews

InformationComputer Software4Computer Networking1Broadcast Media2Online Media1Media Production1Writing & Editing1

Awesome and easy-to-use software that unfortunately you can't use if you hire a good bookkeeper

Rating: 1 out of 10

Incentivized

August 29, 2022

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

As a somewhat accounting-illiterate owner of a small business, Wave has been easier to use than Quickbooks. It's made my finances accessible and easy to understand. Also the invoices that go out, along with the automatic reminders, look very professional. Best of all for a micro-business like mine, it's free!
The very consequential difficulty has come in finding bookkeepers or accountants who will use Wave. This has frankly led me to hire a sub-par bookkeeper who did such a poor job that someone else had to straighten things out. This is because all the talented bookkeepers wouldn't touch Wave. They complain that it's not properly set up for what they normally do, and that they have to transfer all the numbers from Wave to Quickbooks, anyway, which isn't worth their time.

Pros

Invoices with automatic reminders
If you're willing to manually issue payroll, it's by far the cheapest payroll service
Transactions easily categorized

Cons

Bookkeepers won't use it, making it only useful for small business owners who do their own books
Customer service is pleasant, but limited (understandable since it's a free service)

Likelihood to Recommend

Verified User

Professional (Media Production company, 1-10 employees)

Vetted Review

2 years of experience

Avoid Waveapps if you are a non-profit

Rating: 1 out of 10

Incentivized

December 3, 2020

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Used by a small chamber of commerce to handle credit card payments, payroll, and bookkeeping. Has a nice appearance but when we try to reconcile with our bank statement it gets bad. Usually, there are three Wave transactions for every bank transaction. Sometimes there are duplicates. I read their documentation, watched many videos, and sent emails. The answer was the same: either delete or merge transactions. I didn't know which to delete or which to merge. I finally paid $199 for an advisor to show me what to do. I had an associate at the Zoom meeting. The advisor talked way too fast, and after asking several times to slow down, he did not. He then started to say delete that or merge those two. I didn't understand why, and after over 30 minutes, he seemed perplexed by what he was seeing. I asked my associate if she was getting anything out of this and, like me, it was a "No." I asked to stop the session and then asked for a refund. They refused.

Pros

Reconciliation is very difficult with multiple Wave transactions that need to be deleted or merged before it can be matched to a bank transaction.
Payroll worked fine for us but took several days to get it set up. We have switched to another bookkeeping system and another payroll system. Canceling with Wave took several days and they charge $6 for something even though the month was paid for in advance.
Credit card processing is nice and worked fine for us.

Cons

Reconciliation is horrible. A user does not need to see multiple Wave transactions. I should see one Wave and one Bank transaction and if I think they are the same check a box and be done with it.
No phone number to call and no chat line so all help is via email. Frequently the Wave person says to read the documentation and provides a link. I already did that and need help, not a mechanical response. On occasion, I did get a helpful and specific response but that was rare.
Would like to have the ability to see each payroll by person pay stub and not just a summary by quarter.

Likelihood to Recommend

Spent almost 100 hours trying to get Waveapp to provide accurate reports. I am a graduated MBA (many decades ago) and watched videos and read literature with no success in finding the root cause of the issues we experienced. Finally paid $199 for their advisor. A little past halfway through their 60-minute Zoom meeting, I stopped it. The advisor didn't know why we had the issues we had and said delete that and merge this, etc. Apparently, you need to understand how their software works in the background and spend many hours trying to reconcile your bank statements. Switched to another product and imported my bank statements. Within 30 minutes the reconciliation was complete.

Harry Abell

Treasurer in Finance and Accounting at Chamber of Coommerce (Computer Networking, 1-10 employees)

Vetted Review

1 year of experience

Very Affordable Accounting Software

Rating: 7 out of 10

Incentivized

January 29, 2020

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

The cool thing about Wave Accounting is that there is no cost to use their accounting software. Wave Accounting is very similar to QuickBooks Online without the monthly cost. Wave Accounting is an online accounting software that is pretty easy to use. If you have a basic accounting understanding then it should be no problem for you to set up your company and start using this software to manage your business finances. You can link all of your bank accounts to this including credit cards so that it will import all of your transactions and all you have to do is assign the transactions to the correct account. This accounting software is great because it is completely online which means that you can access it anywhere you have a laptop and the internet.

Pros

Very affordable.
Easy to use!

Cons

Connection issues with bank accounts and credit card accounts
Learning curve to understanding the accounting software is large.

Likelihood to Recommend

If cost is a major factor in selecting accounting software, then I recommend that you go with Wave Accounting because it is very affordable. However, because it is very affordable you do sacrifice some of the tools that other online accounting softwares offer like improved bank account connections and user-friendliness. Wave Accounting is a great accounting software to start using because it is very affordable and a basic accounting software. Another cool thing about Wave Accounting is that it is completely online which means that you can access it anywhere you have internet and that your data is saved in the cloud. No more worrying about your computer crashing and losing all of your accounting data.

JaCoby Marston, CPA

Chief Financial Officer » Finance Management | Accounting | Taxation | Cost Controls in Finance and Accounting at Trust Brands (Computer Software, 11-50 employees)

Vetted Review

2 years of experience

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Wave has helped me grow my business by saving me time and helping my invoices get paid

Rating: 10 out of 10

Incentivized

December 4, 2019

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Wave Accounting helps me keep track of my invoices and process payments from my customers. I don't have a large amount of time to spend, and Wave makes it very easy for me to do this. My customers can keep track of the invoices and easily pay online. It just works.

Pros

Accept payments online.
Easy invoice creation.
Overall accounting.

Cons

More integration options.
More options in mobile app.

Likelihood to Recommend

I use Wave Accounting for my audio engineering and videography business. I have recommended this product to all of my colleagues, and they enjoy using it as well. It makes it easy to keep track of, send, and process payment for invoices.

Jared Hammond

Audio Engineer at Hammond Production (Broadcast Media, 1-10 employees)

Vetted Review

3 years of experience

View profile

Need ACH or B2B? Re-evaluate using Wave, it may not be the best option.

Rating: 5 out of 10

Incentivized

October 3, 2019

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We are using it as company-wide after QuickBooks upped their pricing. We started with Wave Accounting 3 years ago but transitioned to QuickBooks for a period of time. Then, as I mentioned, once QuickBooks upped pricing we decided to move back to Wave. Upon returning, we were pleasantly surprised by the updates made in the time we were away, recurring invoicing being one of them. The look and feel of it changed, and it looked much better than before.

Pros

Accounting is #1 of what they do. It does appear they want to compete and take market share from QuickBooks.
Simple invoicing and estimations.
Automatic follow up on invoices is great.

Cons

Support. They have no phone support. All of it is done via chat and you tend to get canned answers.
ACH Processing Time. 7+ business days to process an ACH is not very manageable for a business. As a former banker, they say the problem is with your bank or the client's bank - however, that's not true. They have the money from an ACH within 1 business day.

Likelihood to Recommend

Wave Accounting is best for companies not looking to do ACH transactions. The credit card payments come in much quicker, as do lower ACH transactions that they "lightspeed" qualify (their term). Credit card payments online are in 2 business days.
Wave Accounting is less appropriate if you want to speak with someone about an issue. Chat is good but very impersonal and sometimes condescending.

Marc Garcia

President in Corporate at Nueva Vida Media LLC (Broadcast Media, 11-50 employees)

Vetted Review

3 years of experience

View profile

A wave of approval for Wave

Rating: 10 out of 10

Incentivized

November 7, 2018

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Wave Accounting is used as the central accounting package for the business. All income and expenses are synchronized from various bank and card accounts. Both one-off and recurring invoices are issued through Wave. Payments via credit card or back transfers are accepted through Wave. Cash low is monitored on the dashboard. Year-end reports are used for income tax calculation.

Pros

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.

Cons

My biggest request is that they add a way to link invoice payments with the bank deposits . When a payment is made through Wave, they show the income and it is marked with the invoice number, but when they transfer the money into the bank, the credit is not tied to the invoice(s). You have to figure out by hand and delete the transaction from the bank to prevent getting double credit on it
It would be good to have a field for CC email on each customer. Currently you have to add any CC when sending.
On the Transactions view, a few more search options would be helpful.

Likelihood to Recommend

I have recommended it to many small businesses because first off, it works. Setup and daily use it is easy. There is no cost outside of any payment transaction processing fees. You can probably find lower fees, but they are not out of line with other services.

Verified User

C-Level Executive in Corporate (Computer Software company, 1-10 employees)

Vetted Review

4 years of experience

Review: Wave

Rating: 10 out of 10

Incentivized

July 5, 2018

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Wave is responsible for handling my company's bookkeeping, tracking estimates and invoices, and budgeting. Wave handles essentially everything related to finances for my business.

Pros

Wave can create invoices, send invoices to clients, and notify me once an invoice has been received. It also tracks when invoices are due and allows me to check paid invoices off my list. It's extremely helpful when my previous methods of tracking invoices was updating an excel sheet. A simple feature included with invoicing is the software keeping track of what number invoice I'm currently on, so it's quick to reference different invoices.
Bookkeeping with Wave is fairly intuitive. You can connect any of your desired bank accounts to Wave and import your list of transactions. Wave keeps a database of clients, and though it means creating entries for each client (specifically recurring ones) you can tag clients onto income in the bank account. You can also create specific line items for budgets and tag transactions under whatever budget item you wish. There are many ways to use bookkeeping and budgeting with Wave and I've been very pleased to keep everything categorized under one software rather than using multiple applications.
Other features I've not used extensively yet that Wave includes are: estimates, cash flow reports, payroll, tax charts, etc. I'll be using estimates and reporting later this year, but I'm still impressed with how much versatility the software allows for.

Cons

The only disappointment I've had with using Wave so far is how delayed transactions can be with the bank connection. This is likely because of how slow the turnaround can be for check deposits and other transactions to register in the bank (24 hours or more) but it means I need to reference my bank account's website instead of Wave if I have checks arriving on payroll day.

Likelihood to Recommend

Wave seems like an excellent choice for managing bookkeeping and invoices for a small business like my own. I imagine as a business outgrows Wave, you will need to hire a bookkeeper and other financial planners anyway. For me, this would be quite a ways down the road, but for basic tasks, Wave has sped up my financial workflow significantly. I'm so impressed by what Wave accomplishes. It's everything I need in a financial software. Very impressed.

Chris Hecox

Business Owner in Marketing at Lucky Whisker LLC (Online Media, 1-10 employees)

Vetted Review

1 year of experience

View profile

'WAVE' Hello to Managing Your Business

Rating: 10 out of 10

Incentivized

December 8, 2017

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

As an online freelancer, I need to be able to bill clients from all over the world. Wave allows me to create my own customized invoice for that, and break down the billing for each individual task. I recently held double positions within a company and I was able to bill for each department on one invoice. It allows me to create, edit, approve, and send invoices, even to send reminders to pay. Once paid I can then record the payment and send a receipt to the client for their records. This is very important as a freelancer because not everyone pays on the same schedule and keeping track of payments could be a hassle otherwise.

Pros

Separates tasks by name for billing
Reminders of invoices coming due and notices of any overdue
Calculates payment amount due depending on the information you previously set up
Saves time
Makes freelancing financials painless

Cons

I've not run into anything as of yet I'd like to see improved or added

Likelihood to Recommend

Well suited for those with just one, or several clients, pay rates, tasks or projects. The software is perfect for those who work for themselves and I can't think of any situation that it would not be suitable for. Freelancers in particular though would be able to put Wave to the best use.

Torrey Holman

Independent Contractor/Freelancer at Self Employed (Writing and Editing, 1-10 employees)

Vetted Review

4 years of experience

View profile

Online accounting platform making waves.

Rating: 10 out of 10

Incentivized

December 7, 2017

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Wave is an easy to use platform. We use it mainly for invoicing and tracking accounts payable throughout the company. When we started we looked for a system that was easy to implement, didn't require tons of training and looked/acted the part, which it does. We continue to use the platform on a daily basis. It has done a great job in adding more services.

Pros

Invoicing is easy.
Easy customization of the platform.
Ability to track your customer's behaviors.

Cons

At times the platform is slow loading upon login.
Wishing the login button was more prominent over the "sign up" button. I often click on the sign up button to log in.
We originally added our cc processor to invoicing and have changed provider but have not been able to update the information and have therefore not used the feature.

Likelihood to Recommend

Since the software is free to use, easy to start with and fairly customizable, it makes great sense for small businesses, start-ups and other organizations that do not have a large budget for accounting software, or capacity for training. Wave is so easy to start with, and the fact that it is free to use, makes it ideal for those scenarios.

Al Wynant

Co-Founder and CEO in Corporate at Eventinterface (Computer Software, 11-50 employees)

Vetted Review

2 years of experience

Wave Accounting App - Free, easy cloud-based accounting

Rating: 9 out of 10

Incentivized

January 16, 2017

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Wave is used to manage our quotes and invoicing for project work.

Pros

Simple to use.
Cloud based.
Works on mobile via a web browser.
They also have an app for invoicing.

Cons

It's an ad supported platform, [with] Google AdSense within the app. Other than that, fairly clean.

Likelihood to Recommend

[Accounting by Wave is well suited for] Quick creation of invoices. [Also to] Send out overdue reminders, which can be automated.

Marc Palud

Chamber Partner Relationship Manager in Sales at Outstand Chamber Partner Program (Computer Software, 11-50 employees)

Vetted Review

1 year of experience

View profile

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Avoid Waveapps if you are a non-profit

Rating: 1 out of 10

Incentivized

December 3, 2020

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Pros

Reconciliation is very difficult with multiple Wave transactions that need to be deleted or merged before it can be matched to a bank transaction.
Payroll worked fine for us but took several days to get it set up. We have switched to another bookkeeping system and another payroll system. Canceling with Wave took several days and they charge $6 for something even though the month was paid for in advance.
Credit card processing is nice and worked fine for us.

Cons

Reconciliation is horrible. A user does not need to see multiple Wave transactions. I should see one Wave and one Bank transaction and if I think they are the same check a box and be done with it.
No phone number to call and no chat line so all help is via email. Frequently the Wave person says to read the documentation and provides a link. I already did that and need help, not a mechanical response. On occasion, I did get a helpful and specific response but that was rare.
Would like to have the ability to see each payroll by person pay stub and not just a summary by quarter.

Likelihood to Recommend

Harry Abell

Treasurer in Finance and Accounting at Chamber of Coommerce (Computer Networking, 1-10 employees)

Vetted Review

1 year of experience