Wave Accounting, a free online accounting software to help small businesses manage their finances, has made a request of its users: throw away your shoebox. What they are talking about is that small businesses and consultants, such as myself, often keep receipts in a box and then take them out at tax time and attempt to enter them manually into a spreadsheet or accounting program. I don’t use a box, but I do use a large envelope so I understand what they are saying. Nevertheless, Wave Accounting application is asking you to connect Wave to your bank or credit card account and let them automatically track all of your purchases and receivables so you don’t have to key them in every time you purchase office supplies or take a client to lunch.
Imagine if accounting was easy? That is what Wave Accounting is trying to do – make the process less arduous and complex so you have more time to attend to your business.
And the good news, as I mentioned above, the solution works very well and it’s free. As Wave Accounting says on its website, “It’s not “freeish” it’s FREE.”
What Does It Look Like?
Wave Accounting has a simple interface that is easy to follow. The ribbon at the top of your screen is short and to the point. As you navigate through each of the tabs, you will find that understanding what to do to get started is intuitive. They have a very complete Help section that will guide you if you run into any problems.
- Imported Transactions
- Income
- Expenses
- Reports
- Settings
- Business Savings
Features
Settings:
Visit Settings once you sign up. Settings is where you add in other users from your company, customers, vendors, and journal transactions. This will help once you start to use some of the other features like its invoicing tools – you only need to add in the customer information once and then every time you submit an invoice, you can access the customer contact easily.
Imported Transactions:
This tab allows you to connect Wave Accounting to your bank or credit card account. This has become a popular feature in many accounting solutions and in Wave Accounting the process is pretty seamless and I should mention, secure. In addition, you can upload bank statements and review archived transactions and transfers. The purpose is to have Wave Accounting automatically track all of your transactions so you don’t have to manually input the data.
Income, Expenses and Reports:
Income is where you can add in your incoming monies as well as manage the invoicing process. Wave Accounting will actually help you with your entire invoicing process and help you track all of your receivables. Now if you are connected to your bank account, your income will automatically show up as well which will make it easier to manage.
Likewise Expenses is where your outgoing transactions will show up. They will appear automatically once you connect Wave with a bank account or credit cards and then you can categorize them by using the Imported Transaction tab. That said, you can also enter expenses manually — and the process is pretty simple – just need to click onto Enter Bill. However, before you do so, you will need to take a trip over to the settings tab and input your vendors. Once you do, you can click on Enter Bill and there will be a drop-down menu of all your vendors.
Like many solutions, Reports are crucial. This is especially important for sending your records to an accountant. Many accountants will charge money for inputting expenses and income – but if that is already complete – you might find yourself saving a lot of money. Wave Accounting offers various Reports such as Income by Customer, Income Statements, Balance Sheets, Sales Tax and more.
Business Savings:
This is a section where Wave offers you several “deals” on various small business products such as computers, website tools, web hosting tools, e-commerce solutions and more. This is a pretty handy-dandy section you will want to peruse.
Is it for you?
Very few people jump for joy at the thought of purchasing an accounting application whether it is offered in a box or via the cloud (a.k.a. online). Never-the-less if you are small business or a freelancer, having a simple solution like Wave Accounting will keep you in good stead. If your business tends to be rather complicated, there are more robust solutions out there – but if your finances are fairly straight forward –you won’t go wrong giving Wave Accounting a try. It contains all the features you need in terms of account receivables, expenses, reporting, invoicing tools and more. What it doesn’t have that others do, are reports for tax especially if you are in the US and are filing Schedule C. But no matter, once you get all of your transactions logged in you can shoot a report off to your accountant and let him or her handle it. And the best part, you can’t beat the price!
Ratings: ease of use 5/5, features 3.5/5, value 5/5 and ease of deployment 5/5
Our Verdict
Pros Cons None none
Rating
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