Wave Reviews

Yes, there are more feature-rich software out there if you're willing to pay $20 a month, and yes, it is a little slow. But for a basic accounting needs, it really works, and it's free. I can't really understand other reviewers who gave it 1 star. I think it deserves better ratings than that.

Be aware! Let’s get straight to it. No polishing, no lies. Wave’s actual system is pretty good. If it “actually” worked… One sad truth about this company that you’ll notice right away is that their servers or hosting is worse than blogs were in 1980. It is slow, freezes and crashes all the time. Way too annoying to work with on a daily basis for a professional company. Bottom line: the system is unreliable. Moving along to the stuff that matters even more… Customer service, honesty and professionalism. Uum, try again. You will not find any of that in this company. They clearly have no clue what it means to run a professional service. Last week I processed two transactions. Both of them were more than 2 grand. Keep in mind that i’m a new startup that needs my money right away, or at least when promised. 2 days go by and no money. Okay…. here we go again. I email Wave asking what’s the deal with the money. I say “again” because I had the same thing with my first few small transactions. But then I thought it was only because I was a new customer so they had to confirm some details. (by details I mean force me to show them communications between me and my clients). That same day I get an email from the department that deals with the money saying in fancy words that they are withholding my money for security reasons until they can confirm some details. Again they ask for communications and authorizations. (who do they think they are?) I respond within 2 minutes with snapshots of communications and conversations straight from my client explaining who he is and that he authorized the payment. a day or two goes by and nothing. You can imagine how angry I feel about now. Projects are on hold, business stops, Wave is running me into the ground…. Of course there is no one to talk to until you sign up for the live chat at ($9 a month). So I sign up, because I cannot wait. Open a chat, explain to the woman really respectfully what is going on, she looks it up for 10 minutes and responds by saying that she sees my ticket (email) and that she will escalate it to the top… blah blah blah. So there I learn that live chat is basically if you have a question regarding the functions of the site, but it is basically useless regarding the things that really matter. MY MONEY! In short, you CANNOT contact anyone about it, you can only email. But emails, despite their promises may take 3 days get answered. So I send another email asking what’s going on and get a response that since I submitted 2 emails my ticket was moved back down to the bottom. (That wad their way of apologizing or exusing themselves). In that same email they don’t tell me that my snapshot isn’t sufficient or anything like that (even though it worked for the first 3 transactions), they tell me that they need to speak to my clients to confirm payments…. Really? …. wow, okay I respond within 2 minutes with two phone numbers. (this is Friday after 5pm) One of my clients get’s a phone call, confirms payment and they tell him that the money will be released “right away”. The second client get’s a phone call, but misses it. (He is still waiting for another phone call). And of course you cannot call them back, because they use fake phone numbers using local area codes. Well, guess what? The money from the first client that got the phone call from them was not released… and it’s Tuesday already. (almost a week from when I processed the transaction). Never heard anything back from them in past 3 days!! Conclusion: (aside from me being so frustrated, hardly able to contain myself) Well, firstly I would like to say that I switched to Quickbooks online right away. They are a professional company with lower rates and faster deposit times (ONE DAY!). And you can call them! The only reason I chose Wave over Square is because they had a good invoicing system. But i’ve used Square before and never had issues like this. What I mean is this: Why make an issue when there is none???? Wave makes security issues when there is none. I’m a legal, professional company in the United States. Why in the world would you pretend like there are security issues with my transactions if no one ever disputed or complained? There is no answer. Because if there was a valid answer, Square and Quickbooks would be the same concerned. Stop making issues where there are none. I would advise anyone reading this to go with Square or Quickbooks. You will end up being much happier. Unless you can afford these criminals withholding your money for as long as they like. So again: system: too slow, crashes and freezes. OH, and annoying advertisements. Support: only for functionality questions. Service: absolutely horrible and un professional. You choose. Thanks!

I'm two years into my business and for nearly the first year I used Wave. It's what I suggest to my clients who are looking for something cloud-based and easy to use. Yes, it is not perfect, but it's FREE. I currently use InvoiceASAP, but I'm strongly considering switching back to Wave after the first of the year. Why? The cost of one, but features are another. Nothing else free compares.

Well, if you are a startup and wanted to have accountant but at no cost with some world class security and autonomous transactions accounting. This is the app you need to have. Very well designed and made.

When you sign up with wave you get a 'Personal' set of accounts. You can add companies without limit. If you want to understand the full power of this app, you have to use the profile that comes with a company. The reports and chart of accounts you can set up for the personal account are very incomplete. I cannot really comment on customer support. I did email them for a couple of things, but managed to work out how to use the system before I got the response. There is a feature which allows a transaction to be 'moved' between companies. To be perfectly honest I have not fully understood how this works, but the couple of times I attempted to use it, it did not behave in a way that I expected.

..., but I need them to help me figure it out. I have a full-time salaried job as a copywriter and a few self-employment careers, like freelance writing, voice acting. I've always found doing my taxes to be a nightmare. I'd spend months stressing about it and trying to calculate income and expenses. Originally, I was adding up all my expenses with a calculator. When I discovered I could put things into Excel, it got a bit easier add numbers. And then about 4 or 5 years ago, I started using a new accountant, and he suggested Wave to me. I was excited to hear that it would important my bank and credit card statements, and that I could then quickly and easily categorize everything. I was sure this would save me so much time and stress. But I found Wave very hard to use. I wasn't sure how to create my own categories. I could never tell if my statements had been uploaded completely, and I would often wind up with duplicate transactions. And I still can't find a way to view the categories after I've allocated transactions to them. I tweeted to Wave a lot, and they were nice enough to send one their IT guys to sit with me in a coffee shop for a few hours. He watched as I tried to do things and he gave me help. He said this was useful to him, to see what people might be having trouble with. And, I figured I would then be ok. But I'm still having a lot of trouble. I'm not asking a lot. All I want to be able to do is import my bank statements and credit card statements, and categorize all the transactions. And being able to invoice people would be nice too. And it seems that his app has those features. But I still find it very complicated. I don't understand the categories. I can't find where the totals are. And lately, my mbna Mastercard has been saying it can't link to Wave. So tonight, I went in and started deleting all the transactions from 2014, hoping that I could start fresh and be sure that everything was imported correctly. But now I see that mbna won't give me the data files for before August (that's an mbna problem, not Wave) and I can't undelete what I deleted. And there's no way to get support without paying for it. But I don't want to pay until I'm confident the site can do the simple things I need it to do. Anyway, I'd love to support a local Toronto company. And I appreciate that someone from the company sat with me in person. And I see people reviewing positively, saying it makes a freelancers life easy. Someone even tweeted today that Wave makes doing accounting fun. But I just don't understand how people are able to use this site. If someone from the company, or one of the satisfied customers, could explain to me how to use this site properly, I'd love to be converted. But at this point, I fear I need to cut my loses and simplify my life by paying for some other software. I just want to be able to file my taxes and concentrate on my creative projects.

Have been using wave for about 6 months.So far since they have added the new payments options to receive credit card payments I have had numerous problems with my account. Ongoing for over a month the connections in my account have never worked properly. Since I wanted a faster response I opted for the 9.00 per month charge to have access to live chat. But that has proven to be of no use as I still have issues.Since starting with the new payment features my account has been disabled twice.Holding payments up for as much as a week. And you have to email back and forth for several days until the problem is resolved. Getting customer service on the phone is next to impossible.When we first started there was a phone number listed to call,I noticed recently it had been removed from the page as a way to contact.So email is a long drawn out process.Now they have blocked my payments account because there is a similar business in another state...very funny.I have a business lic,business bank account,website with MY business name .So why a flag.Not to mention I am listed on numerous other websites as well.And this has been going on for over a week and has yet to be straightened out.

What business doesn't write checks? Printing checks is not an option with Wave.

To all you non believers and sceptics, just stop it. I have been the IT industry for a long, long time and consulting in accounting apps for the last ten years. I have worked with and made numerous comparisons. And guess what, Wave is fantastic... Great for business beginners and advanced users. Compared to all the other cloud accounting choices it holds it's own. Why make your business accounting difficult, isn't running a business difficult enough? Wave is growing in leaps and bounds and continuing to add on more and more features. Let's face it, anyone can bad mouth any software out there can't they? Just get on with it and use it.

I first started recommending Wave to my clients when I first heard of them two years ago. I absolutely love the ease of use, simple design and fabulous customer service. The team is always answers my questions quickly. And as an accountant, their Pro Network is one of the most supportive communities for financial professionals. And it's FREE. Wave is leading the charge with software developers that are passionate about changing the antiquated accounting industry. For my clients, or prospects, who are new to business, Wave has been an absolute life saver.

Our cloud-based CPA firm has been with Wave since the beginning. We have hundreds of clients using Wave. Wave is absolutely EXCELLENT for small business owners and entrepreneurs. What a great platform to start and grow on as a business owner. Wave is also extremely accountant and CPA friendly; I would know, I am one. Shady accountants and consultants leaving bad reviews are doing so because they want you, the aspiring entrepreneur of the next generation, to roll into expensive software alternatives that the same accountant/consultant can up-charge on at the expense of the business owner; what a shame, I thought the world was a better place. There are some concerns about Cash vs. Accrual: Wave works strictly on the accrual basis of accounting which is THE best way to operate your business. Ask any true Accountant, cash basis is the quick and dirty way out. Accrual basis is THE best way to receive wonderful business intelligence from. Your are limited with Cash Basis reporting. Once again, I would know I'm a financial statement auditor for multi-billion dollar businesses. If you need a cash basis financials for tax reasons, well your Tax Accountant, if knowledgeable and half-way decent, can easily convert cash basis to accrual basis financials with a couple steps. Done! Let Wave do it's part, let your Pro do their part, and you can focus on growing an amazing business. So do yourself a favor, ignore the bad feedback on here, setup a Wave account for free, connect with a WavePro for free and start shaping the future.

I have been using Wave for nearly 3 years now and recommend to every small business owner. Not only is it a free cloud based solution, but also due to the following: - Fantastic billing feature integrated with Stripe - Recurring invoice option - Numerous Reports - Reports are easy to understand for the non-accountant - Filtering categories and descriptions is very easy and allows the user to update their books very quickly - Seamless integration for bank and credit card accounts

I came across Wave when I started my business almost 4 years ago now. Wave provided me with an accounting system to use for myself and to recommend to clients. My business has evolved over the years and Wave has too. I like Wave because of it's awesome support heroes and it's FREE!! How can you complain about free?? I will always use Wave and recommend it to clients.

I have had Wave for about 4 years. I like them fine until this year when I added a business credit card account as a linked account on a new company I set up. When you connect to the bank, Wave brings the credit card transactions in with debits as debits and credits as credits. You then show a transfer from your main to the credit card to show a payment. Fine. HOWEVER, if you need to import credit card transactions, as in bring in a batch of old ones that were present before you set up wave and need to have your entire year in there to do your taxes, wave brings an imported file (csv, etc) from the very same back, in exact opposite. The debits are credits and credits are debits! Now you're stuck with one portion of your transactions showing in one method, the other in another method, making your books a completely inaccurate mess! Wave wants to point the finger at the bank and has no solution for this, other than going in and manually deleting every line that is messed up, then manually adding in each line again as it should be! Wow. I'd be better off doing old school manual books. If you never intend on having a credit card account linked to Wave, then go ahead and use them. If, however, you think you might ever want to have a credit card account show in your books, save yourself now and look elsewhere!

Have been using Wave for over a year now and I will never go back.

Have been using Wave for around two years. Problems include lost data that had to be re-entered manually and numerous bank connection issues. I Feb 2014 they announced and initiated a new bank connection process. Since then my bank connections have not worked and the site won't allow me to set them up again. Each support request takes 5-7 business days to get a response. This problem caused me to have to file an IRS extension. Very unhappy.

I've been using Wave for 9 months and have been satisfied with the ease of use, but Wave does not off Cash basis accounting. Wave is supposedly designed for small businesses, most small businesses in the US use Cash Basis. All your invoices are shown as income as soon as they are generated, lots of fun with taxes. Additionally bank sync is inconsistent, invoicing customization is very limited, seem to miss the drop down menu concept in a lot of areas. "You get what you pay for", Free.

After months of trying Wave, we have to abandon it. It won't update our business bank accounts consistently, i.e. balances don't match despite the app displaying "okay" by the account. That's a deal killer. Too bad, because I really liked the service overall. But SAAS intended for commercial use can't behave this way; too much at risk for a business.

Free great basic software. Main problem for me is that the categories are not customizable so I cannot track expenses and income effectively. Seems like a simple fix to allow users to create their own categories.

Fantastic app that just keeps getting better. Customer service is first class - issues are dealt with professionally and quickly! Credit Card payments, although a little pricey, make accepting payments from customers extremely easy & efficient. Just need to add time tracking integration...

I've been using Wave for 2 years now, granted there was a hiccup last December, their customer support was more than responsive in solving the issues. All in all, this is by far the best sort of all in one solution I've found for accounting, invoicing, receipts, and payroll. All the core functions are completely free no limits, and the payroll is reliable and affordable (something like $4/employee + a $5 monthly fee). Some invoicing features are missing you can find in invoice specific applications, though the integration with my accounting makes up for it. I can even accept credit cards right on the invoice itself.

free but limited, a lot of issues in the past months.

Not happy to learn that Wave Accounting does not integrate to one of the Big 5 Canadian banks, CIBC (Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce). Luckily I have a RBC account and it can link to that...

So, Wave did an update in December 2012 which was promised to make it the best free accounting system on the market - It was a very poorly executed rollout. There had been clearly no user testing and worse of all they took away functionally that was there before, such as the ability to mark an invoice as 'sent' or a PDF version of an invoice that actually looked correct and added up. After two years of using Wave I'm leaving. It was good, but now they are only interested in developing new revenue streams for themselves and not correcting the errors.

Was VERY simple to integrate into my woodworking business. Since most if not all my transactions are electronic, categorizing my expenses has never been simpler. Thanks for eliminating my shoe box :)

This is a tool for small business only but it does exactly what I need without all the hassles. Just straight forward book keeping & invoicing. Keep it free please!

I've been using Wave Accounting (Wave Apps now) for almost 5 months now and I love it. I love the fact that it is free, its simple to use, and meets all of my needs. Give it a shot I'm sure you will like this app too

I run a consulting business and have always struggled with invoicing, accounting, tax forms etc... I signed up for Wave and quickly found that it solved all of my needs. It links with my bank accounts and credit cards, gives me professional invoicing and tracks all of my sales tax for free. Hopefully I will be expanding and can add in payroll. Definitely 5 out of 5.

Does what the rest do, just as nice, only it's free free free

Basically, Wave Accounting is a gratis web based application that accountants use to record transactions, to create invoices, and to their current financial position. But Wave has actually loads of other functionalities which surprised me when keeping in mind that we are talking about a free application. Once you managed to set up everything with your online banking (which was not very difficult) , Wave syncronized regularly. Even when you’re not online. Then when you come online it gives you a list of newly imported transactions. When setting up a new customer account you simply have to create a new product or service and type in the date and the invoice number. If you have an invoice you can have Wave send the customer a PDF copy which is very effective.

Wave is a great web-based accounting tool because it automates all the little tasks that used to consume so much of my time. The interface is pretty intuitive, I picked it up quickly. I especially like the reporting of Wave, it´s quick and includes all the data that business owners need to know on a regular basis. My team uses Wave now and I can see that we can avoid some of the unloved tasks.