Sage Accounting is online accounting software made to simplify life for small business owners, entrepreneurs, and freelancers by providing the functions needed to take care of daily business to-dos.
Users can create and send professional quotes and invoices, track income and expenses and know where the business' financials stand. Every Sage Business Cloud Accounting subscription includes unlimited access to support as well as automatic backups and product updates.
$19
per month
Wave Accounting
Score7.3 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.
$16
per month
Pricing
Sage Accounting
Wave Accounting
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
Starter
$0
Pro
$16
per month
Pro - billed annually
$170
per year
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Sage Accounting
Wave Accounting
Free Trial
Yes
No
Free/Freemium Version
No
Yes
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
No
No
Entry-level Setup Fee
No setup fee
No setup fee
Additional Details
Versions and pricing listed are for CA products. Versions available and pricing may vary by country.
* 2 months free to start, or free for 1 month to try, then $19/$43/$62 +tax/mo (tier depending). Offer valid for new customers only on monthly subscriptions of Sage Business Cloud Accounting. After the promotional period, the monthly subscription rate will renew at the then current rate. May not be combined with any other offers or discounts. To ensure continuous service the subscription plan is an automatically renewing plan. Subsequent months will automatically be billed to the same credit card each month on the anniversary date of purchase. Plans can be terminated at any time prior to the renewal data and not charged for renewal.
I find Sage Accounting a much more enjoyable experience over quickbooks, and it feels like a much more mature product over Wave Accounting. Sage Accounting has some aspects of the best of both worlds.
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. TR verified that a representative sample of customers was invited. More Info
Verified User
Chose Sage Accounting
FreshBooks is probably the most user friendly of the three, but it was limited at the time I was using it due to not having bank integration. I also found their price increases to be unjustified.
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
Verified User
Chose Sage Accounting
Sage Accounting is more intuitive and has more features than Wave. It's fit my needs a lot better but I think it costs more. I'm happy with my switch
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. TR verified that a representative sample of customers was invited. More Info
Verified User
Chose Sage Accounting
Wave offers free package which is good enough for small company like me.
Quickbook offers more customization, yet offers no after sale support.
Jobber is really expensive, even if with a corporate discount.
Company Cam offers more functionality that may suit our company better. …
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. TR verified that a representative sample of customers was invited. More Info
Managing Director in Finance and Accounting at The Busy Bookkeeper (Pty) Ltd (Accounting, 1-10 employees)
Chose Sage Accounting
I find that Wave can be slow and frustrating. It is also very limited and more geared for American and Canadian users. Regarding QuickBooks Online, I attempted the demo when shopping for a system. Sage Business Cloud is more widely used in South Africa so using QuickBooks Online…
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
President in Finance and Accounting at Peter Kupovics, CPA and Associates (Accounting, 1-10 employees)
Chose Sage Accounting
I like Sage better, being an accountant, the approach is accounting focused. Whereas Quickbooks tries to make the user experience easier, but messes up the accounting, its easy in Quickbooks to create accounts and post expense items for example to a balance sheet account. …
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
Managing Director in Finance and Accounting at The Busy Bookkeeper (Pty) Ltd (Accounting, 1-10 employees)
Chose Wave Accounting
As I stated previously, Wave is a free system. It serve you well as non-resident of USA/Canada for your basic bookkeeping needs, as a micro-business. If you are a resident of those countries, you will benefit immensely from the payroll function as well. If you are looking for a …
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
Sage Accounting seems appropriate for a small business that has basic accounting needs and is just starting from the beginning to set up its accounting software. It is less appropriate for businesses that have been using Sage 50, as Sage Accounting Standard does not successfully transfer important data from Sage 50.
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
Wave Accounting was used for a small practice without a lot of the accounting considerations a large company would have. For the price, you really can't beat what Wave offers out of the box. All of the basic tools for things like invoicing and expenses are all easy to use. End of year accounting is easy with exports of data.
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
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.
Sorting reports - I want to sort my projects by what has and has not been paid, and this is unavailable.
Print preview.
FONT SIZE: This should be an option directly available to increase screen font sizes. Also, report font adjustments are incredibly difficult.
Understanding all options and the performance the program can do, I would much prefer an in-person session or scheduled webinar because it is far too overwhelming to search forums/help centers. Just a useless vortex to get sucked into.
Updates are easier than they used to be, but there’s still a big communication barrier. E.g., I install updates and restart programs, and then the next day or two it tells me to restart again because there have been updates. I know, I installed them already! It’s frustrating.
Removing inactive vendors or clients - why is this so difficult? Can I not just delete and move to the next one? Every time I try it, it just defaults back to the top of the report… It’s fine for the first couple of letters in the alphabet, but that’s about all. Multi-select would be nice!
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
I know that credit card processing is a way for Wave to make money, but I really wish they offered ACH payment on Invoices.
I do cash-based accounting, which means I have to make little journal entries at the start and end of each year to get my books to balance because Wave wants to do everything differently. This should just be a setting to flip, whether you want cash-based or accrual-based.
They use Yodlee for bank connection, which doesn't play nice with 2FA. Pretty much every time I log in I have to re-enter credentials, get a code sent to me, reauthenticate, and know that I'm going to have to do it again next week. Not really on Wave, but wish they could get it together nonetheless.
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
Because we don't have time to migrate to a new system. So, we are kind of stuck with this system until our company grows or we are in a better financial position to afford the larger expense of moving to a new platform and doing what it should be doing in the first place.
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
I find Sage's usability very intuitive. Everything from data entry to high level reporting it easy to navigate. Some of the other accounting software programs I have used have not had adequate forms or menus to help navigate the program. Sage does a good job of balancing providing the proper forms without being overly difficult to understand or use
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
I am a professional bookkeeper and I have no problems using Wave and all of it's features. I can see that certain individuals who have no accounting knowledge might struggle with a few different features and entries, but that is why Wave has an emphasis in connecting users to Wave Pro's who will walk them through things
Sage has been always available when I want it. If there is any maintenance work to be done by the Sage team, you are told well in advance. Maintenance is generally carried out late at night or before the day begins for most of us. It continues to be the most reliable software I use.
The day-to-day performance is very good. Items such as transactions or reports load and process quickly. You never feel like you're waiting in Sage. I have never seen Sage Accounting affect the speed or performance of any integrated system. However, I do think when you are bringing very old files up to date the updates are slow but that'll be a rare occurrence and not reflective of the day-to-day usage.
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
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.
Sage Accounting are easy to contact and have knowledgeable and helpful staff. Whenever I've encountered a problem I've always been able to get assistance and guidance and it feels like the person at the end of the phone/screen knows the product well.
I never had to call Wave Support as we barely experienced any support-related problems on our side. However, I do know a few people that complained about Wave support. It would be nice as well, though if they could have more in your face tutorials for new users or how-to videos should we struggle to do something
Staff are always friendly, and patient, always work at a speed that suits you. You are never rushed, and In only a short time they seem to be able to help you make great strides. It has been a pleasure not a chore, learning how SAGE Accounting works and benefits me and the company.
I find the online training was very informative and they answered all my questions. I am also certified in Sage One and provided online training in the program which I have set up several people on and they love how it keeps them organized.
This was generally a very straightforward process. I have previously implemented other software which required considerable external support. I implemented Sage Accounting with only a minimal amount of reference to the Sage support desk. I was extremely pleased with the implementation process.
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. TR verified that a representative sample of customers was invited. More Info
I also like Quickbooks Desktop, however, they are forcing customers to switch to Quickbooks Online. I will be moving forward with SAGE in this case, unless there is a valid reason the client would like to use QBO instead. I have not used the version of SAGE where the client doesn't need to purchase the full version, themselves, in order to access their file so this is something that I may consider looking into, in the near future, for this reason.
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
Wave is FREE for most functions. Payment processing costs no matter where you go (as does payroll or taxes). Wave rises above tools like QuickBooks Online because they know that for our small firm, being nimble is the name of the game. We don't need exhaustive reporting and management like QB offers and we certainly don't want to pay for it
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
The pricing structure is fair and offers good value for money. The billing is done through their online system and you can access your bills at any time. Most contacts only require 30 days' notice, so no need to feel tied in, although I can't imagine why you would want to leave Sage.
You can use Sage in your company for various aspects/positions such as bookkeepers, invoicing clerks, accountant, purchasing etc. Everyone can have their own user login and permissions can be set that specific people can do specific jobs without being able to access other peoples progress or accounts of the company.
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
Sage has allowed us to be self-supporting and to perform full-cycle accounting up to the point of handing off to the accountant at year-end.
We are self-sustaining and do not need outside accounting assistance, such as an independent bookkeeper.
Sage has allowed us to save money at year's end, as we can do all the prep internally up until the handoff to the accountant, minimizing the hours he has to spend on our file.
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
