Powerful Free Accounting and Invoicing for Small Businesses
December 15, 2018
Powerful Free Accounting and Invoicing for Small Businesses
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Overall Satisfaction with Accounting by Wave
As a small business owner (founder, principal and independent contractor) with clients across the country, I quickly discovered that I needed a solution to manage my invoicing, cash flow and expenses for the business. Spreadsheets are fine, but I needed something professional but lightweight. I tried a few other solutions, but once I found Wave I was hooked. I've been using it for years, it's my go-to solution, and they keep adding features that make it better. I use it for estimates, invoicing, and bookkeeping.
Pros
- Invoices are so easy to execute. Whether they are one-off or recurring, fixed or variable, single item or multiple line entries, they come out looking professional, polished and they get sent without any fuss. Put your client's info on them, add your logo, describe the services, add notes, set due dates, etc. all without cracking an abacus.
- It's a little thing but I love how the estimates feature integrates with Invoices. You start by making an estimate for a client, with a defined expiry date. Once they accept, you can convert that estimate immediately into an Invoice and set it up to send.
- Built-in payment processing is great. I don't have to worry about Paypal or Stripe or anything, Wave just handles my client's credit cards so I don't have to do a thing. They even have recurring billing for my retainer clients!
Cons
- 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.
- I can't mark down a specific ROI, because Wave doesn't have a cost the way I use it. But compared to QuickBooks Online or similar software I'd put Wave at least on par if not better for my needs, which means I am getting a huge return for no cost.
For the pricing arrangement, the ease of use and the user-friendliness of the app, Wave crushes QuickBooks Online and Zoho Books. FreshBooks was a little bit closer as the two are more of an apples-to-apples comparison, but FreshBooks doesn't offer a non-paid option and they cap the number of customers you can have, which caused me to go with Wave. I've never regretted my decision.
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