Wave Accounting

Vorteile

Wave is ideal for freelancers. Set up is really simple and the interface is user-friendly. I have zero background in financial matters, and with Wave that's totally fine.

The price is also right. There's no subscription or hidden fees, they just take a perfectly reasonable percentage from invoice payments. I asked a financial advisor friend of mine before signing up, and she was pleasantly surprised by the low rates, and told me to go for it. I've been using Wave for over 3 years, and I have never once been hit with a fee outside of the basic rates.

Wave also provides a host of reporting and tracking tools in this basic account. They didn't influence my decision to sign up, but they've proven to be very useful.

And finally a small but really helpful feature, especially if you're a freelancer just starting out: immediate money transfers. Once someone pays your invoice, the money is in Wave, and takes 2-3 days to transfer. For 1% more payment, you can transfer money within minutes. For the cash-strapped freelancer, that can be mana from heaven.

Nachteile

There are no major cons that I can think of. One issue I have is mostly my fault: When I first started using Wave I didn't know what I was doing, and I ended up creating a whole bunch of client and work type records unnecessarily. It would be nice if there were some more in-your-face tutorials, maybe some hover tips for new users. But the messiness is mainly from me leaping in before looking.

In Betracht gezogene Alternativen

Quickbooks Online und Zoho Expense

Gründe für den Wechsel zu Wave Accounting

It was the cheapest option, and the most user-friendly looking. I have no background in finance and didn't want complex features built for accountants - Wave has those features, but only if you want them.

Vorteile

Simple and to the point. It does what it needs to do but doesn't have tons of options for doing advanced things. For us, this is great as we don't need all that power. Just simple easy to use accounting software.

Nachteile

Would have preferred the expenses (called bills inside Wave) would allow you to add the payment to them at the time of entry.

In Betracht gezogene Alternativen

Quickbooks Online

Warum Wave Accounting gewählt wurde

Months fee on Freshbooks was getting too high

Gründe für den Wechsel zu Wave Accounting

Did everything Freshbooks did, just without the monthly fee.

Vorteile

Ease of use in invoicing and setting up customer database

Nachteile

When I attempted to collect payments through wave, I was asked to complete a questionnaire AFTER they allowed me to submit payment requests and routing information to my bank and received a payment from a customer. I was then told that the account was not approved for receiving payments and my money was to be held for 65 days before it would be released back to the payor. There seems to only be one point of contact and they could not divulge why my application was denied, and wouldn't help expedite the return of funds. This only seems to be that they want to take advantage of holding my money and earning interest on it. the amount in this instance is under $10,000, but if they are doing this to multiple subscribers, they are obviously taking advantage of the situation and cleaning up.

Vorteile

Wave is super simple to use. It's well laid out, intuitive and easy to use. I've been using Wave for years after switching from Freshbooks.

Nachteile

Occasionally, Wave has issues sending invoices to Gmail addresses. This is very surprising given how prevalent Gmail is and I would hope they'd sort this out.

In Betracht gezogene Alternativen

FreshBooks und Quickbooks Online

Warum Wave Accounting gewählt wurde

One of my customers turned me onto Wave. I wasn't necessarily looking to switch, but after checking them out it was an easy decision to make.

Zuvor genutzte Software

FreshBooks

Vorteile

I loved the cost - Free! I was using the free version to invoice my clients. It was easy to use and very professional looking on the client-end.

Nachteile

It lacked certain functionality that I needed for my business. I could not handle overpayments from my clients as a credit on their account to use for future invoices. When a new invoice was sent out, there was no way for the client to see if they had a previous invoice or balance outstanding.