Small Business Accounting Software Start for Free
This option is great for business owners who are new to accounting or want to outsource bookkeeping and/or tax filing. There are several additional Wave products that you can purchase for your business. Wave Payroll has two options ranging from $20 – $40/month + $6/employee or contractor. Tax service payroll is available in 14 states, while self-service payroll is available in the remaining 36 states.
Take control of tax season
This can help you save time and make financial decisions quickly. Wave is inexpensive cloud-based accounting software that allows you to manage your bookkeeping, invoicing, and payment processes in one place. It allows you to create and send unlimited bills and invoices, manage invoices on the go with Wave’s mobile app, accept online payments, and generate financial reports among others. We also ensure that the software offers most standard accounting features and reports, awarding higher rankings to those that provide advanced services, like tax filing. Wave is designed specifically for small business owners to use, no matter what kind of bookkeeping background they come from.
Although Wave’s paid plan offers additional features, it’s still missing some more advanced capabilities, like built-in inventory tracking and audit trails, that growing businesses might need. If you’re interested in using payroll software, you can start a free 30-day trial when you sign up for Wave. However, there are a few features the software is still lacking. There’s no project management and limited time tracking, which rules the software out for a lot of businesses. Some automations are also only available on Wave’s paid plan. If your business needs these features or automations, check out these top Wave alternatives to fully explore your accounting software options.
Accounting Software Review Methodology
Zoho Books offers a robust free plan, along with a range of paid plans that feature workflow automation. After providing a few basic details about your business — name, type, currency you use, address — you’ll have instant access to your account. Includes tools that help automate the reconciliation process and auto-categorizes transactions for you in the Pro plan, but you can’t set up your own bank rules; no global search function. They get the flexibility of paying you via credit card, bank payment, and Apple Pay; you get a reputation as a polished professional.
- However, you can create customized estimates for project bids, but then there is no way to automatically compare actual costs to the estimate.
- With the higher-tier QuickBooks plans, you have access to inventory management, billable expenses and project profitability tools, none of which are offered with Wave.
- This isn’t necessarily a deal-breaker, but it might require a bit more bookkeeping work.
- This takes into account customer management, revenue recognition, invoice management, and collections.
- There’s no project management and limited time tracking, which rules the software out for a lot of businesses.
Bank payments(ACH/EFT)
With the paid version, you can connect your bank account to Wave and upload bank statements to synchronize your transactions. However, Wave’s reconciliation understanding operating margin feature is not as functional as those in other software like QuickBooks Online—which is partly why Wave took a hit in this category. As seen in the chart above, Wave beats QuickBooks Online and Zoho Books in pricing and ease of use. However, Wave’s two competitors have notable advantages in terms of features, like banking, A/P and A/R management, inventory, and project accounting. Wave Accounting can be a great option if you run a very small service-based business or don’t need more advanced features that alternatives might offer. For small businesses any larger than that, however, Wave is limited.
Processing fees
See invoice summaries, tap into business reports, receive payment notifications and more using our highly-rated, free mobile app, available on iOS and Android. Get your money faster when you offer customers the ability to pay directly from your invoices, starting at 2.9% + 60¢ per card transaction. See pending and completed payments from project-based and quarterly clients in one dashboard to identify revenue ebbs and flows and plan accordingly. Track customer views and invoice payments in the Wave dashboard so you always know where you stand with sellers, property managers, buyers and renters. Wave’s bookkeeping software is built for small business owners. Be your own bookkeeper, thanks to Wave’s automated features, low cost, and simple interface.
Create customizable invoices from templates with easy drag-and-drop editing. Wave has helped over 2 million North American small business owners take control of their finances. Wave has helped over 2 million small business owners in the US and Canada take control of their finances.
Some of the links on our site are from our partners who compensate us. The vendors that appear on this list were chosen by subject matter experts on the basis of product quality, wide usage and availability, and positive reputation. Sign up to receive more well-researched small business articles and topics in your inbox, personalized for you. Wave keeps up to date records so you’ll always have the info you need for filing – or sharing with your accountant. Automate the most tedious parts of bookkeeping and get more time for what you love. It’s been one of the best decisions I’ve made when it comes to making sure my accounting is on point.