Wave Accounting Review

Introduction

Wave accounting is an accounting package with a difference - many of its features, that companies use day to day in their financial management, are offered for free. That’s great news for small businesses. Amazingly, the company’s product does not limit the number of users it allows before it does start charging fees. It offers many other features that small business owners will find extremely useful for staying on top of all the income and outgoings from a firm. For example, receipt scanning, double-entry bookkeeping, and expense tracking.

Price

Many of its accounting software and invoicing fees are completely free.

Key Feature

Offering a free version to customers with unlimited user access

Key features and prices

Wave Accounting differentiates itself from its competitors by offering a free software package that can help businesses run their financial affairs effectively. While it charges for an online payments service (which charges 1.4% + 20p for credit card processing on transactions for European issued cards, and 2.9% + 20p for non-European issued cards), its accounting software and the invoicing tool is free.

And, just because it's free, does not mean it is not of a high standard or limited in scope. Wave accounting actually offers many features that other accounting software packages charge for. For example, there is unlimited income and expense tracking as well as the tool which tracks sales tax on income and expenses. Users can collaborate with an unlimited number of partners or accountants to help generate financial statements for year end in no time. The double entry bookkeeping system is easy to use as is the tool which generates reports on overdue invoices or bills, cash flow data and profit and loss statements. The package also allows users to organise income and expenses into tax categories with ease. The result is that business owners can see how their business is performing immediately from the software’s dashboard.

The invoicing tool is also powerful. Users can invoice in any currency, which in our increasingly borderless world will become more and more important for a company’s ability to grow. Users can also generate and send estimates out quickly, which can then be turned into invoices automatically when they have been approved. Those invoices are easily personalised too so that they are true to a company’s branding.

Conclusion

Wave accounting, because it is free, is always worth a try, particularly for small business owners or sole traders. The tools it offers companies can help it manage its finances far more easily than one person can do on their own, only with a spreadsheet to help them. The technology is there with Wave, so it is a good option, especially if money is tight at a company in its start-up stages.

Some users may find that they will eventually grow beyond the scope of the free software, but many like that it is cloud based and the report generation an important and useful feature to have. The reports that the software can create, make analysing financial data far easier and, therefore puts a company owner in a better position to make fully informed decisions.

In short, Wave Accounting promises to take the pain and hassle out of accounting and invoicing - a necessary but often laborious process for so many small businesses without a dedicated accounts team.