FreshBooks vs Wave Accounting Comparison

Both Wave and FreshBooks have excellent invoice templates that are easy to customize and send to clients. Both accounting products let you accept payments within the invoice, set up automatic recurring invoices and send payment deadline reminders. Wave and FreshBooks handle the same basic bookkeeping tasks, from invoicing and billing to expense tracking and beyond. If this is what matters most to you in an accounting app and invoicing software, you’ll want to go with FreshBooks.

It’s the better option if you’re a service-based business or independent contractor that’s often working out of the office. You’ll be able to record the hours worked and assign them to clients. We’ve put together a straightforward comparison chart for FreshBooks vs Wave.

FreshBooks has excellent customer support, where users can seek help through email or talk with a representative via a chatbot. The best part here is that you have the option to talk to a real person over the phone. Some providers, such as QuickBooks Online, do the same, but you can’t initiate the call. With FreshBooks, you can dial the phone, so you can directly talk to an agent without having to submit a ticket first. It also has a vast online help section equipped with detailed instructions on how to use FreshBooks’ features. QuickBooks Pro and Premier are two different plans available that offer very similar feature sets leading to much confusion.

FreshBooks wins this round since it is the only one of the two that has project management features. Danielle Bauter is a writer for the Accounting division of Fit Small Business. She has owned Check Yourself, a bookkeeping and payroll service that specializes in small business, for over twenty years.

FreshBooks vs Wave Compared: Is Waveapps or FreshBooks Best?

To track time spent on a project, you can use the timer, enter time manually or create a timed task so you don’t go over hours charged. Looking at it from the client’s point of view, I know exactly what to do next. I usually use PayPal to send invoices, and clients don’t always realize that they can pay using a credit card if they don’t have a PayPal account. FreshBooks has one of the easiest invoicing features across accounting software tools. The first time you log onto the interface, FreshBooks will walk you through the process of creating and sending your first invoice.

The company regularly updates its navigation to enhance user experience. So, even if you’ve never used accounting software before, you’ll find it effortless to navigate the system. An additional benefit is that FreshBooks offers in-app assistance that guides you through the software’s features and how to use them properly. When reviewing a product, users are asked to assess the product’s overall quality, which includes assigning specific ratings for ease of use, value for money, customer support, and functionality. Both services offer email support, though neither service has 24/7 support across any plan.

Wave’s receipt scanning tool is handy, but you’ll need to use the web browser to upload receipts since the mobile app doesn’t support this feature. Wave offers mobile apps for Android and iOS that support managing your finances on the go. You can create and send invoices, log payments, send reminders, generate accounting reports, and more, all from your phone. Service or project-based businesses should choose accounting software that can track project costs, revenues, and profits. The software must have tools to track time, record billable hours or expenses, send invoices for progress billings, or monitor project progress and performance.

You’re not just choosing software; you’re choosing a financial partner for your business. Top Consumer Reviews has reviewed the best small business accounting software solutions to help you make this choice. Both Wave and QuickBooks include a section for tracking business expenses, which you can connect to your bank account and credit cards to automatically import transaction details. Because the majority of your expenses will be added via your bank account, there is little need to enter expenses, though you do have the option to enter a vendor bill, including how the bill was paid. Payroll by Wave is also available, but complete payroll tax services are only available in CA, FL, IL, NY, NC, TX, VA, and WA.

You can export any report to Microsoft Excel for further customization. FreshBooks partners with Gusto for payroll processing, with plans starting at $39 + $6 per person monthly fee. This feature ensures that all your revenue streams are accounted for. You can also create and edit expenses, create expense reports, and set recurring expenses that will be generated automatically on a frequent basis. You can upload receipts and track business expenses in different currencies.

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This will help you decide which accounting software meets your needs best. Other features you may want to consider include whether the software has a mobile app, how good its customer service is and how well it does with accounts receivable (A/R) and financial reporting. Wave and FreshBooks are two of the most noteworthy accounting software options for small businesses. Wave Accounting’s completely free software plan lets small-business owners — especially self-employed freelancers — track their finances, send invoices and get paid at no cost. FreshBooks, which starts at $19 a month, has more expansive invoicing features and multiple plans that scale up to support growing and midsize businesses. Meanwhile, Wave offers a free plan (Starter) and a paid option that costs $16 per month.

Wave vs. QuickBooks: At a Glance

However, you do have the option to connect a payment processor, which would, of course, mean you won’t have to pay Wave’s fees. Once the invoice was finished, the next page let me finalize and send it. https://accountingcoaching.online/ I approved it, which meant it was ready to go, and then I had the option to either send it or to skip sending it for now. I entered my login information and then told them a little about my business.

Both FreshBooks and Wave offer intuitive system navigation, making it easy for new users to jump in and get to work. Even with the availability of easy-to-use applications such as these, there remains a need for adequate product support. No matter how many resources are provided, it’s always nice to have the option to call support and talk to someone about a persistent problem. Perhaps the most important change has been FreshBooks move to double-entry accounting, which results in the software being a more credible competitor to similar products on the market.

What I like most about Wave is that there are tools that help the professional – you – get paid on time and on a reliable basis. You can also create products or services and then easily choose from them when creating your invoice so that you don’t have to enter the item manually every single time. No Accounting Software will be perfect enough to cater to all the requirements of a specific team. Even though core functionalities of Wave and FreshBooks are obviously a priority you should also thoroughly analyze the integrations offered by a given app. In many cases your team will already be making use of other types of B2B software in your company and it’s always wiser to choose services that integrate well with each other. If you do that you can ensure a reliable exchange of information between your teams and software used, which can considerably reduce time wasted on migrating between one service and the next.

Quick descriptions of each tool’s payment options are outlined below. The offers that appear on the website are from software companies from which CRM.org receives compensation. This compensation may impact how and where products appear on this site (including, for example, the order in which they appear). This site does not include all software companies or all available software companies offers. While weighing your options between FreshBooks and Wave, we encourage you to explore our comprehensive list of the best online accounting for small businesses.