I've just recently opened a Wave Accounting account and so far I like it. I've been using Quickbooks Online for years and the price just continues to go up and up. Wave is free and it closely resembles QB Online so the transition has been easy. I'm expecting to be fully onboard with Wave before the turn of the year and drop QB Online all together. QB Online has risen to $25/month and although that won't break me, my needs are simple so no sense just throwing away $300+ year after year.
Wave Accounting (free and I like it!)
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urcomputech
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Nice find. Thank you!
glennd
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I'm still using Quickbooks desktop. I don't much like it but it's the devil I know. The web site doesn't mention reporting. I presume it can do everything my accountant needs? Does it let you download data backups? I don't suppose it has a data import tool?
Your accountant should like it and the reporting looks good. They have a QuickBooks migration guide but I don't think things will import directly. I had a bunch of mistakes and bad entries build up in QB Online so I am just as happy to start fresh without the mistakes I made in early years.
nlinecomputers
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I’d hate to depend on a free offering. What happens if they don’t make enough money off the CC transactions? You could wake up one morning unable to access your accounting information.
glennd
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I notice they're currently owned by H&R Block. Is that good?
Sky-Knight
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H&R Block might be stable, but it'll be a cold day in Satan's realm before my financials live in the cloud.
I use QB Desktop because it's on my laptop, and the data files can travel with me. I keep that stuff in a safe place, and I have access no matter WTF happens. Losing financial data is a steep step into the abyss of bankruptcy... no thanks.
But I've heard good things about Wave despite my paranoia. I've also seen ZipBooks, and SlickPie.. which are very similar.
But I've been similarly turned off by Intuit's blatant money grabs. I've been considering GNUCash, but the lack of multi-user support is a huge turn off.
*Edit* A closer look reveals Wave has a backup function, depending on how that data is stored, that might just be enough to turn off my paranoia. I'm going to have to play and see!
I use QB Desktop because it's on my laptop, and the data files can travel with me. I keep that stuff in a safe place, and I have access no matter WTF happens. Losing financial data is a steep step into the abyss of bankruptcy... no thanks.
But I've heard good things about Wave despite my paranoia. I've also seen ZipBooks, and SlickPie.. which are very similar.
But I've been similarly turned off by Intuit's blatant money grabs. I've been considering GNUCash, but the lack of multi-user support is a huge turn off.
*Edit* A closer look reveals Wave has a backup function, depending on how that data is stored, that might just be enough to turn off my paranoia. I'm going to have to play and see!
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That's the main problem I have with any online/cloud/SaaS offering, particularly if it hosts a significant amount of data. A paid service isn't necessarily better either and might just as quickly disappear with your data. 'Free' just makes the service a little more tentative and raises questions about the company's business model, its ethics and security budget.
I'm not too worried. Just an FYI -
"Wave is headquartered in the Leslieville neighbourhood in Toronto, Canada. The company manages more than $244 billion in income and expense transactions for its customers, including $16 billion in annual invoicing."
They make their money off of payroll.
A bit of an oxymoron don't you think?
"Wave is headquartered in the Leslieville neighbourhood in Toronto, Canada. The company manages more than $244 billion in income and expense transactions for its customers, including $16 billion in annual invoicing."
They make their money off of payroll.
A bit of an oxymoron don't you think?
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Sky-Knight
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@Diggs, I don't travel much. But I am super paranoid about my financials.
As for Wave, it opened its doors in 2010, so this thing has been online for nine years, and gotten a huge security audit done every single year, and I can find no ready evidence they've ever been breached. Toss in the ability to download all your stuff and honestly... this thing is better than Quickbooks... assuming of course the backup files can actually be read by a human.
They make money off payroll, and siphoning off money from electronic payments. Their rates on the CC aren't all that bad either, a few tenths of a percentage point above what I pay my bank for my machine. But almost three times what I could be paying if I used one of the wholesale processors. But if you're one of those running square or something similar, the rates are very close to that except all integrated with your invoicing system.
In short, I can see no reason to believe this thing is going away anytime soon. 9 years is plenty to prove stability.
As for Wave, it opened its doors in 2010, so this thing has been online for nine years, and gotten a huge security audit done every single year, and I can find no ready evidence they've ever been breached. Toss in the ability to download all your stuff and honestly... this thing is better than Quickbooks... assuming of course the backup files can actually be read by a human.
They make money off payroll, and siphoning off money from electronic payments. Their rates on the CC aren't all that bad either, a few tenths of a percentage point above what I pay my bank for my machine. But almost three times what I could be paying if I used one of the wholesale processors. But if you're one of those running square or something similar, the rates are very close to that except all integrated with your invoicing system.
In short, I can see no reason to believe this thing is going away anytime soon. 9 years is plenty to prove stability.
I've been using Wave for 5 years and have been very happy with it. I do all my invoicing and CC payments through them. Makes it very easy to email the invoice to the customer and have them enter payment. I don't have to handle their cards at all. So far, it's been way better than QB Online that I used before I switched. No regrets here!
Sky-Knight
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Online I've read many complaints about Wave's merchant processing holding funds for irrationally long periods of time. That give me more than a bit if pause, but it's easily worked around if you just use something else to process credit cards. I was planning to do that anyway, I don't use QB for my CC's either.
Markverhyden
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This is risk management. Never put all your eggs in the same basket. I don't.
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Sky-Knight
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It's not just that... honestly I think this sort of thing should be illegal. To get merchant processing I had to pass a credit check, just the same as if I was getting a loan. So when someone runs a card with me, the entire process is audited, checked, and insured. But if you go with Square, and the like... which includes Wave... you're signing over rights to that money to someone else... and they can just keep it... and you're SOL. Now this bad service doesn't go over well, but one complainer in the UK said Wave held 2000 pounds for over a month... that's unforgivably painful.
And in this case seems monumentally stupid... because a failure there convinces your own customers to turn away from your primary revenue stream!
But yeah, this sort of crap is why I don't accept or use Paypal.
glennd
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After reading that, I will infer there is no QuickBooks data migration. Your assumption appears correct.
wow! I guess they don't have that customer any more.
I never had an issue. Money is in my account within 1-2 business days. No complaints here.
Sky-Knight
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@symbatech, the problem is if you do have a problem, there's almost no recourse.
What recourse is there with QuickBooks? There were problems there too.
Sky-Knight
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@Diggs, if you're using Quickbooks for merchant processing? You'd be correct, exactly the same problem. But, you can complain about Intuit all you want, but they have a clearly published phone number, and a well staffed support system that answers calls and fixes stuff. Wave seems to be a member of the "new age" of support-less businesses... popularized by Google.
But I really have a hard time with these deregulated messes, that aren't quite banks playing bank. That's dangerous... You'd have thought especially here in the US we'd know that by now. S&L crash anyone?
But I really have a hard time with these deregulated messes, that aren't quite banks playing bank. That's dangerous... You'd have thought especially here in the US we'd know that by now. S&L crash anyone?
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Fred Claus
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Been using Wave for almost 6 years now. I love them. They do basically the same thing Quickbooks does, but FREE. Well except for credit card processing. Once you set up the reports you need correctly there isn't anything you couldn't do with it.
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