We often look for cost-effective business accounting software for our business, one of such accounting software is Wave accounting software. Wave accounting software is specially curated to meet the accounting requirements for small business owners, consultants and freelancers. It is an online accounting software that includes the following feature:

• Accounting
• Invoicing
• Billing
• Payment
• Payroll management
• Finance management
• Credit Card processing
• Receipt scanning
• Bank reconciliation

How does Wave accounting work?

Wave accounting is easy to set up and use. You can create your Wave account, connect it to your business bank account and start working on it. Connecting your bank helps in the automatic reflection of your transaction in your bookkeeping.

Besides the basic accounting features, wave accounting software also provide additional functionalities to streamline overall finance process, accounting and tax.

Wave provides:

• Journal entries.
• Customized Sales tax.
• Bill and invoice reminders.
• Search transaction description.
• Double-entry software.
• Customized income and expense categories with account IDS.
• Facility to export accounting report such as profit and loss account, sales tax report, cash flow etc.
• Dashboard for cash balance and invoice status.
• To connect with PAYPAL, Shoe boxed, and Etsy.
• 256-bit SSL encryption and data backup.

The above list is yet to complete with Wave providing email-based customer support as well as online resources such as a blog, community forum and help centre. Although it is free accounting software you can expand further capabilities by purchasing various add on features of it.

Advantages of Wave accounting:

We always look to the positive side of anything. Wave accounting is worth for your business because:

1. Easy to use : It is simple yet a powerful tool for small business for performing the accounting activities. It is a user-friendly software that not only easies the whole accounting process but also secured to house your important business information.
2. Free of cost : It is free accounting software that has utmost basic function plus an option to buy an add-on, unlike other accounting software.
3. Customized add - on : The customized add-ons of the wave accounting software are based on pay as you go which means you add on cost depends upon how you use them. In a short, we can say you tailor your wave account according to specific business need.

Disadvantages of wave accounting:

There are various fronts where still it lags. Following are the drawbacks of the wave accounting software:

1. Lacks of Tax features : Other accounting software option provide functionalities to sort the business expenses to meet their tax obligation and return. An alternate software is ideal if a business needs tax assistance.
2. Not for a bigger team : The payroll add on can cost more in Wave accounting in case you have a large payroll team. Moreover, it only includes seven states in the tax-service version of Wave payroll in case you locate in the other 42 states you cannot have access to its payroll benefit.
3. Lack of advanced feature : Although it provides impressive capacities, it still losses on the advanced tools like budgeting, vendor management, inventory tracking etc.

Alternatives to Wave accounting

• QuickBooks self-employed
• Fresh Books
• QuickBooks Online
• Xero

Wave accounting is undoubtedly one of the best free accounting software with impressive add-on functionalities and features. Business needs to access their need and choose accounting software accordingly before opting for any other accounting software. If listed above are your requirements, they get started with wave accounting now.