However, to accept electronic payments from your customers, you’ll need to enable Wave Payments. In this blog post, we’ll compare FreshBooks and Wave, going over their features, advantages, and disadvantages. Our goal is to assist you in making an informed decision that makes financial management easier for you. There’s no doubt that choosing the right accounting software can be a bit of a challenge.

When a customer pays, you can mark the invoice as paid, and Wave automatically tracks your cash flow. At the very least, a good accounting system should include features for tracking project-related costs for labor, materials, services, and inventory items. The two programs can set up recurring invoices, but Wave doesn’t allow you to add late fees to your invoice. Also, the project management feature in FreshBooks lets you bill for hours worked and add it to your invoice. Accounting software helps small business owners track their financial accounts, income and expenses, prep for tax season and keep … MYOB is a popular accounting and business management software in Australia, with solutions for businesses of all sizes.

  • Conversely, Wave offers invoicing, expense tracking, recurring billing, and automatic payments for free.
  • Unfortunately, Wave has no project accounting system, although it does allow you to create an estimate.
  • You can also create and modify expenses, generate expense reports, and schedule recurring expenses to be created automatically on a regular basis.

You can input your business details easily, such as company name, address, and telephone number. Additionally, the main page includes shortcut functions like the +New button to help you execute certain tasks easily, such as creating a new invoice and adding a new customer or bill. The left menu bar contains all the core features of FreshBooks, including Banking, Sales, Cashflow, Expenses, Projects, and Payroll. FreshBooks is the best free tool for tracking bills, and Wave is the best accounting software for retail operations. Check out our table of the best accounting services for more, and read on for a few select competitors worth considering. For small businesses that may experience some growth, FreshBooks may be the better solution.

Top Alternatives in Accounting Software

FreshBooks includes one user in all plans, except the Select plan, which supports two users; additional members can be added at $11/person/month. Initially designed with the sole proprietor in mind, FreshBooks is a great fit for service professionals like attorneys, architects, plumbers, and designers. As a business grows, FreshBooks can easily adapt as it offers additional features and resources through its multiple plans. Mobile apps are evaluated based on their ability to perform certain tasks like invoicing, online payment processing, and expense receipt capture. When setting up a project estimate in FreshBooks, you have the option to add sales taxes, inventories, and labor.

This allows you to see all time spent by you and your team members, as well as invoices and expenses related to a certain project. You can add a client to the invoice and edit other details such as the due date, company information, date of issue, and more. There are many templates that you may customize by changing the colors, fonts, logo, and headers. If you have a Plus or Premium plan, you can send payment reminders, add late fees, and make recurring invoices.

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We’ll highlight notable strengths and drawbacks of each tool and make recommendations to help you pick the best software for your business. By considering these factors, you can make an informed decision on which accounting solution best suits your business needs. We’ll give this round to Wave as it has a native payroll service, unlike FreshBooks, which integrates with a third-party app to enable payroll.

What is the difference between FreshBooks and Wave?

The software also lets you connect your bank account or credit card, importing transactions automatically and categorizing them into tax-friendly groups. 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. FreshBooks is a heavy-duty accounting ERP that caters to small and large organizations alike. It has a solid execution that is easy to master, especially for those without a background in accounting, and easily tackles the most difficult of tasks.

Who is Wave for?

Because FreshBooks doesn’t offer this type of service, it’s notable that Wave has it. Particularly if you do not have an in-house bookkeeper at your company, this is a great way to make sure everything is on track for your accountant to get documents ready for tax season. You can send one-time invoices financial ratios complete list and guide to all financial ratios or schedule recurring invoices for repeat clients. For recurring invoices, you can set how many need to be sent, the sending schedule, and the issue dates. FreshBooks operates on a plan pricing tier, while Wave is priced per feature. Quick descriptions of each tool’s payment options are outlined below.

With its easy-to-use and intuitive interface, FreshBooks is ideal for those entering the business world for the first time who know absolutely nothing about accounting. But with four plans available, FreshBooks can also be used by growing businesses. 4.4 out of 5 stars based on user reviews collected by G2Crowd as of Spring 2022. Unlike Wave Payroll, Gusto and SurePayroll can help you find healthcare and other benefits for your employees (though with Gusto, health insurance is available in only 37 states and D.C.). Both providers also have more HR tools than Wave, including new-hire reporting and basic onboarding features. Technically, both Wave Accounting and FreshBooks let you add unlimited users to your account.

Both receive the same star rating, but that doesn’t mean they have the same strong points. Although both apps have strong income and expense tracking features, FreshBooks has a slight lead. The software lets you assign expenses to customers, a feature that’s not available in Wave. FreshBooks, on the other hand, offers various customer support options such as chat, email, and phone.

You can add a client to the invoice and change different parts, like the due date, company info, date of issue, and more. There are lots of templates you can change by picking different colors, fonts, logo, and headers. 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. Now that we covered the fundamentals let’s compare the essential features and functionality of the two apps to see which one outshines the other in various categories. FreshBooks has a slight edge here as it offers phone support, unlike Wave, which only has chat and email.