Wave Accounting

Wave Accounting is a free,  entry level / personal finance accounting software. In our review of this web application, we came across bugs and inaccurate reports which we pointed out in this article. Apart from it, Wave Accounting is missing core accounting features to qualify as an accounting suite.
There are also issues with usability and bugs that poped up during our review. Thus for SME accounting, we cannot recommend Wave Accounting.



Getting Started
Starting WaveAccounting is an exact science. Especially when you signed up and WaveAccounting suggests you to link to your bank account or import transactions. Since Wave Accounting is a freeware, I will not share my bank details, and thus chose to upload a sample CSV file from WellsFargo. Unfortunately it did not work and ended up with an error message “the file format does not seem to be in the correct format“. So it cooled me off a bit, starting with a bug report in the webware.
We proceed further abandoning CSV transaction matching idea and arrived at the dashboard. Dashaboard in Wave Accounting looks a bit congested due to coloforul ads on top. This is a hudge turn-off for businesses, but not much ado for startups. Well, Wave Accounting needs to make money too)
Adding Contacts
To get down to bookkeeping, we started adding contacts. Wave Accounting has a nice, simple add form, however it lacks basic validations against duplicate entries. We know from experience, that occasionally your bookkeeping messes up without simple No-No messages, as it may have negative repercussions when issuing invoices, receiving payments, etc. We should mentinon, navigation is not smooth in Wave Accounting, as we assumed initially. (We could access customer, vendor lists only via Dashboard. Really not intuitive and stresses a bit, when you can’t find the basics). Also we could not find anywhere to upload our CSV file of contacts (customers and suppliers), thus moving from another accounting system is literally discouraged.
Invoicing
In Wave Accounting, you have four different invoice templates to choose from and all look nice. Setting Invoice status is simple to do. However, it is not bug free and nor responsive at times. When we tried to receive payment by clicking “Add Payment” it was slow to respond, and base curreny amount failed to update, when payment amount was altered. However, more annoyane comes after clicking “Receive” button, which caused screen to freeze and reload and would occasionally open a random form after page load. (Chrome, Version 23.0.1271.64 m)
Another thing to be precautious, as we learned, is  deleting an invoice with payments applied. Again no validation, super easy to delete anything.
Inventory Management
In Wave Accounting, users can manage only services. There is no inventory management as it clearly states, “…That includes intangible things like an hour of consulting services.” It is worthwhile to mention that other cloud accounting solutions, even claim to have an inventory management, can offer quantity count. Shame and a misleading publicity. But Wave Accounting knows what and where they are.
Expenses
Expense register in Wave Accounting is limited to creation of bills. Which sometimes may prove rigid, as there is no straight away check writing option. Also, “Quick entry” seemed welcoming at first, but we found ourselves in a dead end.”Money came from” field seemed way to far away from being relevant, when it comes to creating bills or checks. (Please englighten us, if you know what it means)
Reporting
Wave Accouting Reports data can be drilled down, which we believe makes you feel in control, however reports are not accurate. When wanted to create a Credit Note by inputting negative amount in Sales Invoice, Income by Customer report did not reflect it. After all, Credit Note is simply a Sales Return in Accounting 101, that is, a negative income you like. Apart from it, there is no management reports for deicision making, except for aging summary statements.
Conclusion
Wave Accounting is an entry level accounting software or for personal finance. Responsiveness of the software is another issue we encountered, namely this is related to pop-up screens. Do we recommend it? As we pointed out, as long as you can trust your data to a free online accounting software, then start-ups can use it just fine. For personal, sure, go ahead. As for Small Business, we doubt due to missing features such as inventory management, custom user roles, managment reports and accountant tools.