Wave also offers self-service payroll starting at $20 per month, plus $6 for each active employee or independent contractor. With the self-service option, you have to handle payroll tax payments and filings manually. 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. FreshBooks is a software that provides the accounting essentials for freelancers, small business owners and solopreneurs.

• FreshBooks’ project management and pricing options make it ideal for freelancers and small enterprises that need complete financial management.
• Its inventory feature updates stock count for particular items each time you add them to an invoice.
• That said, Wave’s reports give business owners more tracking and decision-making tools and its price can’t be beat.
• Some of the links on our site are from our partners who compensate us.

FreshBooks will also automatically send reminders when an invoice is past due, and can add a late fee to the invoice. If you want multiple eyes on your accounts without paying extra, Xero has unlimited users. Zoho Books charges just $3 per month per extra user, and QuickBooks Online offers access for up to 25 users (depending on which plan you choose).

FreshBooks vs. Wave Accounting: Comparison table

Wave Accounting’s completely free software lets small-business owners — especially self-employed freelancers — track their finances, send invoices and get paid at no cost. FreshBooks, which starts at $17 a month, has more expansive invoicing features and multiple plans that scale up to support growing and midsize businesses. Within the Wave platform, you can manually record sales transactions or create and send invoices. When a client pays, you can mark the invoice as paid, and Wave will track your cash flow automatically. You can also connect your bank account or credit card to the software, which will automatically import transactions and categorize them into tax-friendly groups. Wave’s receipt scanning tool is useful, but you need a web browser to upload receipts because the mobile app does not support this feature.

Email responses are prompt, and you can also chat with live specialists to address any questions or concerns. FreshBooks has four paid plans ranging from $17 to $55+ per month (Lite, Plus, Premium, and Select), whereas Wave provides its invoicing and accounting services at no cost. See how FreshBooks makes how to do accounting for small business: basics of accounting day-to-day bookkeeping easy to use for business owners—even if you have no prior experience with accounting software. Wave offers a free plan if you want to send invoices and not do much else. But you won’t be able to solve all your accounting and billing needs because that’s not what it’s built for.

In this blog post, we will explore the importance of CRM warehouse management solutions and how they can maximize efficiency for businesses… Your best pricing option will be determined by your needs and plans. Now that we’ve taken a quick overview let’s compare the two apps’ important features to determine which one outperforms the other in various categories.

• FreshBooks is known for its intuitive interface that’s easy to navigate.
• FreshBooks is designed to connect to your banking institution, automatically importing all transactions.
• Within a project, you can also share files, attachments, and comments.
• The company regularly updates its navigation to enhance user experience.

If you want more comprehensive and invoice-focused accounting software with a great customer service reputation, we recommend FreshBooks. Its unlimited professional invoicing—complete with a collaborative client portal and automatic late payment reminders—make FreshBooks perfect for service-based freelancers. Instead, it partners with an online bookkeeping service provider, Bench, to accommodate users requiring expert help with their bookkeeping needs. With Bench, you’ll receive a dedicated bookkeeper who’ll assist you in managing your books.

Wave accounting vs FreshBooks mobile apps

That said, Wave’s reports give business owners more tracking and decision-making tools and its price can’t be beat. If you’re willing to manually enter recurring bills every month and want to cut costs, it’s worth a look. FreshBooks has a basic inventory system, unless you purchase an app, but you can select from items on hand when creating an invoice. Wave doesn’t include inventory options, but if you need to track quantities on hand and manage significant inventory, we suggest you check out Xero.

What sets it apart from the competition isn’t any one unique feature, but its simplicity. Accounting can be confusing and overwhelming for business owners who aren’t trained accountants. FreshBooks streamlines the dashboard, which makes it easy to toggle between certain functions and reports. With FreshBooks, both you and your team can collaborate on and track time towards the same projects and clients. Your team members can also help you with your business books by creating invoices and tracking their expenses. You can also add team members to your account with specific user roles and levels of access to sensitive information.

What is the Best Accounting Software to Use?

The chart below compares FreshBooks’s and Wave’s invoicing options. Our researchers didn’t choose FreshBooks or Wave as their top pick. Instead, QuickBooks was found to be the best (scoring 4.7/5 overall), at least for small business owners. The QuickBooks accounting service offers better features and add-ons than either Wave or FreshBooks, even though Wave does still have the best pricing overall. Plus, the right plan (QuickBooks Advanced) will net you 24/7 email and phone support, making it easy to solve any problems.

When deciding between FreshBooks and Wave accounting software, it’s important to think about how they track and handle expenses. FreshBooks has a simple interface that makes it easy to add costs and put them in the right category. The platform makes it easy to track both work and personal expenses and makes it easy to upload receipts. Wave, on the other hand, has a strong system for managing expenses, with tools like scanning receipts and automatic categorization. It gives small businesses and freelancers tools for double-entry accounting, tracking income and expenses, and making financial statements.

If your employees bill at different hourly rates — a senior project manager versus a junior manager, for example — FreshBooks pulls that in to the project billing, as well. Neither service lets you customize your reports beyond selecting date ranges. That won’t be an issue for more straightforward businesses, but complex companies may want to change account groupings and displays. Outstanding revenue appears at the very top of FreshBooks’ main dashboard.

Accounting

We compare these two accounting solutions across 11 key categories, such as general features, accounts payable (A/P), accounts receivable (A/R), and banking and cash management. We’ve done in-depth research so that it’s easier for you to find out which program is suited better for your business. Check out our detailed FreshBooks review and Wave review for more information. Its invoices are clearly laid out, with common fields such as customer, quantity and notes. After setting up an invoice, you can select how often you want to send payment reminders for past due invoices.

Unlike Wave, all of FreshBooks’ plans have a strict user limit of one, except Select, which ups this limit to two users. Both customer and vendor information can be managed in the software, though only limited information can be entered. You can also add a product or service in Wave, but there is no option to manage inventory in the application.

Wave, on the other hand, is great for entrepreneurs who only need to be able to send invoices and not much else. In addition, Wave’s mobile app lets you send invoices and track payments on the go. The app offers a receipt scanning feature as well, but you have to pay a subscription fee to access it. There’s a fee involved with accepting online invoice payments, too. If you run a small company or a freelance business, you are likely familiar with juggling multiple clients, payment deadlines, invoices and more—there’s always something else to remember.

Freshbooks

If you’re looking for a program which does integrate payroll processing, we suggest reading our Xero review. Expenses that have been booked appear as a pie chart form on FreshBooks’s main dashboard. Wave shows overdue bills and invoices in a list to the left of its dashboard. Both have expense reports, so keeping track of money flowing out of your business isn’t difficult with them.