How to categorize your transactions in Wave | How To Wave
Published by Wave: Small Business SoftwareWatch on YouTube
Wave
Free accounting for small businesses
- Wave Financial Inc. · Canada
- Since 2010
Key takeaways
from our research
Genuinely free double-entry accounting with unlimited invoicing
Automatic bank feeds now sit on the paid Pro tier — free users import manually
Revenue comes from payment processing and payroll rather than subscriptions
No inventory, multi-currency or project tracking; plan to outgrow it
Our verdict
Updated Aug 12, 2026Fact-checked Jun 11, 2026
Wave is the only credible free accounting software for very small businesses, and the caveat that matters is bank feeds.
What you get for nothing is more than the "free tier" label suggests: unlimited invoicing, unlimited expense tracking, real double-entry books with a chart of accounts, and the standard financial statements. For a sole trader, side business or freelancer with modest transaction volume, that is a complete accounting system at zero cost — something no competitor offers.
The business model explains the boundaries. Wave earns from payment processing (standard card rates), payroll (a monthly fee plus per-employee charge, with tax filing automated in a subset of US states) and now from Pro, a paid tier. The important change for buyers: automatic bank-feed imports moved to the paid Pro plan, so free users categorize transactions from manual imports. For a business doing thirty transactions a month that is a mild chore; at three hundred it is untenable.
Other limits follow from the audience. There is no inventory tracking, no project profitability, no multi-currency, and reporting is basic. Support on the free plan is community and documentation rather than a person. Reviewers are consistently happy at very small scale and consistently frustrated once the business grows.
Our guidance: if you are a sole trader who invoices a few clients a month, Wave is genuinely the right answer and paying for accounting software would be waste. Plan to migrate to Xero or QuickBooks when you hire, hold stock, or start reconciling more than you care to do by hand.
Written by Maya Krishnan · Edited by Daniel Ross
Ratings
Loved by 67% of reviewers
First-party reviews, individually moderated before publication.
Pros & cons
Where Wave shines — and where it doesn't
What users love
- Real double-entry accounting at no cost, not a stripped demo
- Unlimited invoices and expenses on the free plan
- Clean, approachable interface for non-accountants
- Payroll available as an add-on when you hire
Where it falls short
- Bank feeds require the paid tier, making free-plan bookkeeping manual
- No inventory, multi-currency or project profitability
- Free-plan support is documentation and community only
Compiled by our editorial team
Head to head
Wave vs FreshBooks at a glance
Wave
Rating
4.0(3)
4.3(3)
Starting price
$14/mo
$21/mo
Free trial
No
Yes
Free plan
Yes
No
Alternatives
Top Wave alternatives
The closest fits based on category, feature overlap, and reviewer demand.
Easiest to Use
FreshBooks
4.3(3)Best for freelancers and service businesses that bill for time
From $21/mo
Best Value
Zoho Books
4.0(3)Best for businesses already running the Zoho suite, and for value hunters
Free plan
Category Leader
QuickBooks Online
4.1(4)Best for US small businesses whose accountant already works in QuickBooks
From $38/mo
Videos
Watch Wave in action
Product walkthroughs published on Wave's own YouTube channel — so you see the real interface, not a reenactment.
Wave's reports tour | Wave Tutorial
Published by Wave: Small Business SoftwareWatch on YouTube
Capabilities
Key features
What Wave does — and doesn't — cover, checked against the category feature vocabulary.
Reporting & Analytics
- Included:Sales tax & financial reportingSales-tax tracking plus P&L, balance sheet and cash-flow statements.
Platform
- Included:Integrated payrollRun payroll inside the ledger, or via a first-party add-on, with automatic journal entries.
Bookkeeping
- Included:Automatic bank feedsDirect bank and card connections that import transactions daily.
- Included:Bank reconciliationMatch imported transactions to invoices and bills with rule-based suggestions.
- Included:Double-entry accountingA true general ledger with chart of accounts and journal entries.
- Not included:Inventory trackingTrack stock quantities and cost of goods sold against sales.
- Not included:Multi-currencyInvoice, bill and report in multiple currencies with automatic FX rates.
Invoicing & Payments
- Not included:Bills & accounts payableTrack supplier bills, due dates and batch payments.
- Included:Customizable invoicingBranded invoices with recurring schedules and automatic reminders.
- Included:Online payment collectionAccept card and bank payments directly from an invoice.
- Included:Receipt & expense capturePhotograph receipts and auto-extract vendor, date and amount.
- Not included:Time tracking & project profitabilityLog billable hours against projects and compare to budget.
Pricing
Wave pricing
Wave's paid plans start at $14/month — below the $20 median of the 5 Accounting Software tools we track. A free plan is available.
Value for money 4.2/5Starter
$0
Free forever
- Unlimited invoices and estimates
- Unlimited expense tracking
- Double-entry accounting
- Financial statements
- Manual transaction import
Most popularVisit website
Pro
$14/mo
per month (billed annually)
or $16/mo billed monthly
Everything in Starter, plus:
- Automatic bank feed imports
- Auto-categorization of transactions
- Receipt capture and scanning
- Discounted payment processing rates
Pricing fact-checked August 12, 2026 · source: vendor pricing page · see the full breakdown
Ecosystem
Integrates with 5+ tools
- Stripe
- PayPal
- Etsy
- Shoeboxed
- Zapier
Fit check
Will Wave fit your team?
Support
- Email support
- Knowledge base
- Community forum
Training
- Documentation
- Video tutorials
Deployment
- Web
- iOS
- Android
Typical users
- Small businesses
Reviews
What real users say
First-party, moderated reviews — never scraped, never paid for.
Isabella R.
Founder · E-commerce · Self-employed
4.5
May 26, 2026
“Genuinely free, genuinely enough”
Used monthly for 2+ years
Sole trader, maybe forty transactions a month. Real double-entry books, unlimited invoices, proper financial statements, no cost. Paying for accounting software at my size would be waste.
Ben C.
Freelance Consultant · Consulting · Self-employed
3.5
March 11, 2026
“Fine until the business grew”
Used monthly for 2+ years
Used it happily for two years. Once I had inventory and a second currency it simply could not do the job, and the manual bank import on the free plan became a chore. Migrated to Xero without regret about the time on Wave.
Lucas M.
Growth Lead · SaaS · 1–10 employees
4.0
April 26, 2026
“Best free option, with a caveat worth knowing”
Used monthly for 6–12 months
Nothing else gives you real books for nothing. Just go in understanding that the bank-feed change means the free tier now costs you time instead of money — fine at low volume, painful above about a hundred transactions a month.
Sources & methodology
Product information sourced from Wave Financial Inc.'s public content (Canada); pricing verified August 12, 2026. Reviews are first-party and moderated. How we test and rate tools
- Founded 2010
- 1 language supported
- waveapps.com
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