Wave vs QuickBooks: Key Differences & What’s Best in 2022
Tim is a Certified QuickBooks Time (formerly TSheets) Pro, QuickBooks ProAdvisor, and CPA with 25 years of experience. He brings his expertise to Fit Small Business’s accounting content.
Mark has researched and reviewed accounting software at Fit Small Business since 2019 and has developed an extensive knowledge of accounting software features and how unique business needs determine the best accounting software.
This article is part of a larger series on Accounting Software.
Wave and QuickBooks Online are two of the most popular small business accounting software programs on the market today. The biggest difference between Wave and QuickBooks is that Wave is free and QuickBooks Online isn’t. It’s easy to see Wave accounting software’s value if you’re looking for a free program without the limitations found in other software. However, if you need more advanced features like inventory management and project accounting, then you’ll prefer QuickBooks Online to Wave.
In this article, we compare Wave and QuickBooks to help you find significant differences and determine which accounting software is the better choice for your business. This is backed by an internally developed case study to provide you with a spot-on comparison of Wave and QuickBooks Online.
When to Use Wave
If you’re on a tight budget but don’t want to sacrifice quality, Wave is one of our best free accounting software, especially if you need multiple users. In our case study, we found that Wave’s biggest strengths are income and sales tax management, reporting, and general bookkeeping features, including the ability to set up your company easily, add additional users, and modify the chart of accounts. If you need a simple program for basic accounting duties, such as invoicing and income and expense tracking, Wave is a good choice.
- Better for businesses looking for free bookkeeping software: Wave is excellent for a free accounting program, offering many of the features present in premium accounting software like QuickBooks Online. There’s no limitation to the number of users and transactions, which is surprising in a free software program.
- Better for freelancers: Freelance professionals can use Wave to send and track invoices to their clients, accept payments, and organize their income and expenses for tax filing.
- Better for very basic service-based businesses: Small service-based businesses that don’t need to track time or inventory can use Wave for basic income and expense tracking.
When to Use QuickBooks
QuickBooks Online, our choice for overall best small business accounting software, provides a more comprehensive accounting solution than Wave. It offers additional and enhanced features like advanced reporting, inventory management, and mileage tracking. While Wave is built for very small businesses, QuickBooks has no upper limit and adapts as you scale easily and need more advanced features. It’s difficult to find something that QuickBooks Online cannot execute—it beats Wave in almost all areas of accounting. If you’re willing to pay for powerful, all-inclusive accounting software, then QuickBooks Online is for you.
- Better for product-based businesses: One of QuickBooks Online’s biggest strengths is inventory accounting, which is ideal for businesses that heavily rely on selling products.
- Better for project accounting: QuickBooks Online has job costing features that let you set up a project and track income and expenses associated with it.
- Better for collecting sales tax in multiple jurisdictions: QuickBooks Online calculates the proper sales tax automatically to collect based on each customer’s address.
- Better for cash management: QuickBooks allows you to print checks directly from the program and reconcile your checking account with checks outstanding. Wave doesn’t allow printing checks or reconciling an account with outstanding checks or deposits.
When to Use an Alternative
- Businesses looking for less expensive inventory accounting: As with QuickBooks Online Plus, Xero includes automatic tracking of inventories but at a lower price. To use inventory accounting with Quickbooks Online, you need to get QuickBooks Online Plus at $80 per month, while with Xero, you only need its Growing plan at $32 per month. Xero’s Early plan at $11 per month also includes inventory, but you can only enter up to five supplier bills every month.
- Very small project-based businesses: FreshBooks’s project accounting is more affordable than QuickBooks Online.
Fit Small Business Case Study
We’ve developed an extensive case study to evaluate accounting software on a standard set of criteria across 11 categories. You can see the detailed results for each application by reading our QuickBooks Online review and Wave review. Here’s a summary of our evaluation:
Case Study Results for Wave vs QuickBooks Online
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Wave vs QuickBooks at a Glance
Wave | QuickBooks Online | |
|---|---|---|
Who It’s Best For | Small service-based businesses | Businesses that need all-inclusive software |
Pricing Plans | $0 | $25 to $180 per month |
Maximum Users | Unlimited | 25 |
Connect to Bank & Reconcile Bank Accounts | ✔ | ✔ |
Send Invoices & Track Collections | ✔ | ✔ |
Track Sales Tax Collections & Payments | ✔ | ✔ |
Enter Bills & Track Unpaid Bills | ✔ | ✔ |
Integrated Payroll | ✔ | ✔ |
Capture & Organize Receipts | ✔ | ✔ |
Track 1099 Payments | ✔ | ✔ |
Print 1099s | ✔ | ✔ |
Record & Print Check | ✔ | |
Track Inventory | ✔ | |
Assign Time & Costs to Projects | ✔ | |
Track Income & Expense by Class and Location | ✔ | |
For more details, you can read our full reviews of Wave and QuickBooks Online.
Wave vs QuickBooks: Pricing
While QuickBooks Online has four monthly subscription levels for small businesses, Wave is available for free. You only pay when processing credit card payments and payroll transactions. Wave supports unlimited users, while QuickBooks’ most expensive plan maxes out at 25 users.
Wave Pricing
Wave offers free access to its accounting, invoicing, and receipt scanning software. For credit card and payroll transactions, it charges fees similar to paid software. Please see below for more information.
- Accounting, invoicing, and receipt scanning: $0
- Credit card processing: 2.9% plus 30 cents per transaction for most cards, 3.4% plus 30 cents per transaction for American Express
- Bank payments: $1 per transaction
- Payroll :
- $35 per month plus $6 per employee or independent contractor for users living in tax-service states―Arizona, California, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Minnesota, New York, North Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, Washington, and Wisconsin
- $20 per month plus $6 per employee or independent contractor for users living in the remaining 36 states
QuickBooks Pricing
In addition to its Self-Employed package, QuickBooks Online offers four plans for small businesses with prices that start at $25 per month for one user. Your ideal plan depends on the number of users you have and the features you desire. Many small businesses go for the Plus plan, which includes access for up to five users and advanced features, including inventory, project accounting, and unlimited reports.
- Self-Employed: $15 per month for one user
- Simple Start: $25 per month with a single user
- Essentials: $50 per month, which includes three users
- Plus: $80 per month, which includes five users
- Advanced: $180 per month, which includes 25 users
- QuickBooks Payroll: Starts at $45 per month (Payroll Core)
To help you decide which package is right for you, read our comparison of QuickBooks Online plans.
Takeaway: While many practical small businesses choose Wave for processing basic accounting tasks like invoicing and payment processing, it may not be ideal if you need more developed features like inventory management and income and class tracking by location. The $0 price tag results in significant savings, especially for startups and freelancers, but QuickBooks Online’s cheapest plan at $25 per month is preferable if you need to track mileage and file 1099s directly from the software. QuickBooks Online’s most popular plan, Plus, contains many valuable features, including project management, inventory accounting, and advanced reporting.
Wave vs QuickBooks: Features
Features Comparison Table by Plan
Wave | QuickBooks Self-Employed | QuickBooks Simple Start | QuickBooks Essentials | QuickBooks Plus | QuickBooks Advanced | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Users Included | Unlimited | 1 | 1 | 3 | 5 | 25 |
Estimate Quarterly Income Taxes | ✔ | |||||
Provide Accountant Access | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ |
Connect & Reconcile Bank Accounts | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ |
Scan & Upload Expense Receipts | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ |
Create Invoices, Track Payments & Send Automatic Reminders | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ |
Collect & Track Sales Tax | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | |
Prepare 1099s for Contractors | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | |
E-file 1099s | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | |
Track Mileage | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | |
Enter & track Unpaid Bills | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ||
Assign Time & Expenses to Jobs | ✔ | ✔ | ||||
Manage Inventory & Track Costs Using FIFO Accounting | ✔ | ✔ | ||||
Create Purchase Orders & Convert to Bills | ✔ | ✔ | ||||
Track Profitability by Class & Location | ✔ | ✔ | ||||
Dedicated Account Support Team | ✔ |
We’ve selected three features from our case study for an in-depth discussion of the differences between Wave and QuickBooks Online. While both software programs allow you to import your bank transactions, issue invoices, and pay bills, they’re far from equal in these key areas. QuickBooks Online is more comprehensive and can handle nearly any situation that might arise in your day-to-day business.
Wave vs QuickBooks: Banking and Cash Management
Based on our case study, Wave isn’t even close to QuickBooks in terms of banking and cash management. Bank reconciliation is an essential part of accounting, and QuickBooks Online nails it. Wave can’t reconcile transactions with uncleared or missing items. QuickBooks Online, on the other hand, can reconcile items, including checks that aren’t yet processed by your bank. If your business makes transactions or pays bills through electronic checks, QuickBooks Online is a more suitable choice.
Wave vs QuickBooks: Accounts Payable
There’s a huge difference between Wave and QuickBooks Online in terms of their accounts payable (A/P) features. If you only need basic expense tracking, Wave might be enough. However, while you can use Wave to record and track your bills, you can’t pay them within the software. When you subscribe to the QuickBooks Online Essentials plan, you have the option to pay your bills online or record and print checks from the register.
Both QuickBooks Online and Wave allow you to upload expense receipts and bills, but Wave can’t create expense transactions from the receipt automatically. When you upload a copy of your receipt to QuickBooks Online, it’ll create a transaction automatically. After creating the transaction, you just have to locate it from the Reviewed tab of the Receipts page.
Another edge QuickBooks Online has over Wave is its ability to automate recurring payments to vendors. This feature is extremely useful if you have multiple vendors that you pay on a regular basis. You just need to set up the required vendor and payment details and let Quickbooks Online do its job.
Other things QuickBooks Online does that Wave doesn’t do include the ability to record a vendor credit for a refund or a return, create and track purchase orders, and create a bill for the purchase of inventories.
Wave vs QuickBooks: Accounts Receivable
Both programs have good invoicing capabilities, with the option to choose from different templates and customize the invoice based on your preferences. However, QuickBooks Online has more enhanced features than Wave. For instance, you can add tracked expenses to your invoice. While good accounting software allows you to pull tracked time into your invoices, you should also be able to include tracked expenses.
Unlike Wave, you can record partial payments of invoices in QuickBooks. QuickBooks also allows you to view expenses incurred but not yet billed to a customer and issue a credit memo to a customer, which are things you can’t do with Wave.
Takeaway: Both QuickBooks Online and Wave include the aforementioned three essential features, but QuickBooks Online is more developed. Very small businesses and self-employed professionals that need basic tracking of their cash, payables, and records may do so with Wave. However, larger businesses that heavily rely on bank and credit card transactions and have multiple suppliers and vendors to pay should choose QuickBooks Online.
Wave vs. QuickBooks: Ease of Use
Wave and QuickBooks are both easy to use, but since QuickBooks Online is more complicated, it takes longer to set up than Wave. Each program has essential tools and features that make it easy for users to create new transactions without having to hop from one menu to another. Both have an intuitive dashboard that lets you access all the important features from a single window.
Wave Ease of Use
The Wave Launchpad is where new users can set up their business. Choose one of the options displayed on the screen, and you’ll be guided through the entire setup process. It’s pretty straightforward to enter company details such as company name, email address, and contact details. All features can be accessed from the vertical menu bar on the left side of the screen. There is also an option to set up a separate account for personal finances.
Wave Launchpad to Set Up Wave Account
Not only is Wave easy to set up, but it is also easy to use. From the dashboard, there’s a “Create a new” button that allows you to instantly record a new transaction, whether it’s a bill, invoice, or estimate.
Create a New Button to Easily Record a Transaction
QuickBooks Ease of Use
Setting up a new company in QuickBooks is not as straightforward as in Wave. You need to go through a series of prompts to enter your company details and customize your accounting workflow. However, once you set up QuickBooks, there’s a “+New” button on the main page that helps you quickly create new transactions such as recording a new bill or creating an invoice. From the dashboard, you can instantly access all the other functions, including Banking, Sales, Cashflow, Expenses, and Reports.
Use +New Button to Start a Transaction
Takeaway: Wave has the upper hand in terms of ease of setup, but both are generally easy to use. Wave’s interface might be more desirable for new users because of its simple language (e.g., invoices owed to you).
Wave vs QuickBooks: Integrations
Wave and QuickBooks Online both integrate with numerous third-party software programs to expand their functionality. Common integrations you’ll find include payment processors, such as PayPal and Stripe, and eCommerce apps, like Shopify and Etsy.
Wave Integrations
You can connect Wave to other apps that you use every day to automate your business processes and streamline your financial transactions. Wave integrates with third-party applications like PayPal, Stripe, Etsy, and Shopify. It also connects with over 3,000 apps through Zapier.
Wave’s integrations include the following:
- Payments and e-commerce: PayPal, Shopify, Square, Stripe, Etsy
- Appointment scheduling: Calendly, Acuity Scheduling
- Customer relationship management: HubSpot, Pipedrive, Harvest
- Email marketing: MailChimp, Automational, SendPulse
- Business management and automation: Slack, ShipStation, FormStack Document, Approval Donkey, eEndorsements, Google Sheets
QuickBooks Integrations
While QuickBooks itself already has extensive integration with internal software like QuickBooks Payroll, QuickBooks Payments, QuickBooks Commerce, and QuickBooks Time, it also connects with hundreds of third-party tools, including expense tracking, invoicing, time tracking, HR, CRM, and e-commerce apps.
Here are some of the apps that you can integrate with QuickBooks:
- Time tracking: Time, ClockShark, and eBillity
- Inventory tracking: eBay by OneSAAS, Shopify by OneSAAS, Amazon Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA) & Seller Fulfilled Accounting by Entriwise, and Katana Inventory and Manufacturing
- Pay bills and receive payments: Bill.com, Deluxe eChecks, Plooto, and Veem
- Manage customers: Method: CRM, Insightly CRM, WORKetc, and Capsule CRM
- Manage projects: BigTime, Service Trade, Jobber, Corecon, and Knowify for Contractors
- Perform analytics: Syft Analytics, Qvinci, Fathom, and LivePlan
- Process payroll: QuickBooks Payroll, Gusto, ADP, and Paychex
Takeaway: QuickBooks Online’s built-in integration with the other powerful QuickBooks tools makes it a clear winner in this category.
Wave vs QuickBooks Mobile App
Both Wave and QuickBooks have a downloadable mobile application that you can use to perform certain tasks using your mobile device. The apps vary in terms of functionality, and they don’t contain all of the essential features of the desktop interface.
Wave Mobile App
Instead of a single, full-featured mobile application, Wave uses two mobile apps, one for creating invoices and one for scanning expense receipts. These mobile apps have very limited features, as there’s literally nothing else you can do aside from sending invoices, accepting payments, and scanning receipts. You can download the app on Google Play and the App Store.
QuickBooks Online Mobile App
QuickBooks Online has a more capable mobile app than Wave. Aside from creating invoices and scanning receipts, you can also use the QuickBooks mobile app to categorize bank and credit card expenses, add billable expenses and assign to customers or projects, and view financial reports.
Takeaway: There might be instances where you need to send an invoice while you’re on a trip. In this case, you can use both Wave and QuickBooks to create and send an invoice to your client using your smartphone. However, if you find yourself needing to track your expenses or view your financial reports on the go, then you should choose the QuickBooks Online app.
Wave vs QuickBooks: Assisted Bookkeeping
Both Wave and QuickBooks Online offer assisted bookkeeping services for an additional fee. Wave employs Wave Advisors to provide professional bookkeeping solutions to users, while QuickBooks Online users can purchase the QuickBooks Live Bookkeeping add-on to help them with their books and reports.
Wave Assisted Bookkeeping
For those who need personalized bookkeeping assistance, you can enlist the help of a paid Wave ProAdvisor. Wave ProAdvisors are Wave-certified tax and bookkeeping professionals who provide one-on-one accounting and tax coaching services for Wave customers. You will be assigned a dedicated WaveAdvisor who will help you complete your bookkeeping requirements.
- Wave ProAdvisors pricing:
- Monthly plan at $149 per month
- $229 for one Session (one-hour package)
- $329 for two sessions (two hours)
QuickBooks Online Assisted Bookkeeping
Through QuickBooks Live Bookkeeping, QuickBooks users will work with a QuickBooks-certified bookkeeper to help them with duties such as reconciling bank accounts, generating reports, and preparing for tax filing.
- QuickBooks Live Bookkeeping pricing: Starts at $200 per month for up to $25,000 in monthly expenses
Takeaway: Both QuickBooks and Wave advisors are certified and are equally competent to help you with your bookkeeping duties. The main factor that may affect your choice would be the price, which favors QuickBooks Online.
Wave vs QuickBooks: Customer Support
QuickBooks Online beats Wave in terms of customer support. Wave has very limited customer service options, which only include a chatbot, in-product help guides, and a searchable knowledge base with how-to articles and troubleshooting tips. QuickBooks Online customer support is much better, with the option to talk to a real agent.
Wave Customer Support
Wave has very limited customer support, which can be a huge problem for new users who can’t easily find their way around a new program. While new users have access to chat support for 60 days after purchase, Wave doesn’t have customer service representatives to talk with, and you can’t contact them through phone or email. Unless you sign up for assisted bookkeeping through a paid advisor, the only way you can get support is through the Wave Help Center or the chatbot.
QuickBooks Customer Support
In addition to its chatbot, QuickBooks Online allows you to talk with a real human. While you can’t make the call, you can submit a form and wait for a call from one of their customer service representatives. You can’t send an email to QuickBooks, but you can chat with a representative online, which is very convenient if you need quick answers to your questions. You can also take advantage of its multiple self-help resources, including accounting blogs, forums, and FAQs. For more complicated issues, you should consider hiring a QuickBooks ProAdvisor.
Takeaway: QuickBooks doesn’t have the best customer service, but it clearly beats Wave within this category. QuickBooks Online’s customer support is more reachable, and they can quickly provide answers to your questions.
Bottom Line
When it comes to price, Wave is the clear winner. However, that’s not always the only consideration for businesses. While very small businesses only need basic invoicing and accounting to survive, larger businesses may require more advanced features, such as inventory management, paying bills by check, and income or expense tracking by location. This is where QuickBooks Online takes the lead. Overall, your choice of accounting software depends on your needs, the size of your business, and how much you can pay for such a program.
