ZipBooks vs Wave Comparison: Which Is Best for You?

ZipBooks and Wave are both cloud-based accounting programs, and both offer a free option. Wave is a better choice for companies that have transactions in multiple currencies. ZipBooks is better for service firms that bill clients by the hour. While ZipBooks doesn’t currently have a mobile app, Wave has two mobile apps that allow you to create invoices and accept payments. Also, ZipBooks allows you to track time and track income and expenses by project, and Wave does not.

When to Use ZipBooks

ZipBooks is a web-based accounting program that provides an accessible and user-friendly way for small business owners to manage their essential bookkeeping and accounting tasks. It’s ideal for sole proprietors and microbusinesses that are looking for an affordable accounting software option. ZipBooks is one of our choices for best free Accounting software article due to its simple invoicing feature. ZipBooks offers a free plan and two fee-based plans.

ZipBooks is better for:

• Freelancers and solopreneurs: ZipBooks’ free plan is good for one user only, making it suitable for self-employed individuals who manage their books.
• Upgrading and scaling: Once your business grows, it’s easy to scale up with ZipBooks. From the free version, you can either upgrade to Smarter or Sophisticated plans and get additional features not present in the free version. In Wave, scaling is impossible since it’s totally free software with no higher paid plans.
• Tagging expenses: ZipBooks allows you to create custom tags for enhanced tracking of expenses. You can create tags based on location, projects, or departments within your company.

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When to Use Wave

Wave is a cloud-based accounting solution and our choice for best free accounting software for companies needing more than one user. It offers free invoicing and receipt scanning and, because of its built-in integration, Wave Payments, it’s a great option for businesses that need to accept online payments. Because of its simplicity, sole proprietors and freelancers on a budget may find that this software suits their needs. Wave also offers credit card processing and payroll services for an additional fee.

Wave is better for:

• Businesses looking for a free accounting software program with unlimited users: ZipBooks’ free plan is good for one user only. Wave is a better choice for unlimited users.
• Sending recurring invoices: ZipBooks doesn’t include recurring invoices unless you pay for the Smarter plan. We recommend Wave over ZipBooks if you prefer a free accounting software program with advanced features like recurring invoices.
• Modifying the chart of accounts (COA): Wave allows you to add new accounts or modify the existing ones. In ZipBooks, this feature isn’t present in the free plan—only users of the Sophisticated plan can modify the COA.
• Business looking for a native payroll service with tax assistance: Wave Payroll is a payroll assistance add-on to the free accounting service of Wave. Wave Payroll offers payroll and tax assistance to Wave users. It offers a fully automated tax feature for tax service states—Arizona, California, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Minnesota, New York, North Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, Washington, and Wisconsin. For the rest of the states, Wave Payroll can only compute taxes but you’ll have to do the payment and filing yourself.

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When to Use an Alternative

ZipBooks and Wave both offer useful accounting features. They can help users track invoices and bills and manage payments. However, both of these software programs have limitations that might call for an alternative.

• Inventory tracking: Tracking inventory stock levels and determining cost of goods sold (COGS) and ending inventory is essential for merchandising businesses. We don’t recommend ZipBooks or Wave for inventory concerns. The best alternative for inventory needs is QuickBooks Online, our choice for best small business accounting software.
• Businesses that need a full-featured mobile app: Accessing your books through your smartphone or tablet is a convenient way to stay on top of expenses, view company performance while away, and track time worked. Zoho Books offers a great mobile app that can assist in keeping your books updated while you’re out of the office. Zoho Books is available for free for businesses with less than $50,000 in annual revenues.

Fit Small Business Case Study

We used our FSB case study to evaluate ZipBooks and Wave across the 11 key areas that we want to see in small business accounting software. You can read the full ZipBooks Review and Wave Review for detailed analysis and information. Here are the results:

In the chart above, we compared ZipBooks Starter (ZipBooks’ free version) and Wave. These two free software products seem to be on a par with each other, except for some features: Wave excels in banking, inventory, and tax while ZipBooks does better in project accounting and customer service. But in the areas of A/P, A/R, and reporting, ZipBooks and Wave are about even.

The choice between ZipBooks and Wave depends on your needs. If you’re a project-based business, ZipBooks is the better choice. But if you need advanced banking features like payment and credit card processing, Wave is preferable to ZipBooks.

ZipBooks vs Wave at a Glance

ZipBooks Pricing vs Wave Pricing

Businesses that are looking for an affordable option will be satisfied with either ZipBooks or Wave, which both offer the most basic bookkeeping services for free. But while ZipBooks’ pricing increases based on the number of users and available features, Wave opts instead to provide free accounting, invoicing, and receipt scanning and focuses its charges on credit card processing, bank payments, and payroll services.

ZipBooks Pricing

ZipBooks’ pricing may make it attractive to sole proprietors and microbusinesses. It offers a free starter plan and three paid plans, including an accountant version, which start at $15 per month, depending on the number of users and features required. The Accountant version allows you to manage clients from one dashboard.

• Starter: Free for one user
• Smarter: $15 for five users
• Sophisticated: $35 for unlimited users
• Accountant: Custom priced for unlimited users

ZipBooks is a great accounting program for growing businesses. Businesses using the free version can upgrade to Smarter or Sophisticated anytime the need arises. And accountants who offer bookkeeping and accounting services on ZipBooks can connect to your ZipBooks account easily.

Wave Pricing

Wave’s basic accounting functions, which include invoicing and receipt scanning, are absolutely free. There are additional charges for credit card and payroll processing, which are described below:

• 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: Starts at $20, plus $6 per employee, per month, in self-service states and $35 plus $6 per employee, per month, in states where federal and state payroll taxes can be filed electronically

ZipBooks vs Wave: Features

ZipBooks vs Wave: Accounts Payable

ZipBooks’ accounts payable (A/P) features work great for recording unpaid bills. Users can create vendors, designate vendors as 1099 contractors, and assign bills to expense accounts. The form layout of ZipBooks’ bill creation window is simple and easy to understand. You can add attachments to support your entry and even enter the payment terms. Since ZipBooks doesn’t have inventory tracking, the software doesn’t ask for quantities of goods ordered. You’ll need to use a spreadsheet to keep track of inventory units and costs.

Wave shares the same features as ZipBooks and is also a great application for tracking and managing unpaid bills. Unlike ZipBooks, Wave asks about the quantity of the goods you ordered. This feature puts Wave at a slight advantage over ZipBooks since it shows the number of units, which can be vital for manually tracking units.

ZipBooks vs Wave: Accounts Receivable

In accounts receivable (A/R), we’re looking for invoice customization and invoice management features. ZipBooks doesn’t offer a lot of customization options for invoices. There’s no option to change the layout or color of the invoice. However, you can add your logo and include a personalized message.

ZipBooks compensates for this missing feature by allowing unbilled expenses to be added to invoices. This feature is often reserved for the higher and more premium plans of accounting software like QuickBooks Online Plus. If you like this feature, you must upgrade to Sophisticated. For only $35 a month, you get a flagship feature for an extremely low price.

Wave takes the lead in terms of invoice customization. There are different templates to choose from, plus the ability to modify invoice colors. When creating invoices, you can directly add a new customer, which makes Wave easier and more efficient to use. It also includes premium features, like creating recurring invoices and detailed tax reports, which aren’t present in ZipBooks unless you upgrade to ZipBooks Sophisticated.

ZipBooks vs Wave: Sales & Income Tax

You can add sales tax items in ZipBooks by jurisdiction and then add them to your invoices but, first, you need to encode sales tax rates in the settings. In ZipBooks Starter, you can include 1099 classification for independent contractors and charge sales taxes to invoices. Wave also shares the same features, plus creating sales tax adjustments on credit memos and viewing sales tax liabilities in detail. However, you can’t file sales tax returns and pay sales tax liability within ZipBooks or Wave.

ZipBooks vs Wave: Ease of Use

Both ZipBooks and Wave are designed for the accounting novice, and both make it easy to find what you’re looking for without the need to spend much time learning the software.

ZipBooks Ease of Use

Upon sign-in, ZipBooks displays a financial performance dashboard that provides a summary of all recent expense and invoicing activity. An intuitive user interface means less time learning the application. Navigation is easy, with the vertical menu to the left of the main screen offering quick access to all system functions:

1. Home: The navigation bar on the left side gives you access to Invoices, Transactions, Reports, Contacts, Tracking, and Payroll. You can also access these at the top of the page.
2. Financial performance: This report is shown in graph format and is a summary of your business’ revenue, expenses, and net income.
3. Finish setup: This is displayed to show your progress with tasks needed to set up your account, including adding an address and phone number, adding a logo, and connecting a bank.
4. Expenses: After you connect your bank account, your transactions will be downloaded and displayed here automatically.
5. Tracked time: This feature summarizes your unbilled time so that you can see the status of what is yet to be invoiced. There is also a timer at the top of the page, which you use and then import into ZipBooks.

Sending a Simple Invoice

Because the Starter version doesn’t use items on its invoices, you type the description you want on each line of the invoice. For this reason, we included it as the best free software for simple invoices in our review of the best free accounting software. However, while it’s simple, it’s also inefficient because you’ll need to retype product and service descriptions in each invoice.

Wave Ease of Use

Wave also has a dashboard that displays current business performance along with a cash flow graph, a two-year net income summary, and a graph that illustrates expenses by category. You accept credit cards on invoices by going through the setup process on this page:

1. Left navigation bar: Use this section to navigate to various sections of the software, including Sales, Purchases, Accounting, Banking, Payroll, Reports, Wave Advisors, and Tax Filing.
2. Accept payments: This feature walks you through accepting credit card payments on your invoices and signs you up for Payments by Wave.
3. Cash flow: This report reflects the cash going in and out of your business.
4. Profit and loss: This report shows income and expenses only, including unpaid invoices and bills.
5. Payable and owing: This section summarizes both invoices payable to you and unpaid bills, broken down by aging periods.
6. Net Income: This is a two-year comparison that shows income, expense, and net income figures.
7. Expense breakdown: This graph illustrates your expenses by category so that you can view what percentage is spent in each.

ZipBooks vs Wave: Assisted Bookkeeping

ZipBooks offers bookkeeping and tax services for an additional monthly fee, providing you with a dedicated bookkeeper and online support. Prices range from $125 per month for Simple Bookkeeping to $145 per month for more advanced bookkeeping. Form 1099 reporting and preparation starts at $175 per month and includes all features of Simple Bookkeeping. The bookkeeping plans already include a ZipBooks plan.

Wave Advisors assist with bookkeeping, accounting coaching, and taxes. You can hire Wave Advisors to handle bookkeeping tasks such as categorizing bank transactions, performing bank reconciliations, and tax planning.

• Bookkeeping and payroll support: For $149 per month, Wave Advisors will categorize transactions, perform account reconciliations, and take care of your payroll.
• Tax service: For $899 per year, Wave Advisors guarantee accurate income tax filing and review of the profit and loss report.
• Accounting and payroll coaching: For $229 for one hour, Wave Advisors will help you set up your Wave account and teach you how to do the bookkeeping yourself. This price also includes 30 days of email support from your coach.

ZipBooks vs Wave: Integrations

Neither ZipBooks nor Wave offers an extensive list of integrations, but with the addition of Zapier, Wave has significantly more offerings. However, the dozen integrations that ZipBooks offers cover basic business needs such as business management, payment acceptance, and appointment scheduling.

ZipBooks Integrations

ZipBooks currently has 12 integrations, which include:

• Payments and ecommerce: PayPal, Square POS, Square for Retail, and Square Payments
• Customer relationship management (CRM): Spiceworks Network Monitor
• Appointment scheduling: Square Appointments
• Business management and automation: Slack, Asana, Google Drive, and Google Workspace
• Payroll and human resources (HR): GrandMaster Suite and eNETEmployer

Wave Integrations

Wave offers a limited number of integrations that include PayPal, Etsy, and Shoeboxed. It also supports a Zapier integration, which connects Wave with more than 1,000 add-ons. These include:

• Payments and ecommerce: Shopify, Square, Stripe, PayPal, and Etsy
• CRM: HubSpot, Pipedrive, and Harvest
• Email marketing: Automational, Mailchimp, and SendPulse
• Appointment scheduling: Calendly and Acuity Scheduling
• Business management and automation: Slack, ShipStation, FormStack Document, Google Sheets, and Approval Donkey

ZipBooks vs Wave: Mobile App

Until ZipBooks updates its mobile app, you can use your device’s browser to access ZipBooks, which is very mobile-friendly. For an extra timesaver, you can create a shortcut on your phone for easier access. The Wave app is limited to sending invoices, receiving payments, and capturing receipts.

ZipBooks vs Wave: Customer Support

Support is limited for both ZipBooks and Wave. ZipBooks offers a chatbot, live chat, and self-help information on their Help Center. Wave offers chatbot assistance only and self-help information. Overall, both software service providers have poor customer support. We recommend Zoho Books for the best customer support because users have multiple ways of contacting support.

Bottom Line

Both ZipBooks and Wave offer free plans for basic accounting needs, but ZipBooks has paid plans if you want more advanced features. ZipBooks can also track time and manage 1099 contractors, two features that aren’t available with Wave. Wave can handle multiple currencies, while ZipBooks cannot. While Wave has two mobile apps for functions such as invoicing customers and receiving payments, ZipBooks’ app is currently discontinued.