FreshBooks and Wave have many similar features, such as the ability to send unlimited invoices and track unpaid bills. However, FreshBooks is a bit more robust, as it has features not found in Wave, including project accounting and time tracking. Wave, on the other hand, has fewer features but is more affordable, with a free plan for a single user.
Our in-depth FreshBooks vs Wave evaluation shows that:
- FreshBooks is better for businesses that need project accounting
- Wave is more suitable for very small businesses with basic bookkeeping needs
If you have inventory, then neither FreshBooks nor Wave is appropriate because it can’t calculate the cost of goods sold (COGS). We recommend:
- QuickBooks Online: Best for businesses with inventory
We are driven by the Fit Small Business mission to provide you with the best answers to your small business questions—allowing you to choose the right accounting solution for your needs. Our meticulous evaluation process makes us a trustworthy source for accounting software insights. We don’t just scratch the surface; we immerse ourselves in every platform we review by exploring the features down to the finest nuances.
We have an extensive history of reviewing small business accounting software, and we stay up-to-date with the latest features and enhancements. Our first-hand experience, guided by our internal case study, helps us understand how the different products compare with each other and how they work in real-world scenarios.
Since our last update: Wave used to be free but has recently added a paid version called Pro. The free plan (Starter) supports a single user and has basic features, including invoicing and income and expense tracking, while the paid tier offers additional features, such as unlimited receipt capture, bank feed connections, email and live chat support, and unlimited user access.
Use Cases and Pros & Cons
- Service-based businesses: As our best small business accounting software for service-based businesses, FreshBooks lets you track hours spent on a project and collaborate with your team members. You can also compare estimated costs to actual expenses so that you’ll know how to plan your budget. Wave doesn’t have any project accounting features.
- Businesses looking for reliable customer service: FreshBooks allows you to talk to a real person over the phone, which comes in handy if you run into problems that need immediate attention. With Wave, you must purchase an add-on to access live chat and email in the free plan or upgrade to the paid version.
- Those who often do business on the go: FreshBooks’ mobile app allows you to invoice customers, accept payments, enter bills, attach receipts, and record time worked on the go.
Pros
- Is affordable businesses with a single user
- Provides highly customizable invoices
- Lets you track time worked from your mobile device
- Allows you to contact support over the phone
- Enables you to run team utilization reports to track productivity
Cons
- Includes only one user in all plans
- Can’t track bank account activity without a bank feed
- Doesn’t track inventory and COGS
- Can be difficult to find a bookkeeper who is proficient with FreshBooks
- Solopreneurs and freelancers seeking free accounting software: Wave’s free plan, Starter, is free for a single user and is sufficient for basic accounting needs, such as invoicing and income and expense tracking.
- Freelancers looking to send invoices for free: If you only need simple invoicing for your clients, there’s no reason not to choose Wave’s free version over the paid FreshBooks.
- Growing companies that don’t need advanced features: As your business grows and scales, you can easily upgrade to Wave’s paid plan (Pro) which supports an unlimited number of users. Most likely, Pro will be sufficient to support your growth as long as you don’t require advanced features like inventory tracking and project management.
Pros
- Offers a free plan for companies with a single user
- Has a paid version that is more affordable than most similar software
- Is simple software; easy to set up and use
- Lets you create recurring invoices even in the free plan
- Includes unlimited receipt capture in the free plan
Cons
- Doesn’t allow you to connect your bank and credit card accounts in the free plan
- Only supports one user in the free plan
- Unsuitable for larger businesses
- Won’t let you change colors of invoice fields
Fit Small Business Case Study
Using our internal case study, we compared FreshBooks and Wave across several key categories, such as general features, accounts payable (A/P), accounts receivable (A/R), and banking and cash management.
Touch the graph above to interact Click on the graphs above to interact
-
FreshBooks From $19 monthly; $60 as tested
-
Wave Free or $16 per month; $16 as tested
User Reviews: Tie
While FreshBooks has a slightly higher rating than Wave, both received a fair share of positive and negative user reviews, so we consider this section a tie.
Below, we summarize the most relevant FreshBooks reviews plus my expert insight:
- Many users praise FreshBooks for its strong project accounting features. I agree with this. The platform is among our best project accounting software, particularly for service-based businesses. I like its ability to track time and attach time entries to invoices, track project statuses, and compare estimated vs actual costs.
- Some reviewers said that it’s easy to set up and use, and I couldn’t agree more. It requires minimal setup, so you can get started in no time.
- Other users shared that it has great customer service, and I believe this is one benefit of having phone support.
- One unhappy user complained that it lacks inventory, while another wished that it was easier to find a bookkeeper who is proficient in FreshBooks.
As of this writing, here’s how FreshBooks is rated on top review websites:
Here’s a rundown of positive and negative reviews of Wave and what I have to say about those comments:
- One user is happy that Wave has a free plan for businesses with a single user. Although Wave downscaled its free plan a bit, I believe it’s still a decent choice for many small businesses, as many small business owners often work on their books on their own or have at least one bookkeeper to do it for them.
- Some reviewers like that Wave has a mobile app for invoicing. You can create and send invoices on the go with Wave, but what’s more impressive is that you can set up recurring invoices, which is often found in premium software.
- Others appreciate Wave’s timesaving features, such as invoice reminders and bank connections.
- One reviewer recently complained that while Wave added a new paid plan, there are essentially no features added, such as inventory management and project accounting. I agree the paid plan doesn’t add any major functionality, but it does come with free receipt scanning and discounted payment processing rates.
Wave earned the following ratings on leading review sites:
Pricing: Wave Wins
Wave’s free plan aced our scoring rubric, but even the paid version, which is the basis of our evaluation, has a higher score than FreshBooks, making Wave the clear winner for pricing.
FreshBooks offers four plans, all of which include one user. If you would like to check out the program first, FreshBooks currently offers a free 30-day trial with no credit card required.
Add-ons:
- Additional users: $11 monthly per additional seat
- Advanced payments Access advanced features, such as the ability to create recurring billing profiles and schedule subscription payments for specific customers. : $20 per month
- FreshBooks Payroll: $40 base fee plus $6 per user monthly
- Credit card processing: 2.9% plus 30 cents per transaction for most cards and 3.5% plus 30 cents per transaction for American Express
- Assisted bookkeeping (via Bench Accounting): $299 or $499 monthly
Wave offers a free plan (Starter) for a single user and a paid version (Pro) for unlimited users. Both tiers include basic bookkeeping features, such as invoicing and income and expense tracking. Pro has additional inclusions, such as the ability to connect banks, access to email and live chat support, discounted credit card processing fees, and unlimited receipt scanning through Wave Receipts.
Add-ons:
- Wave Receipts: $11 per month for unlimited receipt scans (included in Pro)
- Wave Payroll: $40 for tax service states or $20 for self-service states, plus an additional $6 monthly per active employee An active employee is one who’s currently employed and not on leave. or independent contractor; read our Wave Payroll review for more information
- Wave Advisor: $149 per month for bookkeeping support
- Accounting and payroll coaching: One-time fee of $379
As mentioned earlier, FreshBooks has more features than Wave, which is somehow expected given that Wave used to be free and is focused on very small businesses with basic accounting needs.
We selected three categories in our case study to provide you with a more thorough comparison of FreshBooks vs Wave in terms of features.
Banking & Cash Management: FreshBooks Wins
We consider this a tie since the two programs have their unique strengths and weaknesses. All FreshBooks plans let you connect your bank accounts, while with Wave, you need to upgrade to the paid plan to do so. Meanwhile, Wave gives you the option to manually upload your files of transactions, while FreshBooks requires you to establish a live connection with your bank account.
I don’t recommend FreshBooks if you are unwilling to connect your bank and credit card accounts. FreshBooks employs a unique system where income and expenses are not designated as being made to or from any particular bank or credit card account. Transactions are then assigned to the proper bank or credit card account when the transactions are imported from the bank feed. This is very user-friendly unless you don’t connect all your bank and credit cards—in which case the system is nearly unusable.
Accounting Expert at FitSmallBusiness
Neither can reconcile transactions with timing differences, including outstanding checks that haven’t yet been cleared by your bank. Both also lack options for combining multiple checks in a single deposit. If your business relies on checks for your day-to-day transactions, you should consider QuickBooks Online for powerful bank reconciliation. Read our QuickBooks Online review for details on the platform.
Invoicing (A/R): FreshBooks Wins
Both platforms have good invoicing capabilities, but FreshBooks offers more optimization options. Not only does it have more templates to choose from, but it also offers advanced functions like customizing payment reminders and late fees by clients.
The two programs can set up recurring invoices, but Wave doesn’t allow you to add late fees to your invoice. Also, FreshBooks provides more customizable invoices. With Wave, you can upload your company logo and choose the theme color, but you can’t adjust the color of the fields in the invoice.
Project Accounting: FreshBooks Wins
If you’re a service-based business that works on projects or bills clients by the hour, then you’ll find FreshBooks useful—it allows you to set up hourly or flat-rate projects and assign them to your employees or customers. Once you’re done with a project, you can convert it into an invoice easily.
When setting up a project estimate in FreshBooks, you have the option to add sales taxes, inventories, and labor. You can also compare cost estimates to actual costs, which is useful for contractors. Unfortunately, Wave has no project accounting system, although it does allow you to create an estimate.
Ease of Use: Tie
Both are easy to use and require minimal setup. With FreshBooks, you can easily input your business details, such as company name, address, and telephone number. Additionally, the main page includes shortcut functions like the +New button to help you execute certain tasks easily, such as creating a new invoice and adding a new customer or bill.
The problem with FreshBooks is that you can’t modify the chart of accounts or import a chart of accounts unless you sign in as an accountant. This can be annoying if you’re switching to FreshBooks from previous accounting software.
Meanwhile, as free software, Wave is one of the easiest-to-use accounting programs on the market. When setting up your account in Wave, you’ll start with the Wave Launchpad, where you can choose one of the displayed options and then set up the entire process.
Just like FreshBooks, the Wave dashboard is easy to navigate, with uncluttered menu items and visible buttons to help you find what you need easily. Even as a beginner, you’ll get the gist of automating workflows easily, such as setting up a new client, adding a new bill, creating a project estimate, and sending an invoice.
Integrations: FreshBooks Wins
FreshBooks takes the win here because it integrates with hundreds of third-party software, including payroll, time tracking, and electronic bill pay integration. Some of its most popular integrations include Shopify, Square, Bench Bookkeeping, Zapier, Calendly, Mailchimp, HubSpot, Gusto, Stripe, and PayPal.
Meanwhile, Wave doesn’t integrate with time tracking and electronic bill pay software programs and has very few direct integrations. However, it connects with thousands of apps via Zapier, such as PayPal, Square, Stripe, Etsy, HubSpot, Slack, Google Sheets, and Pipedrive.
Mobile App: FreshBooks Wins
FreshBooks’ app takes the lead in this criterion. If you’re a service-based business or an independent contractor who’s always out in the field, having the ability to record hours worked and assign them to your customers is very convenient. However, both Wave and FreshBooks don’t allow you to enter bill payments, classify transactions from bank feeds, and view reports. If you need such features, you might want to check out Zoho Books, which tops our list of the best mobile accounting apps.
Assisted Bookkeeping: Tie
The two programs are evenly matched in this category as each has its own assisted bookkeeping service with equally decent features and benefits.
FreshBooks has no bookkeeping service, though it partners with Bench, an online bookkeeping service provider, to accommodate users requiring expert help. With Bench, you’ll receive a dedicated bookkeeper who’ll assist you in managing your books. They’ll help you connect your bank and credit card accounts, categorize your transactions, reconcile your statements, and prepare the reports you need for the tax season.
Check out the breakdown of Bench’s pricing below:
- Essential: $299 per month, with access to a dedicated bookkeeping team, plus monthly bookkeeping, year-end tax reports, and direct, unlimited support from Bench
- Premium: $499 per month, includes everything in Essential, plus one one-on-one tax coaching, unlimited tax advisory, and annual tax filing for businesses and individuals
For more information, see our review of Bench. It goes over detailed pricing and inclusions, features, and more.
Wave users needing assistance with their books can seek help from Wave Advisors. These are Wave-certified accounting and tax professionals who provide one-on-one accounting, bookkeeping, and tax consulting services exclusively for Wave customers.
You can choose from the following services provided by Wave Advisors:
- Bookkeeping service: $149 per month—you’ll receive professional assistance with major bookkeeping tasks like account setup, bank reconciliation, and financial reporting
- Accounting and payroll coaching: $379 (one-time fee)—includes personalized support in using Wave’s accounting and payroll features
Our Wave review may be of interest. Its assisted bookkeeping options and features are covered in detail.
Customer Support: FreshBooks Wins
Both Wave and FreshBooks scored poorly because their live support options are not that extensive. For instance, while FreshBooks provides phone support, it has no live chat feature, which could be the preference of some users. On the other hand, Wave lacks phone support and provides live chat and email assistance only if you purchase an add-on in the free plan or upgrade to the paid version.
Nevertheless, we gave the win to FreshBooks because of the ability to talk to a real person over the phone. For minor issues, you can check out its vast online help section, which is equipped with detailed instructions on how to use FreshBooks’ features. Similarly, you may check out the Wave Help Center, which includes some helpful resources that provide answers to your questions.
How We Evaluated Accounting Software
We evaluated FreshBooks vs Wave using our scoring rubric below.
- Breakdown
- Pricing
- General Features
- Banking
- A/P
- A/R
- Inventory
- Project Accounting
- Tax
- Reporting
- Ease of Use
- Mobile App
- User Reviews
5% of Overall Score
In evaluating pricing, we considered the billing cycle (monthly or annual) and number of users.
7% of Overall Score
This section focuses more on first-time setup and software settings. The software must be quick and easy to set up for new users. Even after initial setup, the software must also let users modify information like company name, address, entity type, fiscal year-end, and other company information.
7% of Overall Score
The banking section of this case study focuses on cash management, bank reconciliation, and bank feed connections. The software must have bank integrations to automatically feed bank or card transactions. The bank reconciliation module must also let users reconcile accounts with or without bank feeds for optimal ease of use. Lastly, the software must generate useful reports related to cash.
7% of Overall Score
The A/P section focuses on vendor management, bill management, bill payments, and other payable-related transactions. A/P features include creating vendors and bills, recording purchase orders and converting them to bills, creating service items, and recording full or partial bill payments.
7% of Overall Score
This takes into account customer management, revenue recognition, invoice management, and collections. The software must have A/R features that make it easy for users to collect payments from customers, remind customers of upcoming or overdue invoices, and manage customer obligations through analytic dashboards or reports.
10% of Overall Score
Businesses with inventory items should choose accounting software that can track inventory costs, manage cost of goods sold (COGS), and monitor inventory units.
10% of Overall Score
Service or project-based businesses should choose accounting software that can track project costs, revenues, and profits. The software must have tools to track time, record billable hours or expenses, send invoices for progress billings, or monitor project progress and performance.
4% of Overall Score
In this section, we’re looking at sales tax features. The software must have features that allow users to set sales tax rates, apply them to invoices, and enable users to pay sales tax liability.
4% of Overall Score
Reports are important for managers, owners, and decision-makers. The software must have enough reports that can be generated with a few clicks. Moreover, we’d also like to see customization options to enable users to generate reports based on what they want to see.
30% of Overall Score
Ease of use gets the highest weight in this case study because we want to give more credit to easy accounting software. For this section, we considered customer service, support network, and a subjective expert opinion score. Users must have easy access to customer service channels in case of problems, questions, or assistance.
Support network refers to a community of software users that can extend professional help to businesses. Having an independent software expert perform the bookkeeping is good for overall ease of use. Lastly, our expert opinion score is our subjective rating based on our experience in trying the software.
5% of Overall Score
The software must also have a mobile app to enable users to perform accounting tasks even when away from their laptops or desktops.
4% of Overall Score
We went to user review websites to read first-hand reviews from actual software users. This user review score helps us give more credit to software products that deliver a consistent service to their customers.
*Percentages of overall score
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
Yes, they are.
No, it isn’t possible to reconcile bank statements manually in FreshBooks because it doesn’t allow you to upload files of transactions. Your only option for importing transactions is a live bank connection.
No, it doesn’t; it offers only live chat and email support.
Bottom Line
FreshBooks and Wave have a lot of similar features despite their different pricing structures. FreshBooks has a definite edge as it provides more options to invoice and bill customers, track employee time, and track actual versus estimated project costs. Plus, it has unbeatable customer support. However, if you only need basic accounting features, such as income and expense tracking and invoicing, you may do well with Wave.
User review references:
[1]Capterra | FreshBooks
[2]G2.com | FreshBooks
[3]Software Advice | Wave
[4]G2.com | Wave
