Review: Wave Accounting
Wave solves a real freelancer problem: you need professional invoicing and basic accounting before the business generates consistent revenue. Wave’s free plan is genuinely unlimited — unlimited invoices, clients, bank connections, and full double-entry accounting.
What You Get Free
Invoice creation, receipt scanning, bank feeds with automatic reconciliation, double-entry accounting, P&L, balance sheet, cash flow summary, and tax report exports — all free. Wave earns revenue from Wave Payments (2.9% + $0.60 per card transaction) and Wave Payroll ($40/month base). This is not a crippled tier designed to upsell you.
Invoice Quality
Clean, professional templates fully customizable with your logo and brand colors. Automatic payment reminders work on the free plan. Wave Payments processes directly to your bank account (2-day card settlement, 1–7 days ACH).
Limitations
No inventory tracking, no project profitability reporting, no time tracking built-in, and a smaller integration marketplace than QuickBooks or Xero. For product businesses or teams, these gaps matter. For service-based solopreneurs, they usually don’t.
Verdict
Wave is the recommendation for any freelancer or solopreneur starting out — free to use until you’ve validated you need FreshBooks’ time tracking or QuickBooks’ depth. Start here and upgrade when revenue justifies it.