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Core ledger and bookkeeping

Wave Accounting

Free cloud accounting for micro businesses and sole traders.

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Overview

Wave Accounting is a bookkeeping and invoicing platform for freelancers, sole traders, and micro businesses that covers double-entry accounting, unlimited invoices, expense tracking, receipt scanning, and financial reporting with a permanently free Starter tier. Accounting firms can add it to their stack for clients that want clean books without a monthly subscription.

For very small client businesses in the US and Canada that are not yet ready to pay for bookkeeping software, Wave is worth considering. Accountants and bookkeepers can be added as collaborators on any Wave account at no charge, so your firm can keep oversight of client books without extra licence fees.

The Pro plan at $19 per month adds automatic bank and credit card imports, auto-merge and categorisation, and discounted payment processing rates. Wave Advisors at $199 per month pairs the platform with a dedicated bookkeeper for clients who want a fully managed service.

The daily workflow is straightforward: clients log in, bank transactions import on the Pro plan, and Wave suggests category matches based on past entries. Your firm reviews the coding, reconciles, and runs reports. Most micro-business clients can handle their own invoicing without training.

Wave is strongest for sole traders and freelancers with fewer than 10 transactions a week. Once a client outgrows that profile, QuickBooks Online or Xero gives your firm deeper reporting, a proper accountant dashboard, and a larger app ecosystem.

Wave works with Stripe and PayPal for payment acceptance, and basic Zapier connectivity is available.

Key facts

Starting price
Free
Pricing model
Free
Free trial
No
Free tier
Yes
Deployment
Cloud, Mobile
Geography
US, CA
Founded
2009
Support
Email, Chat, Phone, Knowledge Base
Languages
English
Works with
Stripe, Paypal, Zapier
Last verified
2026-05-04

Pros and Cons

Pros

  • Solo traders, freelancers, and micro-businesses that want permanently free bookkeeping with double-entry rigour.
  • Accountants that add Wave as a collaborator on micro-client books at no extra licence fee.
  • US or Canadian clients that want optional managed bookkeeping. Wave Advisors starts at $199 per month.

Cons

  • Firms with mid-market clients. Wave's reporting depth is not built for complex finance functions.
  • Practices outside the US or Canada. Wave operates in those two markets only.
  • Clients that need NetSuite, Sage Intacct, or QuickBooks-grade integration. Wave's connector list is small.

Pricing

TierPriceBillingFeatures
Starter$0Per monthUnlimited invoices, expense tracking, double-entry bookkeeping, and financial reports. Free permanently.
Pro$19Per monthEverything in Starter plus automatic bank transaction import, auto-categorisation, and receipt capture.

Frequently asked questions

Is Wave Accounting really free?
Yes for the bookkeeping itself. The base accounting features (invoicing, bank reconciliation, expense tracking, basic reporting) cost nothing in the US and Canada. Wave earns revenue from add-on services: payroll (around 20-40 USD per month plus per-employee fees), payment processing (around 1% per transaction on bank transfers, 2.9% plus 30 cents on cards), and Wave Advisors (paid bookkeeping support). For a client that uses invoicing only, the platform is genuinely free. For a client with payroll and card payments, the total ends up similar to QuickBooks Online.
Will Wave stay free under H&R Block ownership?
H&R Block acquired Wave in 2019 and the free tier has remained intact through 2026. The acquisition has narrowed Wave's geographic focus (Canada and US only, no UK or Australian expansion plans) and tied the product roadmap more tightly to small-business tax filing. Mid-term risk: any change in the parent's strategy could change pricing, but the free tier is a core part of Wave's customer acquisition model and unlikely to disappear quietly.
Is Wave good for an accountant managing client books?
Wave fits solo bookkeepers and small firms whose clients are micro-businesses with straightforward needs. It lacks an accountant programme with bulk client management, deep multi-entity reporting, or the practice tools that QuickBooks Online and Xero have built for firms. If you manage more than a handful of Wave clients, you spend extra time on administrative tasks the larger platforms automate. For one or two Wave clients alongside a QBO or Xero practice, it works fine.
Can I migrate a client from Wave to QuickBooks Online or Xero later?
Yes, but plan for some manual cleanup. Wave exports transaction data, customer/vendor lists, and chart of accounts as CSV, which both QBO and Xero can import. Bank-feed history, invoice attachments, and reconciliation lock points do not always survive the migration cleanly. Plan a half-day per client for a clean migration, or use a third-party migration service for clients with more than a year of complex history.
What AI features does Wave have?
Limited compared to QBO, Xero, or Zoho Books. Wave's automation is rules-based for transaction categorisation and recurring invoices rather than AI-driven. Smart receipt capture works through the mobile app but is not as accurate as Dext or Hubdoc for invoice-heavy clients. If your client's bookkeeping volume is mostly bank-feed reconciliation with simple coding, the AI gap matters little. If you want serious AI assistance on coding or anomaly detection, look at QBO or Xero.

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Last verified 2026-05-04. Pricing and features come from vendor-published specs. See our methodology.