Why I chose Wave over Quickbooks
I am no accountant. Let’s just say that up front. And while I’m actually not terrible with numbers, bookkeeping for my LLC makes me want to gag.
When I first started out in 2018, I chose Wave primarily because it was free. Butttttt, I made the mistake of not immediately opening a business credit card and checking account. So every business charge I made was put on my personal credit card which was paid off with my personal checking account. I was able to keep up with my sales and my expenses (GOOD) but reconciling any account was obviously impossible (BAD). Working with Wave was super simple and streamlined but I kept hearing other reputable business owners tout the necessity of Quickbooks. “If you want to grow your business, Quickbooks is a must.” I heard this in various ways and countless times.
Fast forward 2 years–I decided January 2020 was the perfect time to put my big girl business panties on and open a separate small business checking account and credit card. This would also be the perfect time to also set up Quickbooks and keep accurate books.
And let’s just say that Quickbooks was not the cakewalk that it was made out to be. I spent a week setting up my account, adding my expenses, creating my chart of accounts, and even went ahead and paid for a year’s subscription. I’ll just go ahead and jump to all of the bullet points that made me quickly run back to Wave.
Wave vs. Quickbooks for Small businesses
Problems with Quickbooks ONLINE:
The interface is outdated and not intuitive.
I paid $15/mo for the barebones subscription. I have several clients that I bill on a monthly basis and when I went to set up a recurring bill, I found that I needed to up my subscription to $40/mo in order to have this automatic function. Ummmm, no.
The Online version is less user-friendly than the Desktop option. I didn’t find this out until AFTER I had set up the Online version and I wasn’t willing to re-setup everything on the Desktop. My accountant even told me (after this debacle) that they request all of their clients to be on the Desktop version because Quickbooks Online is such a headache.
Why I chose Wave:
The interface is user-friendly and quick to learn.
Recurring monthly payments are included. I’m able to continue billing my clients on a monthly basis and this feature is included. And it’s still FREE!
They have excellent customer service and since it’s a free product, they aren’t harassing you to upgrade every time you have a question!
Wave easily integrates with Zapier so that payment information can be sent from my Squarespace site when sales occur.
Reasons you may want to stick with Quickbooks anyways:
You want to create multiple user accounts.
Having a mobile app is a necessity. Wave offers an app to upload receipts, but not full accounting functionality like Quickbooks.
If you’re a small business owner, consider Wave! I’m not an affiliate and I’m definitely not getting paid to say this. Just want to spread the good news that there may be a better option for small business accounting!