Wave Accounting: free online accounting for small business

I've used Wave Accounting for over a year, and I highly recommend it for freelancers and small businesses. It's like Mint, except for business accounting rather than personal finance. You connect your bank accounts, and Wave automatically imports income and expenses. You can also manually enter transactions. Like Mint, Wave Accounting is free to use because it displays unobtrusive ads.

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Wave Accounting menu

Like Mint, Wave has interactive charts and graphs, but they're not as polished or full-featured as Mint's. What Wave has that Mint doesn't is accounting reports, including balance sheet, general ledger, income statement, income by customer, and expense by vendor. I use the income statement to calculate what I owe for estimated taxes.

Wave Accounting reports

Wave does invoicing, but I've been using Freshbooks for invoicing since I started my business, and it's still serving me well. At some point I'll probably switch to a single system for invoicing and accounting.

What do you use for accounting and invoicing?

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6 comments on “Wave Accounting: free online accounting for small business”

  1. Chad, are you still using GoDaddy Bookkeeping and are you still happy with it? Did anyone help you with figuring out what to put in what categories? Like what category do you use for your Internet Domain Names and Hosting Services expenses (Advertising or Utilities?) What are you doing to file your taxes? Thank you for any help!

    1. Joni, I am using GoDaddy Bookkeeping, and it's working quite well; better than anything else I've tried. To choose categories I usually google or ask my CPA. I created categories for Domain Registration and Hosting, and assigned them to other expenses on Schedule C. I send my profit and loss numbers to my CPA, and he tells me how much to pay in estimated taxes. I use H&R Block software for my annual taxes, and have my CPA review before I file.

      I highly recommend finding a trustworthy accounting and tax professional to help you. There are three OptimWise clients that provide accounting services: Simply Counted Business Services, Inc., Aukema & Company, PC, and Geenen & Kolean, PC. If you contact them, please tell them I sent you.

  2. Online accounting for small business is very much useful it seems. But what about the execution of plans through online accounting? Representing an accounting firm in East Dundee, we had a great experience of business learnings with you. Thanks!

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