Best Invoice Software for Small Businesses Wave Financial

Wednesday, May 7, 2025

Every invoice paid means more revenue coming into your business. Create and send professional invoices to your customers in seconds. To create an invoice with our free invoice generator, follow these instructions and you’ll quickly have a professional invoice to send to your customers. Add credit card payments to get paid faster and stop chasing customers with auto-reminders. The fact that Wave lets users create and send unlimited invoices and receive payment straight from the invoices for free makes it perfect for freelancers.

With a Wave Pro subscription, you’ll have recurring billing and other automation features. Schedule everything, from invoice creation and invoice sending, to payment collection and overdue payment reminders. We provide different levels of support, depending on the plan and/or the add-on features you choose.

An invoice by Wave won’t add tracked hours, won’t display discounts, and doesn’t allow file attachments. This makes Wave ultimately a middle-of-the-road service for invoice creation specifically. It’s not bad at all, but several services are better, with Zoho Invoice in particular coming out ahead – in fact, it supports every feature mentioned here. Wave offers some of the strongest functionality of all the best invoicing services for small business. According to our research, it’s second only to Freshbooks for features, though QuickBooks matches Wave.

1 Payouts are processed in 1-2 business days for credit card payments and 1-7 business days for bank payments. Deposit times may vary due to processing cutoff times, third party delays, or risk reviews. Accept credit cards, bank payments, and Apple Pay for as little as 1%2 per transaction.Your customers can use the secure “Pay now” button on your invoices to instantly pay you. You can effectively analyze the financial health of your business, find ways to generate more profit, and move forward with your business plan.

Accounting & Expense Management

With a Pro Plan subscription, you can connect your bank account with Wave and automatically import your transactions. When everything is neatly where it belongs, tax time is simple. Wave’s smart dashboard organizes your income, expenses, payments, and invoices. Transactions will appear in your bookkeeping automatically, and you’ll say goodbye to manual receipt entry. The app has a good-not-great ranking – 3.4 stars out of 5 on the Google Play store and 4.5 stars out of 5 on the Apple App Store, with thousands of reviews for each.

Access your customer information in one place

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The fact that it is free makes it a great option for those just starting out or those who want to keep their overhead as low as possible. Companies that want to combine project management tasks in their accounting software or are looking for software with a great mobile app that they can use on the go will probably want to look for other options. Set up late payment reminders to automatically email your customers when payment is due (with Wave’s online payments feature or the Pro Plan). Wave is a solid option for invoicing, standing out for its low pricing, great range of software functionality, and good customer service. But it’s not the only option, and quite a few others offer more complex invoice creation abilities, or more comprehensive reporting and analytics. One of Wave’s competitors, FreshBooks, offers loads of features at very low pricing.

  • Plus, cut down on bookkeeping—your invoice information flows right into your records.
  • If you don’t live in those states, Wave can still help by crunching the numbers to give you the correct tax information and money owed.
  • Check out more of our invoicing tools that can help you run your business more efficiently.
  • It’s great for creating and delivering invoices, though the analytics leave a little to be desired, as they don’t support custom reports.

With Wave’s web-based invoicing software, you can create and send invoices for your business in just a few clicks from your computer. If you’re on-the-go, you can also send invoices from your phone or other mobile device using the Wave app. Set up recurring invoices and automatic credit card payments for your repeat customers and stop chasing payments. Switch between automatic and manual billing whenever you want. It’s easy to send your invoices created with Wave’s invoice generator. Simply enter your email address after completing the steps to generate an invoice and you’ll receive a PDF version of the invoice that can be sent to your customer.

Have an eye on the big picture so you can make better business decisions. Our robust small business accounting reports are easy to use and show month-to-month or year-to-year comparisons so you can easily identify cash flow trends. Create unlimited bookkeeping records and keep your records spotless. For even more value, upgrade to the Pro Plan to spend less time on manual transaction entry with unlimited bank and credit card connections. Easily create, customize, and send professional invoices while on-the-go. Like most types of software, the best invoicing software programs offer many levels of security.

You can also download the PDF copy of your invoice to be printed out and mailed to customers. The platform offers accounting and expense management as well, letting you manage your finances within the platform. We rank Wave third in our guide to the best small business accounting softwave, below only QuickBooks and Xero. However, Wave doesn’t support additional report customization beyond these abilities. This is a bit of an oversight that puts Wave solidly below a handful of the top services – including FreshBooks, QuickBooks Online, Xero Invoice, and Square Invoices – when it comes to analytics. Wave Invoicing is ideal for freelancers, entrepreneurs or small businesses.

Invoicing software that makes you look good

Consult with your local tax department to determine which tax rate you’ll need to apply to your invoice. Invoice by Wave, our full featured invoicing software, is also completely free and unlimited. Generate as many customized receipts as you want with Wave’s free Receipt Maker. In just a few clicks, you’ll have a free, professional receipt to provide to your customers for their payments. Bank data connections are read-only and use 256-bit encryption. Wave is PCI Level-1 certified for handling credit card and bank account information.

What if I just want to try Wave to see if it works for my business?

  • For self service states, Wave Payroll costs a $20 monthly base fee, plus $6 per employee or contractor.
  • Wave’s payroll service’s functionality is defined by whether you live in a state that allows a third-party service to file for you, or if you need to do it yourself.
  • Plus, customize your invoices for any day of the week, month, or time zone, and with any frequency.
  • The site’s onboarding process is a breeze; first provide a few basic details about your business, such as name, address and industry.

Wave offers a handful of integrations with other types of services that small businesses are likely to need. The Wave app lets you easily generate and send invoices to your clients wherever and whenever you need to. Plus, customize your invoices for any day of the week, month, or time zone, and with any frequency.

How does accounting software work?

Easily monitor and keep track of what’s going on in your business with the intuitive dashboard. The quick summary allows you to stay in control of your business finances, including a task list of outstanding items. The Wave app is the mobile companion to your desktop experience, helping you keep tabs on your biz— anytime, anywhere.

Wave Invoicing Fees and Prices: Is It Really Free in 2025?

The drawback of just offering one plan is that it limits room for growth. While other software solutions have a premium plan that provides advanced features for growing businesses, Wave does not provide more advanced accounting plan options outside of its one free plan. While users never pay startup or monthly fees, Wave does charge a credit card processing fee of 2.9% plus 30 cents per transaction for most cards. This is a typical credit card processing fee that you’ll find on any platform. Wave lets small business owners like you create beautiful invoices, accept online payments, and make accounting easy—all in one place. Wave lets small business owners like you create beautiful invoices, accept online payments,and make waves invoicing accounting easy—all in one place.

Once invoices have been sent, you can easily track the status of each invoice to see if they are viewed, unpaid or Overdue. All payment information automatically syncs with the free Wave Accounting software included in your service, making accounting easy. That’s not the case with Wave—it provides one plan with an unlimited number of users, invoices, credit card connections and reports for free. While users never pay a monthly fee, they will have to pay a credit card processing fee of 2.9% plus 30 cents per transaction if they use Wave to process credit card payments. This fee can vary depending on the type of card the customer uses.

Wave’s payroll service’s functionality is defined by whether you live in a state that allows a third-party service to file for you, or if you need to do it yourself. Wave includes a billing portal, so you can easily keep track of your revenue. With everything in one place, there’s no need to endlessly research solutions or stare at spreadsheets until your eyes glaze over. Plus, our features are designed to work together, meaning less to worry about. “It’s not just a cool piece of software, it is giving peace of mind to people. You deserve to know your taxes aren’t something you have to sweat over the entire calendar year.”

While Wave offers a basic inventory feature, it does not track stock within the software. Wave’s business reports are on par with some of the top invoicing solutions companies for small businesses. Users can create reports to show month-to-month or year-to-year comparisons to easily identify cash flow trends. You can also receive unlimited income and expense tracking data, instant updates for invoicing, payroll and payments data and profit/loss reports. Your customers can pay the invoices you send them instantly by credit card, secure bank payment (ACH/EFT), or Apple Pay.

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