Wave is a free accounting platform built for small businesses, freelancers, and solopreneurs who need to send invoices, track expenses, and manage bookkeeping without paying for enterprise software. Getting started takes about ten minutes, and the core tools (invoicing, transaction tracking, and basic reports) are available on the free Starter plan. Here’s how to set everything up and put each feature to work.
Create Your Account
Go to the Wave sign-up page or download the Wave mobile app. Enter your email and a password, or sign up with your Google or Apple account. Wave will then ask for your business information, including your business name, industry, and currency. Your currency is auto-selected based on your location, but you can change it during setup. Choose carefully: once you finish setup, your business currency is locked permanently.
You’ll be asked whether to continue with the free Starter plan or upgrade to the paid Pro plan. The Starter plan covers invoicing, expense tracking, and basic reports. Pro adds perks like automatic transaction categorization and lower per-transaction processing fees on your first ten card payments each month. You can always upgrade later, so starting with Starter is fine while you learn the platform. After completing setup, check your inbox for a verification email and click the link to activate your account.
Connect Your Bank and Credit Cards
Linking your financial accounts lets Wave automatically import transactions so you don’t have to enter every expense by hand. From the left-side menu, navigate to Accounting > Transactions, then look for the option to connect a bank or credit card. Wave uses a secure connection to pull in your transaction history, typically going back 30 to 90 days depending on the institution.
If your bank isn’t supported or you prefer manual entry, you can upload transactions via CSV file or add them one at a time. Connecting accounts early is worth doing because it populates your books with real data immediately, giving you something to categorize and reconcile right away.
Categorize Your Transactions
Every transaction that flows into Wave needs a category so your income and expenses land in the right buckets for reporting and tax time. On the web, go to Accounting > Transactions, find a transaction, then click the Category field and pick an account from the dropdown. Common categories include advertising, office supplies, meals, software subscriptions, and contractor payments. If none of the default categories fit, click “Add a new category” to create your own.
On the mobile app, the process is similar: tap Accounting > Transactions, tap the transaction, then tap “Add category” and choose from the list. You can create new categories with the + icon in the top right corner.
Pro plan subscribers get automatic categorization, where Wave assigns categories to imported expense transactions based on the merchant and transaction type. You can always override these if Wave guesses wrong. On the Starter plan, you’ll categorize everything manually, but it goes quickly once you’re familiar with your usual expenses.
Create and Send Invoices
Invoicing is one of Wave’s strongest features. On the web, go to Sales & Payments > Invoices and click “Create an invoice.” The first time you do this, Wave will prompt you to build a template with your logo, business address, and contact details. After that, each new invoice starts from that template.
Fill in the invoice by following these steps:
- Customer: Click “Add a customer” and either select an existing one or create a new entry with their name, email, and billing address.
- Dates: Set the invoice date and payment due date. Add a P.O. or S.O. number if your client requires one.
- Line items: Click “Add an item,” then enter the product or service name, description, quantity, and price. You can save items for reuse on future invoices.
- Tax: Select an applicable tax rate from the dropdown, or create a new one if your tax situation isn’t already listed.
- Discount: Click “Add a discount” below the subtotal to apply a percentage or fixed-amount discount.
- Notes: Add payment terms, late-fee policies, or a thank-you note in the Notes/Terms section at the bottom.
Click “Save and continue” to save the invoice as a draft. Review everything, then click “Approve draft” to finalize it. From there you can email the invoice directly to your customer through Wave. Your customer receives a professional-looking invoice with a link to pay online if you’ve enabled payments.
On the mobile app, tap Sales > Invoices, then the + icon. The workflow is the same: add a customer, set dates, add items, apply discounts or taxes, and save. Invoice numbers are generated automatically in sequence, but you can edit them as long as you don’t reuse a number.
Accept Online Payments
Wave lets your customers pay invoices directly with a credit card or bank transfer (ACH), which means faster payments and less chasing. To enable this, you’ll need to set up Wave Payments by providing your business and banking details so funds can be deposited into your account.
Processing fees depend on your plan and the payment method:
- Visa, Mastercard, Discover: 2.9% + $0.60 per transaction on the Starter plan. Pro plan subscribers pay 2.9% with no per-transaction fee on the first 10 card payments each month, then 2.9% + $0.60 for additional transactions.
- American Express: 3.4% + $0.60 on Starter. Pro plan subscribers pay 3.4% with no per-transaction fee for the first 10, then 3.4% + $0.60 after that.
- Bank payments (ACH): 1% of the transaction amount on both plans, with a minimum fee of $1.
Discover card processing is only available to U.S. businesses. Visa, Mastercard, American Express, and bank payments work in both the United States and Canada. These fees are deducted from each payment before the funds hit your bank account, so there’s no separate monthly bill to worry about.
For a business that invoices regularly, the Pro plan’s waived per-transaction fee on the first 10 payments can save real money. On a $1,000 invoice paid by Visa, for example, the Starter plan fee would be $29.60 while the Pro plan fee would be $29.00, a $0.60 savings per transaction. That adds up faster on smaller invoices where the fixed $0.60 represents a bigger percentage.
Run Reports
Wave generates standard accounting reports that give you a clear picture of your business finances. Navigate to Reports from the left-side menu to access them. The most useful reports for day-to-day management include:
- Profit and Loss (Income Statement): Shows your revenue minus expenses over a date range, so you can see whether you’re making or losing money.
- Balance Sheet: A snapshot of what your business owns (assets), what it owes (liabilities), and your equity at a specific point in time.
- Sales Tax Report: Tallies the tax you’ve collected on invoices, which is essential when it’s time to remit sales tax.
- Aged Receivables: Lists unpaid invoices grouped by how overdue they are, so you know who to follow up with.
These reports pull data directly from the transactions and invoices you’ve already entered, so the more diligent you are about categorizing transactions and sending invoices through Wave, the more accurate your reports will be.
Tips for Getting the Most Out of Wave
Categorize transactions weekly rather than letting months pile up. A small batch is quick to sort through, but hundreds of uncategorized transactions become a dreaded chore. Set a recurring reminder to spend 10 to 15 minutes each week tidying up your books.
Use the customer and item databases to your advantage. When you save a customer’s details and your common line items, creating a new invoice takes under a minute. This is especially helpful if you bill the same clients for similar services each month.
Keep your business and personal finances in separate bank accounts, and only connect your business account to Wave. Mixing personal and business transactions creates a mess at tax time and undermines the accuracy of your reports. Wave works best when every transaction it imports is genuinely business-related.