What people complain about in Wave

36 reported problems name Wave as what the person is currently using. Below is what they said was missing, and what they resorted to instead.

Complaints: 36
Avg severity: 3.0/5
Would pay to fix: 3
Industries: 5

What they wish it did

Capabilities people described needing that Wave does not give them, taken from the highest-scoring problems first. These are individual accounts written in each person’s own terms, so two entries may describe the same underlying gap in different words.

Mobile app with full desktop feature parity
Intelligent transaction auto-tagging system
Accounting software with built-in inter-entity loan and ownership tracking instead of manual spreadsheets
Accounting software with automatic linking of bank feed deposits to journal entry lines
Feature to mark imported transaction as 'included in JE' for P&L reporting
Tool to automatically parse settlement statements and generate correct journal entries
Integration with Wave to post detailed income and expense breakdowns from net deposits
A fast, purpose-built receipt camera app that syncs instantly with accounting software
Accounting software that handles assets with multiple owners and separate funding sources
Automated workflows for partner reimbursements on shared asset purchases
Clear guidance and automation for depreciation calculations on partial ownership assets
Receipt import and digital storage to replace printing
Unified import from multiple sources without manual data entry
Automated integration of Square sales reports with bank transaction feeds
Simple, non-accountant-friendly bookkeeping workflow for receipt-to-report pipeline
Transparent multi-artist revenue and expense tracking with sliding scale pricing support
Inventory management software that integrates Wave and Google Sheets for automatic syncing
Multi-channel payout aggregation that handles different payout formats
Lump-sum payment fee estimation without invoice details
Sales tax tracking across platforms that collect on behalf vs self-collection
Affordable, simple accounting software for micro clients under $100K revenue
Automated reconciliation and multi-account support without manual spreadsheet tracking
Simple financial dashboard that replaces manual spreadsheet tracking with automated income and expense categorization
Photography-specific financial tracking app with gear depreciation and mileage
Recurring expense automation in accounting software

What they do instead

The manual processes people built around the gap. A long workaround list is the strongest evidence a problem is real: someone is already paying for it in time. Where several people described the same workaround, it is marked.

manually building Excel sheets to track inter-entity transactions
creates a journal entry that debits deductions and net, credits gross, then imports net deposit
manually adjusts P&L to avoid double-counting
Uses Wave's bank feed to only record net deposit
Might manually create journal entry to add gross and deductions but unsure how
uses Wave to take pictures of receipts but it's too slow
Using personal savings account for business asset purchase
Manual tracking of partner reimbursement via wire transfer
Creating custom depreciation and asset accounts in Wave without clear methodology
prints everything out to save receipts
uses separate software for booking (Janeapp) and payroll (Payworks)
used Sheets for bookkeeping but panicked at tax time due to lack of structure
snap pics of receipts and upload them to Wave but lost on how to use for anything else
tried Open Collective for transparent accounting but unsure how it fits
Manually logs each sale into a Google Sheet
Uses Google Sheet with columns for date, platform, gross, fees, shipping, net
Logs Instagram payments as lump sum and estimates fees
Manually tracks COGS for materials and packaging separately
Relies on platform-specific payout handling (Etsy batches deposits, Shopify uses own processor)
uses spreadsheets instead of paid accounting software

Industries

Problem types

The problems themselves

Highest opportunity score first.

Search the full corpus for Wave

Read this fairly

These are complaints, and only complaints — nobody posts to say their software worked. A high count mostly reflects how many people use Wave at all, so this page is not a quality judgement and should not be read as one. What it is good for is the shape of the gaps: the specific jobs people could not get done, which are the same whether the tool is popular or not.

Folded from: Wave, Wave Invoicing, Wave accounting