ZipBooks vs Wave Comparison: Which Is Best for You in 2022?

The world of finance is rapidly changing due to the ever-growing popularity and success of online tools. The main difference between these two popular services is that ZipBooks allows users to manage their finances directly on the platform, while Wave offers a more traditional approach with accounts held by third parties.

The “wave accounting” is a cloud-based accounting software that helps small businesses manage their finances. It has a free plan and a paid plan, with the paid plan being more expensive than ZipBooks.

Both ZipBooks and Wave are cloud-based accounting solutions with a free version. Wave is a superior option for businesses who deal in various currencies. ZipBooks is a superior option for service businesses that charge by the hour. Wave provides two mobile applications that let you to produce invoices and receive payments, but ZipBooks presently does not. ZipBooks also enables you to monitor time and costs per project, but Wave does not.

When Should You Use ZipBooks?

ZipBooks is a web-based accounting tool that allows small company owners to handle their basic bookkeeping and accounting activities in an accessible and user-friendly manner. It’s perfect for single proprietors and small enterprises searching for a low-cost accounting solution. Because of its straightforward invoicing function, ZipBooks is one of our top picks for best free accounting software. ZipBooks has a free plan as well as two paid ones.

ZipBooks is superior in the following areas:

• Solopreneurs and freelancers: ZipBooks’ free plan is limited to one user, making it ideal for self-employed people who keep track of their finances.
• Upgrades and scaling: As your company expands, ZipBooks makes it simple to scale up. You may upgrade from the free version to the Smarter or Sophisticated plans to acquire extra features not available in the free version. Because Wave is a completely free product with no commercial options, scalability is impossible.
• Cost tagging: ZipBooks enables you to add custom tags for better expense monitoring. Tags may be created depending on your company’s location, projects, or divisions.

ZipBooks is a great place to start.

When Should You Use Wave?

Wave is a cloud-based accounting system that we recommend as the finest free accounting software for businesses with many users. It provides free invoicing and receipt scanning, and it’s a terrific alternative for companies who need to take online payments thanks to its built-in Wave Payments interface. This program may serve the demands of single entrepreneurs and freelancers on a budget due to its simplicity. For a price, Wave also provides credit card processing and payroll services.

Wave is more suitable for:

• Businesses seeking for a free accounting software product that may be used by an infinite number of people: The free version of ZipBooks is limited to one user. Wave is a superior option if you have an infinite number of users.
• Sending regular bills: Unless you subscribe for the Smarter plan, ZipBooks does not offer recurring invoicing. If you want a free accounting software tool with complex features like recurring invoicing, we suggest Wave over ZipBooks.
• Adding new accounts or changing existing ones in the chart of accounts (COA): Wave enables you to create new accounts or change existing ones. This functionality isn’t available in ZipBooks’ free plan; only customers of the Sophisticated plan may change the COA.
• Businesses searching for a local payroll solution that can also help with taxes: Wave Payroll is an add-on to Wave’s free accounting solution that helps with payroll. Wave Payroll assists Wave users with payroll and tax preparation. Arizona, California, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Minnesota, New York, North Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, Washington, and Wisconsin all have completely automated tax features. Wave Payroll can only calculate taxes in the other states; you must pay and file your taxes yourself.

Take a look at Wave.

When to Use a Substitute

Both ZipBooks and Wave provide accounting tools. They may assist users in keeping track of invoices and bills, as well as managing payments. However, each of these software applications have drawbacks that may need a different solution.

• Inventory tracking: For merchandising organizations, keeping track of inventory stock levels and establishing cost of goods sold (COGS) and ending inventory is critical. When it comes to inventory management, we don’t recommend ZipBooks or Wave. QuickBooks Online, our top pick for small company accounting software, is the greatest option for inventory management.
• Businesses that need a fully functional mobile app include: Using your smartphone or tablet to access your books is a practical method to keep track of spending, business performance, and time worked while you’re on the go. Zoho Books is a fantastic mobile app that may help you keep your books up to date when you’re away from the office. For companies with yearly sales of less than $50,000, Zoho Books is free.

Case Study of a Fit Small Business

We utilized our FSB case study to compare ZipBooks and Wave in 11 important areas that we look for in accounting software for small businesses. For in-depth analysis and information, see the entire ZipBooks and Wave reviews. The following are the outcomes:

Results of ZipBooks and Wave in the FSB Case Study

We compared ZipBooks Starter (ZipBooks’ free edition) to Wave in the graph above. With the exception of a few features, these two free software applications seem to be on par: Wave outperforms ZipBooks in banking, inventory, and tax, while ZipBooks wins in project accounting and customer service. ZipBooks and Wave, on the other hand, are almost equal in terms of A/P, A/R, and reporting.

The decision between ZipBooks and Wave is based on your requirements. ZipBooks is the superior option if you run a project-based firm. Wave, on the other hand, is superior than ZipBooks if you want sophisticated banking services such as payment and credit card processing.

At a Glance: ZipBooks vs. Wave

What Accounting Software Should You Use?

We’ll offer you a tailored product match once you answer a few questions about your company.

the first question

Do you want to follow numerous locations or departments separately?

2nd question

Do you need a timekeeping feature?

Question three

Do you want to keep track of and manage your receipts?

4th question

How much money do you make on a yearly basis?

$100,000 or less

between $100,000 and $250,000

ranging from $250,001 to $500,000

ranging from $500,001 to $1,000,000

More than a million dollars

Pricing in Waves vs. Pricing at ZipBooks

ZipBooks or Wave, both of which provide the most basic bookkeeping services for free, will satisfy businesses searching for an economical choice. Wave, on the other hand, provides free accounting, invoicing, and receipt scanning and charges for credit card processing, bank payments, and payroll services, while ZipBooks costs depending on the number of users and accessible features.

Pricing at ZipBooks

The price structure of ZipBooks may appeal to single entrepreneurs and small enterprises. It has a free starting plan and three subscription plans, including an accountant edition, that start at $15 per month and increase based on the number of users and features needed. Clients may be managed from a single dashboard in the Accountant edition.

• Starter: One user is free.
• Smarter: $15 for a group of five users.
• Sophisticated: $35 per month for an unlimited number of users
• Accountant: Customized pricing for an infinite number of customers

ZipBooks is a fantastic accounting software for small companies. Businesses who are currently utilizing the free version may upgrade to Smarter or Sophisticated at any moment. Additionally, accountants that provide bookkeeping and accounting services on ZipBooks may effortlessly link to your account.

Pricing in Waves

Basic accounting operations, such as invoicing and receipt scanning, are available for free on Wave. Credit card and payroll processing incur extra fees, which are detailed below:

• Accounting, invoicing, and receipt scanning: $0 for accounting, invoicing, and scanning receipts.
• Most credit cards charge 2.9 percent plus 30 cents every transaction, whereas American Express charges 3.4 percent plus 30 cents per transaction.
• Payments via bank: $1 per transaction
• Payroll: In self-service states, it starts at $20 plus $6 per employee per month, and in places where federal and state payroll taxes may be submitted online, it starts at $35 plus $6 per employee per month.

Takeaway: ZipBooks charges for additional services, some of which are included in Wave’s free plans. Other elements of ZipBooks’ advanced plans, on the other hand, are not available in Wave.

Features of ZipBooks vs. Wave

Takeaway: Both ZipBooks and Wave have much of the same capabilities, with the exception that ZipBooks can monitor time and tag by location. Neither application can keep track of inventory costs. If you have inventory, complex software like as QuickBooks Online or Xero is strongly recommended.

Accounts Payable: ZipBooks vs. Wave

The accounts payable (A/P) tools in ZipBooks are ideal for keeping track of outstanding debts. Users may establish vendors, allocate invoices to expense accounts, and designate vendors as 1099 contractors. The bill generation window in ZipBooks has a basic and intuitive form structure. You may attach documents to your submission and even specify payment conditions. ZipBooks does not inquire for quantities of things ordered since it does not have inventory monitoring. To keep track of inventory units and expenses, you’ll need to utilize a spreadsheet.

Wave has many of the same capabilities as ZipBooks and is a wonderful tool for keeping track of and managing outstanding payments. Wave, unlike ZipBooks, inquires about the number of things ordered. Wave has a tiny benefit over ZipBooks since it displays the amount of units, which is useful when manually tracking units.

Takeaway: When creating a bill, Wave has a little advantage over ZipBooks since it inquires about the amount of items or services bought. If you intend to manually manage inventories, Wave may give greater information regarding purchases.

Accounts Receivable: ZipBooks vs. Wave

We’re searching for invoice customization and invoice management tools in accounts receivable (A/R). ZipBooks invoices don’t provide a lot of personalization choices. There is no way to modify the invoice’s layout or color. You may, however, put your logo and a customized message.

Unbilled costs may be added to invoices in ZipBooks, which makes up for the lack of this functionality. This function is often reserved for accounting software’s higher and more pricey subscriptions, such as QuickBooks Online Plus. You must upgrade to Sophisticated if you like this feature. You receive a flagship feature at an extraordinarily cheap price of $35 per month.

In terms of invoice personalization, Wave takes the lead. There are a variety of layouts to pick from, as well as the opportunity to change the color of the invoice. Wave is simpler and more effective to use since you may simply add a new client while making invoices. It also contains premium features like recurring invoices and comprehensive tax reports, which are only available if you upgrade to ZipBooks Sophisticated.

Takeaway: In several aspects of the A/R function, both ZipBooks and Wave fall short. However, both of them perform well in A/R; your decision will be determined by the specialty characteristics you want. If you want to personalize invoices, go with Wave, and if your company has a lot of chargeable charges to customers, go with ZipBooks.

ZipBooks vs Wave: Sales & Income Tax

You may add sales tax items to your invoices in ZipBooks by jurisdiction, but first you must encode sales tax rates in the settings. You may add 1099 categorization for independent contractors and charge sales taxes to invoices in ZipBooks Starter. Wave has the same capabilities, as well as the ability to make sales tax adjustments on credit notes and analyze sales tax obligations in detail. ZipBooks and Wave, on the other hand, do not allow you to submit sales tax reports or pay sales tax liabilities.

Takeaway: Wave has more sales tax tracking capabilities than ZipBooks. Planning sales tax payments and filing will be greatly aided by examining tax responsibilities in detail.

Wave vs. ZipBooks: Ease of Use

Both ZipBooks and Wave are designed for accounting newbies, and they make it simple to discover what you need without having to spend a lot of time learning the program.

The Ease of Using ZipBooks

ZipBooks presents a financial performance dashboard upon sign-in, which includes a summary of all recent cost and invoicing activities. A simple user interface means you’ll spend less time learning the software. The vertical menu to the left of the main screen makes navigation simple, providing instant access to all system functions:

Dashboard for ZipBooks

1. Home: Invoices, Transactions, Reports, Contacts, Tracking, and Payroll are all accessible via the left-hand navigation bar. These are also available at the top of the page.
2. Financial performance: This report provides an overview of your company’s sales, costs, and net income, presented in graph style.
3. Finish setup: This is presented to demonstrate your progress with activities such as adding an address and phone number, uploading a logo, and linking a bank account.
4. Expenses: Once you’ve connected your bank account, your transactions will be automatically downloaded and presented here.
5. Tracked time: This feature displays a summary of your unbilled time so you can keep track of what needs to be invoiced. You may also use the timer at the top of the page and then import it into ZipBooks.

Creating a Basic Invoice

In ZipBooks, you may add a line to an invoice.

Because the Starter version’s invoices do not include items, you must write the description you wish on each line of the invoice. As a result, we placed it in our list of the top free accounting software as the best free software for basic invoicing. However, although it is straightforward, it is inefficient since each invoice will need you to retype product and service details.

Ease of Use for Waves

Wave also offers a dashboard that shows current company performance, as well as a cash flow graph, a two-year net income summary, and a cost graph by category. By going through the setup procedure on this page, you may take credit cards on invoices:

Dashboard for Wave

1. Navigation bar on the left: Use this part to access the software’s many sections, such as Sales, Purchases, Accounting, Banking, Payroll, Reports, Wave Advisors, and Tax Filing.
2. Take payments: This feature instructs you on how to accept credit card payments on your invoices and enrolls you in Payments by Wave.
3. Cash flow: This report shows how much money is coming in and going out of your company.
4. Profit and loss: Only revenue and costs, including outstanding invoices and bills, are included in this report.
5. Invoices due to you and outstanding debts are summarized in this area, which is separated down into aging periods.
6. Income, Expenses, and Net Income: This is a two-year comparison of income, expense, and net income.
7. Expense breakdown: This graph depicts your costs by category so you can see how much money you spend on each one.

Takeaway: Both ZipBooks and Wave are simple to use and provide a friendly interface for beginning users, but Wave goes a step further by helping users through the full setup process.

Wave vs. ZipBooks: Assisted Bookkeeping

For an extra monthly charge, ZipBooks provides accounting and tax services, including a professional bookkeeper and online assistance. Simple Bookkeeping costs $125 per month, while more complex bookkeeping costs $145 per month. The cost of reporting and preparing Form 1099 begins at $175 per month and includes all of Simple Bookkeeping’s capabilities. A ZipBooks plan is already included in the bookkeeping plans.

Wave Advisors can help with bookkeeping, accounting, and tax preparation. Wave Advisors can help you with accounting duties including classifying bank transactions, bank reconciliations, and tax preparation.

• Wave Advisors will classify transactions, execute account reconciliations, and handle your payroll for $149 per month.
• Wave Advisors guarantees appropriate income tax filing and examination of the profit and loss report for $899 each year.
• Accounting and payroll coaching: Wave Advisors can help you set up your Wave account and educate you how to perform your own accounting for $229 for an hour. This purchase also includes your coach’s 30-day email support.

Wave vs. ZipBooks: Integrations

Neither ZipBooks nor Wave have a large number of connectors, but Wave now has a lot more thanks to the inclusion of Zapier. ZipBooks’ dozen integrations, on the other hand, address essential company requirements like accounting, payment processing, and appointment scheduling.

Integrations with ZipBooks

ZipBooks offers 12 integrations at the moment, including:

• PayPal, Square POS, Square for Retail, and Square Payments are all payment and ecommerce options.
• Spiceworks Network Monitor is a customer relationship management (CRM) tool.
• Square Appointments is a method of arranging appointments.
• Slack, Asana, Google Drive, and Google Workspace are examples of business management and automation software.
• GrandMaster Suite and eNETEmployer are two payroll and human resources (HR) software programs.

Integrations of Waves

PayPal, Etsy, and Shoeboxed are among the few connectors offered by Wave. Wave also has a Zapier connector, which allows it to connect to over 1,000 add-ons. These are some of them:

• Shopify, Square, Stripe, PayPal, and Etsy are examples of payment and ecommerce platforms.
• HubSpot, Pipedrive, and Harvest are three CRM options.
• Automational, Mailchimp, and SendPulse are three email marketing platforms.
• Calendly and Acuity Scheduling are two options for scheduling appointments.
• Slack, ShipStation, FormStack Document, Google Sheets, and Approval Donkey are examples of business management and automation.

Takeaway: When it comes to integration, Wave is a clear winner. Wave has direct integrations with just three third-party applications, but Zapier integration allows it to connect to more.

Wave vs. ZipBooks: Mobile App

You may use your device’s browser to access ZipBooks until the company upgrades its mobile app, which is incredibly mobile-friendly. Create a shortcut on your phone for easy access as an added time savings. Sending invoices, accepting payments, and recording receipts are the only features available with the Wave app.

Takeaway: Neither ZipBooks nor Wave have a significant mobile app feature. Because it can do more than simply issue invoices and gather receipts, we prefer Zoho Books’ mobile app. Even with the free edition of Zoho Books, additional capabilities like as expenditure assignment, bill entry, and report viewing are available.

Customer Support: ZipBooks vs. Wave

Both ZipBooks and Wave have minimal support. On their Help Center, ZipBooks provides a chatbot, live chat, and self-help resources. Wave solely provides chatbot support and self-help information. Customer service is often terrible for both software service providers. Because consumers may contact assistance in a variety of methods, we suggest Zoho Books for the finest customer service.

Conclusion

ZipBooks and Wave both provide free plans for basic accounting requirements, while ZipBooks includes premium options with more extensive capabilities. ZipBooks also has the ability to monitor hours and handle 1099 contractors, which Wave does not have. Wave, unlike ZipBooks, can handle several currencies. While Wave offers two mobile applications for invoicing clients and accepting payments, ZipBooks’ app has been decommissioned.

The “slickpie” is a comparison of ZipBooks and Wave. The article will compare the two accounting software programs, as well as their features and pricing.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is better than Wave accounting?

A: It depends on your specific needs, but in general Wave Accounting is a very good accounting software.

Are ZipBooks free?

A: ZipBooks is a subscription-based service that costs $9.95 per month or $19.99 for the year. The cost covers up to 250 employees, which would require about two years of use before its even close to being worth it and after that youll have better options like Quickbooks Self Employed Basic Edition or Xero if youre looking at invoicing software

Why should I use QuickBooks?

A: QuickBooks is the most reliable, dependable and scalable way to manage your business resources. It can help you with accounting, inventory management, invoicing and much more!

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