Wave Accounting vs. Workday Financial Management

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Wave Accounting
Score 8.2 out of 10
N/A
Wave Accounting is a free, cloud-based accounting platform exclusively for small businesses. It supports double-entry bookkeeping and permits unlimited user access, invoicing, and expense management. Wave Accounting integrates with Wave's invoicing, receipt scanning, payment processing and payroll apps.
$0
Workday Financial Management
Score 7.8 out of 10
N/A
Workday Financial Management is a native cloud solution built on a global foundation designed to enable accounting teams to operate with greater productivity, superior insights, and adapt to changing business needs. Its AI embedded features improve financial business processes like record to report and opportunity to cash while strengthening internal controls, and enabling consistency across global operations. Powered by an in-memory architecture and object data…N/A
Pricing
Wave AccountingWorkday Financial Management
Editions & Modules
Starter
$0
Pro
$16
per month
Pro - billed annually
$170
per year
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Wave AccountingWorkday Financial Management
Free Trial
NoNo
Free/Freemium Version
YesNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Wave AccountingWorkday Financial Management
Considered Both Products
Wave Accounting
Chose Wave Accounting
It is a useful solution but not designed for the UK market. For a businesses that want to see their debtors, creditors, profit and loss and balance sheet it is a great solution, however with those needing legal UK compliance the software will not work as well and the other free …
Chose Wave Accounting
Albeit Xero is much more robust and does require a monthly subscription payment. Wave Accounting is perfect for the very small client that does not have funds to pay for accounting subscriptions nor the high level of transactional/account management required of some clients.
Chose Wave Accounting
quickbooks seems to be more feature rich and can connect to my POS. At some point i may witch over if my accounting becomes too complicated for Wave Accounting
Chose Wave Accounting
Wave is easier to understand for the accounting illiterate
Wave is free
Chose Wave Accounting
Xero, Facebook Business Manager (formerly Pages Manager), Google Search Console, DataCamp and BuildSmart
Chose Wave Accounting
It doesn't in anyway due to the fraud that is inflicted on so many companies!
Chose Wave Accounting
This was my first invoice company. I had seen Freshly before. Venmo is far less of an accounting tool. QuickBooks seems terrible with a monthly cost. Which is why I hadn't moved companies yet. But I just learned my Website host, Wix, offers it right through my site and Clients …
Chose Wave Accounting
Wave's price point was in line with what my company needed to manage basic accounting (payable and receivable accounts). It made it easy for me to issue monthly invoices to clients and track when invoices were paid. The software makes these tasks easy to manage and inputting …
Chose Wave Accounting
I shopped Wave and Quickbooks. I loved Wave's interface and ease of use. It had everything I needed for the free version.
Chose Wave Accounting
The best feature about wave is that they let you use it for free for basic accounting and pay per use payments. But based on my horrible experience with how they cancelled my payments feature, I would never use them again!
Chose Wave Accounting
Wonderful, great support, and many videos on how to do it. Fast response to emails. Does "Fund Accounting" that is required for many non-profits.
Chose Wave Accounting
As I stated previously, Wave is a free system. It serve you well as non-resident of USA/Canada for your basic bookkeeping needs, as a micro-business. If you are a resident of those countries, you will benefit immensely from the payroll function as well. If you are looking for a …
Chose Wave Accounting
Circling back to the "free" thing again. For a small business, I am getting for free what QuickBooks online charges no less than $40/month. Moving away from "free," these other solutions I listed above do more, and these would be the right solutions for the right needs. All of …
Chose Wave Accounting
Wave Accounting is very similar to QuickBooks Online. The functions of Wave Accounting are very similar to QuickBooks Online. The major difference is that with the low pricing of Wave Accounting, it lacks all of the bells and whistles that QuickBooks Online has like …
Chose Wave Accounting
I was not impressed with Xero or Zipbooks simply because they were expensive and still as, if not more, confusing than QuickBooks. QuickBooks is, unfortunately, the standard. I dislike it, and I think it is just a huge corporation trying to steal small businesses money, but …
Chose Wave Accounting
Wave feels more geared toward a younger generation. QB feels very old and stuffy, though they're slowly coming around. QB feels much more powerful than Wave but Wave did what I needed it to do. My CPA had never heard of it before so I ended up needing to have both, but Wave …
Chose Wave Accounting
I chose to keep Wave first because it is free and easy to use but I also could not find anything else that allowed me to create customer categorizations at least not with a free account. There have been a lot of improvements to Wave over the years so the reasons I was looking …
Chose Wave Accounting
Basically, we selected Wave because it was a free accounting system. We have not tried another accounting system that is so much better than Wave Accounting that we should leave Wave Accounting. Every time, we find another online accounting system we do a review of the system …
Chose Wave Accounting
Invoicing is the only feature I was looking for and for that Wave had a better UI, which is why I selected it versus Stripe. I believe Stripe has more functionality, but it was more than I needed for my purposes. That being said, I do use Stripe in conjunction with Wave …
Chose Wave Accounting
Honestly, it stacks up pretty good except for the ACH transactions. With QuickBooks, ACH transactions were in my account in 2 business days at the 1% charge (that both companies charge).

The support is similar on both sides. I spent 18 days trying to cancel my QuickBooks …
Chose Wave Accounting
Unfortunately we did not do our due diligence before selecting Wave. We came across them through our payroll provider (ADP) and assumed that it was good since we have had a great experience with ADP. In the future I would strongly recommend others to not just read online …
Chose Wave Accounting
I trialled Freshbooks a while back but they pack too much into the system for what it is. Wave has a super simple UI and dashboard and doesn't feel overly complicated to navigate yet offers all the features everyone is looking for. Being able to customize the system to brand …
Chose Wave Accounting
For the pricing arrangement, the ease of use and the user-friendliness of the app, Wave crushes Quickbooks Online and Zoho Books. Freshbooks was a little bit closer as the two are more of an apples-to-apples comparison, but Freshbooks doesn't offer a non-paid option and they …
Chose Wave Accounting
I was using Billings Pro, and On the Job. I did trials of Due and Sighted. But I didn't like the UI and features of those 2. After testing out Wave, I liked the features, UI, and customization better than the other options. Wave is much easier, and the user interface is very …
Workday Financial Management
Chose Workday Financial Management
We are still using Applied Epic for our end AMS system to record client and policy info for our agencies. Workday is a great add on tool we use for our consolidated financials.
Chose Workday Financial Management
More features at a better cost.
Chose Workday Financial Management
Workday Financial Management provides a seamless experience to access your required documents or review your pay history. Everything can be done in one place. It true is the one stop shop for digital HR hub to open up self serve to employees. Workday Financial Management has …
Chose Workday Financial Management
Despite AirTable also being easier to use one thing that differentiates and put forth Workday Financial Management tool above is it's key features and better suited functionality for handling confidential data. The other positive note where Workday Financial Management performs …
Chose Workday Financial Management
I have much less experience working with Salesforce finicial application. but as per my knowledge it also provides reboust features and one of the top competitor of its. Workday Financial Management need to improve more and more to sustain.
Chose Workday Financial Management
WFM is integrated with SSO, while others are not fully integrated. SAP Concur was used mostly for expense report management, while Deltek Costpoint was used for project time and cost management. Deltek was not very user-friendly, unreliable, and expensive for what it handled.
Chose Workday Financial Management
Workday is far superior to UKG. UKG felt cumbersome while being used, whereas Workday felt easy and intuitive. Workday allows for an easier flow of completing numerous everyday functions. I aim to integrate it into as many of my daily work routines as I can, reducing the time …
Chose Workday Financial Management
Gusto, Zoho Billing and Paylocity
Chose Workday Financial Management
Workday Financial Management absolutely blows them out of the water. Hands down is the best choice. It’s the clear winner for all teams using it. It can change your employees lives and day to day software challenges to speed up and develop reports needed across departments.
Chose Workday Financial Management
The processing power of Workday Financial Management we much better. The other systems didn't run as fast when trying to look at the financials or running any of the various reports that we would need. It also has a cleaner view when looking at the details.
Chose Workday Financial Management
The application data of users in the case of PeopleSoft is stored in its proprietary data storage, whereas Workday Financial Management connects to outside databases to create analytics reports. Therefore, this option uplifts the need to use Workday Financial Management as an …
Chose Workday Financial Management
We went from PeopleSoft to Workday because of the efficiency and ease of use. There were a lot of limitations in PeopleSoft, just in simple things like character limits on fields that did not allow us to be as detailed. Workday Financial Management/Revenue Management has very …
Chose Workday Financial Management
The costs to implement Hyperion were astronomical comparted to Workday. Furthermore, the implementation timeline was probably a third of what we would have been looking at had we gone with Hyperion. Simply put, we got somewhere in the neighborhood of 90% of what we needed for …
Chose Workday Financial Management
  • It is a simple and intuitive solution that can be customized for your specific needs.
  • It unifies HR and finance, giving you predictive analytics, real-time insights, and global visibility.
  • It offers a single version of the tool to meet the requirements of diverse companies.
Chose Workday Financial Management
Stacking up it was a faster and more inexpensive implementation. Granted it was still early in the system development years, but the results and the five years of using it speak for themselves. Cloud we wanted, comprehensive financials was a core functional requirement and …
Chose Workday Financial Management
I miss using Workday Financial Managment, and if I moved departments or took on more responsibilities with the financials I would definitely recommend it!
Features
Wave AccountingWorkday Financial Management
Payroll Management
Comparison of Payroll Management features of Product A and Product B
Wave Accounting
6.2
Ratings
22% below category average
Workday Financial Management
8.4
Ratings
16% above category average
Pay calculation7.10 Ratings8.70 Ratings
Benefit plan administration7.50 Ratings8.90 Ratings
Direct deposit files1.20 Ratings8.60 Ratings
Salary revision and increment management7.70 Ratings00 Ratings
Reimbursement management7.40 Ratings00 Ratings
Customization
Comparison of Customization features of Product A and Product B
Wave Accounting
8.5
Ratings
11% above category average
Workday Financial Management
8.5
Ratings
11% above category average
API for custom integration9.90 Ratings8.60 Ratings
Plug-ins7.00 Ratings8.40 Ratings
Security
Comparison of Security features of Product A and Product B
Wave Accounting
6.4
Ratings
26% below category average
Workday Financial Management
9.0
Ratings
10% above category average
Single sign-on capability6.40 Ratings9.00 Ratings
Role-based user permissions6.40 Ratings9.00 Ratings
Reporting & Analytics
Comparison of Reporting & Analytics features of Product A and Product B
Wave Accounting
6.3
Ratings
22% below category average
Workday Financial Management
8.7
Ratings
19% above category average
Dashboards6.00 Ratings8.50 Ratings
Standard reports8.00 Ratings9.10 Ratings
Custom reports5.00 Ratings8.70 Ratings
General Ledger and Configurable Accounting
Comparison of General Ledger and Configurable Accounting features of Product A and Product B
Wave Accounting
7.0
Ratings
11% below category average
Workday Financial Management
8.5
Ratings
10% above category average
Accounts payable7.10 Ratings8.90 Ratings
Accounts receivable7.10 Ratings9.00 Ratings
Cash management8.50 Ratings00 Ratings
Bank reconciliation8.50 Ratings00 Ratings
Expense management7.50 Ratings00 Ratings
Time tracking9.80 Ratings00 Ratings
Fixed asset management9.80 Ratings00 Ratings
Multi-currency support10.00 Ratings00 Ratings
Multi-division support7.10 Ratings00 Ratings
Regulations compliance5.00 Ratings00 Ratings
Electronic tax filing5.90 Ratings00 Ratings
Self-service portal8.00 Ratings00 Ratings
Global Financial Support9.00 Ratings8.30 Ratings
Primary and Secondary Ledgers9.00 Ratings8.70 Ratings
Intercompany Accounting4.00 Ratings00 Ratings
Localizations5.20 Ratings00 Ratings
Journals and Reconciliations8.50 Ratings8.90 Ratings
Enterprise Accounting4.00 Ratings00 Ratings
Configurable Accounting5.00 Ratings8.30 Ratings
Centralized Rules Framework1.00 Ratings00 Ratings
Standardized Processes7.00 Ratings9.10 Ratings
Inventory Management
Comparison of Inventory Management features of Product A and Product B
Wave Accounting
8.1
Ratings
10% above category average
Workday Financial Management
8.7
Ratings
10% above category average
Inventory tracking5.60 Ratings9.00 Ratings
Automatic reordering9.90 Ratings8.60 Ratings
Location management8.10 Ratings8.50 Ratings
Manufacturing module9.00 Ratings00 Ratings
Order Management
Comparison of Order Management features of Product A and Product B
Wave Accounting
7.6
Ratings
2% below category average
Workday Financial Management
9.1
Ratings
15% above category average
Pricing9.90 Ratings00 Ratings
Order entry10.00 Ratings00 Ratings
Credit card processing2.30 Ratings9.10 Ratings
Cost of goods sold10.00 Ratings00 Ratings
Order Orchestration5.80 Ratings00 Ratings
End-to-end order visibility8.20 Ratings00 Ratings
Order exception Resolution7.00 Ratings00 Ratings
Best Alternatives
Wave AccountingWorkday Financial Management
Small Businesses
QuickBooks Self-Employed (discontinued)
QuickBooks Self-Employed (discontinued)
Score 8.9 out of 10
Zoho One
Zoho One
Score 8.9 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Zoho Books
Zoho Books
Score 9.0 out of 10
Infor VISUAL
Infor VISUAL
Score 8.0 out of 10
Enterprises
Oracle Fusion Cloud Enterprise Performance Management
Oracle Fusion Cloud Enterprise Performance Management
Score 10.0 out of 10
24SevenOffice
24SevenOffice
Score 9.0 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
Wave AccountingWorkday Financial Management
Likelihood to Recommend
6.0
(0 ratings)
8.9
(0 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
7.8
(0 ratings)
9.0
(0 ratings)
Usability
7.0
(0 ratings)
10.0
(0 ratings)
Availability
6.7
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Performance
2.9
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
2.1
(0 ratings)
10.0
(0 ratings)
Online Training
4.7
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Product Scalability
3.0
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
Wave AccountingWorkday Financial Management
Likelihood to Recommend
Wave is free to use, and they have some premium features you can pay for. For someone just starting out as a small business, freelancer or independent contractor, this is a Godsend. You can look professional, have something easy to manage, and yet also have excellent records come the end of the year. You won't spend a bunch of time having to learn the program, it's very intuitive and you get a host of great features that will make getting paid easy.
Read full review
Our primary model for budgeting revenue is centered on patient counts. Missed assumptions early in the year result in massive ramifications over the balance of the year. Workday formulas allowed us to write formulas to project the recovery of such shortfalls over a variable length of time, resulting in realistic projections for overcoming said shortfalls.
Read full review
Pros
  • The dashboard provides instant views of month-by month income & expenses for the past 12-24 months, a breakdown of current year expense by category, and net income for the past year and year-to-date.
  • Invoicing has easy templated set up has lots of per invoice options such as single/recurring payment options, due dates.
  • Year end reports are easy to generate in either pdf or csv format.
Read full review
  • We specically wanted a cloud financial management system that we could use in China and communicate reports to the headquarters organization and roll-up reporting. It performs well.
  • It was reasonably priced since we are not a for-profit company and need the Workday flexibility for finance and accounting operations. Most of our requirements are met with this one system.
  • The system worked efficiently with the additional security we built on to keep confidential. Many reports are ready off-the-shelf or easy to develop, which is a strength.
Read full review
Cons
  • One area of improvement for Wave would be combining the various mobile applications into one app.
  • Another room for improvement would be on the dashboard level. It would be great if they could use more bar graphs and get away from pie charts for things like expenses.
  • Some of the other areas from improvement have been addressed by recent updates so I am excited to see what else Wave brings out.
Read full review
  • The automatic save function isn't always active for the cloud version. I'm not sure if it is a glitch or a settings issue.
  • There are some limitations to customizations.
  • Updates don't go through properly on the system, leading to downtime issues.
Read full review
Likelihood to Renew
Easy to use for clients with no accounting background and the price is right.
Read full review
No answers on this topic
Usability
Wave [Accounting] is very simple and easy to use. Minimal training was required for all our users as the interface is very user-friendly, especially for small businesses looking to use something to track their financial data, Invoice and make payments. I loved using Wave [Accounting]. It lookes professional and [has] all the features we were looking for.
Read full review
Workday Financial Management is an easy to use, productive software suite that really brings all departments together and improved workplace efficiency. Before we began using the software, much info was partitioned in random places that were not clearly labeled or accessible to all shareholders. We are very pleased with Workday Financial Management.
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Reliability and Availability
WAVE is always available when we need it ! Peter
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No answers on this topic
Performance
Wave does tend to slow down when filtering your transactions screen especially by date. This is more of an issue when trying to trouble shoot certain transactions or clean-up a set of books.
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No answers on this topic
Support Rating
I've only had to reach out to support once and they were quick to respond and offered valuable insight to resolve my issue quickly. The team is knowledgeable and if the person you're dealing with doesn't have an answer for you, they get back to you quickly with an answer. It was clear that the support team is genuinely concerned about users making the most of the software.
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Our support team has been awesome. They are extremely knowledgeable and have been able to guide us through all of the challenges we have faced. Workday's community online is also extremely helpful with many trainings and help topics that can be reviewed at your convenience.
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Online Training
easy to use and east to train on ! Our WAVE clients enjoy the ease of use
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No answers on this topic
Alternatives Considered
Wave's price point was in line with what my company needed to manage basic accounting (payable and receivable accounts). It made it easy for me to issue monthly invoices to clients and track when invoices were paid. The software makes these tasks easy to manage and inputting data for accurate accounting and invoicing is a breeze. It really offers a lot of flexibility, so you can use the software the way you need it.
Read full review
The application data of users in the case of PeopleSoft is stored in its proprietary data storage, whereas Workday Financial Management connects to outside databases to create analytics reports. Therefore, this option uplifts the need to use Workday Financial Management as an interactive tool of business intelligence. The release model of Workday Financial Management is ahead of Oracle because it has a continual announcement of more functionality that is a very attractive incentive for our project management team for improving and developing the ongoing operational streams.
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Scalability
Once they out grow what is ability to move up to a more robust system?
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No answers on this topic
Return on Investment
  • Wave has enabled our accounts payable to maintain a 99% closure rate by leveraging auto reminders through the email system.
  • Our quote to invoice process is a single click, saving time and effort. Even minor changes during that transition occur simply and easily.
  • Aside from payments, Wave has been free for our usage. Our bottom line is better because we're not investing in software but instead embracing an entire ecosystem.
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  • Workday has helped my employer save money over the past couple of year by tracking time of employees and how long were days looking like.
  • It has enables us to make better decisions by hiring more people instead of paying overtime to those who already work in order to have the right work/leisure balance
  • The platform has also helped us to redesign our policies after seeing when employees were clocking in and clocking out and track people who were showing up late for work
Read full review
ScreenShots

Workday Financial Management Screenshots

Screenshot of a discovery boardScreenshot of financial resultsScreenshot of operational analysis