Wave Accounting vs. Xero

Overview
Product	Rating	Most Used By	Product Summary	Starting Price
Wave Accounting	Score8.3 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.	$16 per month
Xero	Score7.8 out of 10	N/A	Xero is an online accounting software product for small businesses and personal finance. Its features beyond general ledger and double-bookkeeping include quotable invoicing, bank reconciliation, purchase order and expense management, and tax management. Third party apps can extend its features further.	$13 per month

Prices in table are in USD and just apply to the US - other markets & prices are listed below: Canada - Starter $18 CAD/month, Standard $45 CAD/month, Premium 5 $58 CAD/month UK - Starter £14/month, Standard £28/month, Premium £36/month AU - Starter $29 AUD/month, Standard $59 AUD/month, Premium 5 $76 AUD/month NZ - Starter $31 NZD/month, Standard $66 NZD/month, Premium $84 NZD/month

Community Pulse
Key User Insights
	Wave Accounting	Xero
Considered Both Products	Wave Lisa A Lewis Owner in Finance and Accounting at Money Matters Bookkeeping, LLC (Accounting, 1-10 employees) 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. Incentivized Helpful? Stephanie Majeran Owner at WellRun Results, LLC (Accounting, 1-10 employees) 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 … Incentivized Helpful? Daniel Jaworski Certified Public Accountant in Finance and Accounting at Deeagle Tax and Accounts Limited (Accounting, 1-10 employees) 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 … Incentivized Helpful? Verified User 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 … Incentivized Helpful? Matthew Gehrman Agency Principal in Sales at CityScape Insurance (Insurance, 1-10 employees) Chose Wave Accounting Across the board Wave takes the cake on price at $0/mo aside from payroll fees and credit card processing. That aside I'd say most accounting systems are fairly similar, however what I like about Wave is just how simple the interface is and the outstanding customer support from … Incentivized Helpful? Penny Breslin Account Manager in Finance and Accounting at FileThis, Inc. (Accounting, 1-10 employees) Chose Wave Accounting It fits a niche of clients that are tech savvy, often self employed and want to manage business and personal finances. We are finding that even as these companies grow new features are allowing them to stay in Wave. Helpful? Andrew Wall, CPA, CMA Founder & President in Finance and Accounting at Chartered Professional Accountants for Medical Doctors (Accounting, 11-50 employees) Chose Wave Accounting Xero and QBO. In my opinion Xero is the best platform. However, it is not cheap. While Wave does provide as gret an experience or as much functionality it does provide the necessities for free. This is great for small or new business who would otherwise be doing their … Helpful? Peter Cullen Partner at Core Performance in Finance and Accounting at Corelytics (Accounting, 1-10 employees) Chose Wave Accounting entry level software - does not yet compare to XERO Helpful? David Goldstein Pro Advisor at Wave Accountng (Accounting, 1-10 employees) Chose Wave Accounting Xero Accounting is the only other app that stacks up to Wave. Wave is free, easy to learn and use, compared to others, has a very good support system, continues to evolve, and has a very dedicated and enthusiastic staff. Helpful?	Xero Brandon Scivolette President in Corporate at MovingLabor.com (Consumer Services, 1-10 employees) Chose Xero Personally, I always hated QuickBooks. I'm sure the online/cloud version is a lot different than the older desktop software, but I never found it to be easy to use and my books were always out of sync. Wave [Accounting] was the first Saas accounting software I tried, but I … Incentivized Helpful? Brett Levy Managing Director in Product Management at BEYOND INTENT (Retail, 1-10 employees) Chose Xero Xero had better recommendations and my accountant preferred it even though it wasn't the cheapest, it came out the most recommended. Wave had a free version and a fairly good mobile experience this was our second choice. Incentivized Helpful? Thomas Harding Chief Executive Officer in Corporate at Mish Guru (Computer Software, 11-50 employees) Chose Xero When we reviewed Wave it just didn’t have the features of Xero for payroll and integration with our accounting firm. Incentivized Helpful? Ben Clifford Founder & Managing Director at erjjio (Design, 1-10 employees) Chose Xero I really enjoyed using Wave as it was very user-friendly, well designed and slick as a business touchpoint with our clients, but I was forced to move away from it as Wave decided to restrict its use to only North American customers whereas I'm in the UK. I selected Xero as its … Incentivized Helpful? Chris Lombardo Owner in Corporate at Chris Digital Solutions (Information Technology & Services, 1-10 employees) Chose Xero In my opinion, the main competitor to Xero is QuickBooks but I migrated from QuickBooks to Xero because I was looking for an accounting software with an interface easier to use. Incentivized Helpful? Angie Martin Growth Expert in Marketing at The Growth Manager (Management Consulting, 11-50 employees) Chose Xero Xero stands out as the industry leader in terms of ease of use, functionality, integration possibilities, usability, and reporting functionality. Having extensive experience with various accounting software as a business owner and mentor, Xero consistently proves to be my top … Incentivized Helpful? Mohsin Ejaz Senior Accountant in Finance and Accounting at Tax Shop Accountants (Accounting, 11-50 employees) Chose Xero Ignoring pricing, Xero is among the best options available. It has the most complete feature set along with Quickbooks. It is more user-friendly compared to most of its competitors. It has well-designed mobile apps that can actually do something in contrast with most … Incentivized Helpful? Verified User Chose Xero Xero has remained simple yet robust for years. They have a few items that make it difficult (what product doesn't), but I feel very confident in partnering with them. I have used (and still use) QuickBooks Online and I have witnessed Intuit continually pull the bait and … Incentivized Helpful? Kelvin Leong Founding Partner in Product Management at NonCam.com (Retail, 1-10 employees) Chose Xero The ease of use and feature sets are miles apart from the competition. The alternatives that I have compared Xero with are just years away from dozens of features which makes a user's life much easier. The competition's localizations are still very far apart, and the … Incentivized Helpful? Verified User Chose Xero Xero could be slightly more expensive compared to these products but to me, Xero is the most user-friendly platform. It is very easy to use. Their support page and email support are also great. Apart from the platform, Xero has lots of integrations with other software providers … Incentivized Helpful? James E. Heyward CPA Principal in Corporate at Heyward CPA PLLC (Accounting, 1-10 employees) Chose Xero I prefer Xero over the other options I have tried because it has a cleaner interface, operates faster on the web, has a strong API relationship with other applications and appears to be gaining ground on Quickbooks in the marketplace. QuickBooks Online is probably the most … Incentivized Helpful? Ronen Amit Founder and Senior eCommerce Strategist & Consultant in Marketing at SellerAct.com (Marketing and Advertising, 1-10 employees) Chose Xero Xero as a cloud-based solution cannot be compared with the desktop solution, especially when much of our company's business is done online. The more the market moves online, the more desktop solutions will be cumbersome and outdated. Other cloud-based solutions, such as Accounti… Incentivized Helpful?
	Would buy again
	No answers on this topic	No answers on this topic
	Delivers good value for the price
	No answers on this topic	No answers on this topic
	Happy with the feature set
	No answers on this topic	No answers on this topic
	Lived up to sales and marketing promises
	No answers on this topic	No answers on this topic
	Implementation went as expected
No answers on this topic	No answers on this topic

Features

Wave Accounting

Xero

Comparison of Payroll Management features of Wave Accounting and Xero
Feature	Wave Accounting 6.2 24 Ratings	Xero 7.5 73 Ratings
Pay calculation	7.123 Ratings	8.065 Ratings
Benefit plan administration	7.54 Ratings	8.023 Ratings
Direct deposit files	1.220 Ratings	7.249 Ratings
Salary revision and increment management	7.712 Ratings	7.141 Ratings
Reimbursement management	7.48 Ratings	7.054 Ratings

Comparison of Customization features of Wave Accounting and Xero
Feature	Wave Accounting 8.5 13 Ratings	Xero 8.4 151 Ratings
API for custom integration	9.99 Ratings	7.979 Ratings
Plug-ins	7.011 Ratings	9.0138 Ratings

Comparison of Security features of Wave Accounting and Xero
Feature	Wave Accounting 6.4 45 Ratings	Xero 7.1 189 Ratings
Single sign-on capability	6.432 Ratings	5.572 Ratings
Role-based user permissions	6.436 Ratings	8.7187 Ratings

Comparison of Reporting & Analytics features of Wave Accounting and Xero
Feature	Wave Accounting 6.3 72 Ratings	Xero 8.7 213 Ratings
Dashboards	6.070 Ratings	8.6209 Ratings
Standard reports	8.069 Ratings	9.0211 Ratings
Custom reports	5.036 Ratings	8.4187 Ratings

Comparison of General Ledger and Configurable Accounting features of Wave Accounting and Xero
Feature	Wave Accounting 7.0 75 Ratings	Xero 7.3 223 Ratings
Accounts payable	7.158 Ratings	8.8203 Ratings
Accounts receivable	7.169 Ratings	8.8209 Ratings
Cash management	8.561 Ratings	8.4191 Ratings
Bank reconciliation	8.565 Ratings	8.7216 Ratings
Expense management	7.563 Ratings	8.2197 Ratings
Time tracking	9.811 Ratings	7.973 Ratings
Fixed asset management	9.812 Ratings	8.8137 Ratings
Multi-currency support	10.019 Ratings	7.6130 Ratings
Multi-division support	7.19 Ratings	8.2112 Ratings
Regulations compliance	5.016 Ratings	8.7112 Ratings
Electronic tax filing	5.914 Ratings	9.8116 Ratings
Self-service portal	8.040 Ratings	8.4130 Ratings
Global Financial Support	9.02 Ratings	7.167 Ratings
Primary and Secondary Ledgers	9.05 Ratings	9.065 Ratings
Intercompany Accounting	4.05 Ratings	4.440 Ratings
Localizations	5.23 Ratings	8.039 Ratings
Journals and Reconciliations	8.530 Ratings	9.890 Ratings
Enterprise Accounting	4.07 Ratings	2.433 Ratings
Configurable Accounting	5.017 Ratings	2.859 Ratings
Centralized Rules Framework	1.03 Ratings	3.333 Ratings
Standardized Processes	7.019 Ratings	3.659 Ratings

Comparison of Inventory Management features of Wave Accounting and Xero
Feature	Wave Accounting 8.1 11 Ratings	Xero 6.7 101 Ratings
Inventory tracking	5.68 Ratings	9.097 Ratings
Automatic reordering	9.95 Ratings	6.224 Ratings
Location management	8.12 Ratings	6.229 Ratings
Manufacturing module	9.01 Ratings	6.016 Ratings

Comparison of Order Management features of Wave Accounting and Xero
Feature	Wave Accounting 7.6 52 Ratings	Xero 6.2 89 Ratings
Pricing	9.926 Ratings	6.262 Ratings
Order entry	10.018 Ratings	6.256 Ratings
Credit card processing	2.345 Ratings	6.358 Ratings
Cost of goods sold	10.033 Ratings	6.366 Ratings
Order Orchestration	5.85 Ratings	6.121 Ratings
End-to-end order visibility	8.24 Ratings	6.124 Ratings
Order exception Resolution	7.02 Ratings	6.117 Ratings

User Ratings
	Wave Accounting	Xero
Likelihood to Recommend	6.0 (81 ratings)	7.8 (238 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew	7.8 (3 ratings)	7.1 (35 ratings)
Usability	7.0 (16 ratings)	8.3 (163 ratings)
Availability	6.7 (4 ratings)	9.0 (10 ratings)
Performance	2.9 (2 ratings)	10.0 (8 ratings)
Support Rating	2.1 (12 ratings)	9.2 (36 ratings)
In-Person Training	- (0 ratings)	9.1 (1 ratings)
Online Training	4.7 (3 ratings)	10.0 (5 ratings)
Implementation Rating	- (0 ratings)	7.3 (10 ratings)
Configurability	- (0 ratings)	9.0 (1 ratings)
CPA Rating	8.0 (8 ratings)	9.1 (10 ratings)
Ease of integration	- (0 ratings)	7.1 (122 ratings)
Product Scalability	3.0 (2 ratings)	10.0 (6 ratings)
Vendor post-sale	- (0 ratings)	9.0 (2 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale	- (0 ratings)	10.0 (2 ratings)

Wave Accounting vs. Xero

Wave Accounting

Xero

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