Wave Accounting

Wave is the brand name for a suite of online small business software products. The legal company name is Wave Accounting Inc. Wave is headquartered in the Leslieville neighbourhood in Toronto, Canada. The company manages more than $50 billion in income and expense transactions for its customers, including $5 billion in annual invoicing.^[1]

The company's first product was a free online accounting software designed for businesses with 1-9 employees.

Features and integrations

The company's core product, Accounting by Wave, is a double entry accounting tool. Services include direct bank data imports, invoicing and expense tracking. Accounting by Wave integrates with expense tracking software Shoeboxed, and e-commerce website Etsy.

The next product launched was Payroll by Wave, which was launched in 2012 after the acquisition of SmallPayroll.ca.^[2] Payroll by Wave is only available in U.S.A. and Canada.

Invoicing by Wave is an offshoot of the company's earlier accounting tools.

Additional products launched on or shortly after the company's rebrand^[3] in December 2012 include:

• a credit card processing tool, Payments by Wave, built initially on an integration with Stripe credit card processing
• a receipt scanning tool, Receipts by Wave^[4]

Wave also produces free mobile applications that integrate with the online functionality:

• Invoice by Wave for iPhone^[5]
• Payments by Wave for iPhone^[6]
• Receipts by Wave for iPhone
• Receipts by Wave for Android^[7]
• Payroll by Wave for iPhone

Pricing and revenue

Wave’s core accounting and invoicing tools are free, as opposed to freemium in that the tools can be used without tiers or limits. The free webapp functionality contains advertisements geared to small businesses.

Wave also generates revenue from its payroll software, and from its payments (credit card processing) partnership with Stripe.

Wave does not currently disclose its revenue or financial statements publicly.

Major competitors

The biggest accounting competitor is QuickBooks, which holds up to 90% of the market of small businesses that already use an accounting application.

There are several SaaS accounting apps in the market, including StraightBook, LessAccounting, Freshbooks, FreeAgent, Kashoo, Saasu, Outright, Xero, KashFlow, Aplos Software for nonprofits, and Sage Group. In addition, several payroll services compete with Wave: SurePayroll, ZenPayroll and PaymentEvolution.

History

CEO Kirk Simpson and CPO James Lochrie launched Wave Accounting Inc. in July 2009. Wave Accounting launched to the public on November 16, 2010.^[8] In June 2011 Series A funding led by OMERS Ventures^[9] and Inkef Capital^[10] was closed. In September 2011, FedDev Ontario invested one million dollars in funding.^[11] In October 2011, a $5-million investment led by U.S. venture capital firm Charles River Ventures was announced.^[12] In May 2012, Wave Accounting closed its series B financing round led by The Social+Capital Partnership, with follow-on participation from Charles River Ventures and OMERS Ventures.^[13]

Wave Accounting acquired a company called Small Payroll in November 2011,^[14] which was later launched as a payroll product called Wave Payroll. In February 2012, Wave Accounting officially launched Wave Payroll to the public in Canada,^[15] followed by the American release in November of the same year.^[16][17]

In August, 2012, the company announced the acquisition of Vuru.co,^[18] an online stock-tracking service. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

In December 2012 the company rebranded itself as Wave to emphasize its broadened spectrum of services.^[19]

References