Best Of

I have just completed my year-long Wave experiment and I am (truly) very sad to say I've just ponied up the coin to buy the newest version of QB desktop. Wave is a wonderful platform that I really like, so I would be remiss to not explain myself.

The bottomline for me is reporting capabilities. I need to be able to drill down, deep-dive, and every other cliche buzzword to measure every part of my business from multiple angles. I've noted a few of them in these forums (namely Cost to Serve). I loved being able to sit at the table with a client and send them an estimate right while I was sitting there and having Wave's servers handle it, and automated reminders for invoices were a game changer for keeping up with my receivables, but, at the end of the day, the Reports page just made me sad (and occasionally frustrated). A Power BI, Qlik, or Tableau integration might be able to fix this IF (and only if) you map as many data points as you can. I'd be happy to help with the brainstorming on this if it ever becomes an idea that makes it to the Road Map.

Estimate statuses are another big one. The competition doesn't have this functionality, either, but I can add a memo in the specific estimate and pull it out during reporting so I've created a uniform system that uses the same status wording for all my estimates.

I was surprised to find that transaction fees and payroll costs were big ones for me (surprised because I don't use any automation currently, but I discovered that I spend a lot of time on these and am really in need of one that integrates with my accounting platform).

For my clients who aren't on retainer my invoices are typically $50-$200 for ad hoc requests. I would love nothing more than to have an integrated payment solution but Wave's is too much (the competition is, as well, so I'm still stuck with Square but I'm on the hunt for something else). Payroll at $35 a month, whether or not you use it, it crazy. Give people the option of $X each or $35 a month + $X each (the idea being that the pay-per option would be higher than the monthly subscription price). Again, the competition doesn't have the advantage here, but I can print checks that are window-envelope-ready so there is some time savings there.

Being able to bill (and deduct from) deposits and/or retainers would be amazing but the last one I want to leave you with is attachments. Wave's ability to take a picture of a receipt and extract the info to save time when adding it into accounting is amazing. It was a game changer for me like automated invoice reminders were. Being able to view the actual, original invoice later on when I couldn't remember what I had bought from Costco was awesome. One thing I've started doing is sending my Ts&Cs as an attachment in every estimate and invoice I send and that ability doesn't exist in Wave (the footer and comments fields are just not a solution, unfortunately). I've read posts from other folks asking for the same capabilities because they wanted to send completion photos to their clients with their final invoices, among other uses. Imagine how much time that would save a craftsperson if they could snap a photo from the jobsite and attach it to the invoice he's getting ready to send from his phone while the rest of the crew finished cleaning up.

I also run a small nonprofit on Wave and am planning to keep it here because Wave is an absolutely fantastic platform and I really, really like it. And the fact that these forums exist are a testament to how much you folks care about the voice of the user. I know that I will never get that kind of interaction using the competition.

So this post isn't "goodbye" and it's most definitely not a rant. It is, though, a totally non-negative, non-critical explanation of why I've had to move my company's financials back to They Who Shall Not Be Named (except for the first one so I could then use "competition" everywhere else ).

I recognize that for every 'switch' you build in, you're adding something that can break (it's why I'm a fan of antique cars, quite frankly), but I'm hoping as you guys move down the Road Map I'll be able to dump "them" permanently and come back to one of the easiest and most intuitive UIs I've seen in a long time. Being able to do that with something as complex as business accounting is a feat!

Thanks for reading this, and thanks for building a great tool for small businesses to grow with!