This is particularly true if you have seasonal or occasional employees and independent contractors that you pay sporadically. You can change their status from active to inactive and only run payroll for them when you need to. It’s worth noting that you don’t pay for every contractor every month. Instead, they are classified as “vendors” and you only pay $6 per contractor that you pay each month.

Automatic tax remittances

Wave Payroll includes the basics you need to run payroll for a small business. Although a lot of the features are manual, such as timesheets, they’re easy to figure out, making this a good choice for a new business owner who isn’t experienced with running payroll. Create beautiful invoices, accept online payments, and make accounting easy—all in one place—with Wave’s suite of money management tools. Wave Payroll supports paying both employees and independent contractors when you run payroll. The proper tax forms—1099 in the US and T4-A in Canada—are also generated for you. Wave Financial Inc. is an accredited business with the Better Business Bureau and has an A+ rating from the company.

Additionally, Wave is perfect for small businesses already using Wave products or businesses looking to integrate simple accounting software with payroll software. Wave Payroll accounting and journal entry for loan payment offers many basic payroll features and works seamlessly with Wave’s accounting features like invoicing, expense tracking, and basic inventory reporting. Its full-service model is a definite rival of Intuit QuickBooks, but Wave offers a more modern and basic interface at a cheaper price point.

Each of these Wave Payroll alternatives offers more support and operates in more states than Wave. Compared to other payroll software, Wave Payroll offers a very limited feature set, which ultimately drove the software’s feature rating down to a 3.2/5 stars. However, despite its simplicity, onboarding new employees can be a bit cumbersome, although Wave has a self-onboarding option for companies to offer to employees. Further, Wave Payroll’s integration options are very limited compared to other software and require the use of Zapier, rather than offering direct integrations. Customers like Wave Payroll’s simple interface and say it’s easy for those without accounting experience to run payroll.

Best performance management software in 2024

Wave Payroll’s full-service payroll tax support is currently only available in 14 states, but there are goals to expand full-service options nationwide in the future. Customers in the other 36 states are consigned to Wave Payroll’s self-service package by default and must handle payroll taxes by themselves. Compared to other payroll solutions, Wave Payroll’s pricing is on the lower end — as is the number of features it supports. Among the few complaints are a step-heavy process to set up certain benefits, a long lead time to run payroll and difficulty running an extra payroll cycle. There are also a few complaints about inadequate customer service to resolve certain issues.

1. She realized she could earn a more lucrative and flexible living as a freelance writer, so she soon went all-in on being self-employed.
2. You’ll need to answer a few questions about your business and provide us with a little more information about yourself in order to get approved to accept online payments.
3. Wave’s entire mission is to bring robust accounting, payments, and payroll programs to more small businesses.
4. We receive compensation from the companies that advertise on Blueprint which may impact how and where products appear on this site.

Is Wave right for your business?

To get the best possible experience please use the latest version of Chrome, Firefox, Safari, or Microsoft Edge to view this website. To get the best possible experience please use the latest version of Chrome, Firefox, Safari, or Microsoft Edge to view this website. Any connections between you, your bank accounts, and Wave are protected by 256-bit SSL encryption. “Wave invoicing makes your life a whole lot easier and takes that worry off you. I’ve tried Quickbooks—it’s a bit more complicated and technical, and takes income statement analysis more time to set up.” Only pay for what you use and simplify annual audits with workers’ comp built for small business owners. Keep compliant and save time by having Wave handle your Canada Revenue Agency tax remittances on your behalf.

Pricing and plans

Create beautiful invoices, accept online payments, and make accounting easy—all in one place. We totally get it—running payroll for your small business can seem like a daunting task, especially when you’ve got so much on your plate. That’s why a payroll software like Wave’s the risks and rewards of international bonds can help ease the burden of doing payroll on your own.

She also worked as a digital content producer and show producer at several local TV stations across the nation.In her free time, Sierra runs her book editing business, Editing by Sierra, LLC. She offers developmental editing, copy editing, line editing proofreading and simple formatting services to self-published and traditionally published authors. We extensively research the key competitors within an industry to determine the best products and services for your business. In addition, Wave lacks advanced employee hiring and onboarding tools. If you plan to hire employees soon, consider payroll software like Homebase, which offers employee hiring and onboarding workflows and tools. While Wave Payroll’s features are pretty basic, its employee status option is a great perk.