A Wave alternative when the months already went by
Wave is free to start, which makes it a genuinely good answer for a small business that wants to keep records and does not want to pay for the privilege. Its limitation for this particular problem is not price — it is direction. Accounting software records what happens from the day you begin. If somebody has asked for a Profit & Loss covering last year, starting a free account today does not produce one; it starts a file that will be useful next year.
Keep using Wave if
- — You are starting now and want to keep records going forward.
- — You send invoices and want them in the same place as the books.
- — Free matters to you and the free tier covers what you need.
- — You are willing to categorise transactions as they come in.
This is for you instead if
- — The period you have been asked about is already over and nothing was recorded during it.
- — You have the bank statements but no books.
- — You need the finished document by a date.
- — You do not want to learn a system to answer one request.
Side by side
| Wave | ONE CLICK P&L | |
|---|---|---|
| Direction | Records what happens from the day you start | Reads what already happened, from statements you already have |
| What you are buying | Accounting software — a free tier and paid plans above it | One document, paid for once. $6.98 per statement-month, $19.99 minimum, first statement-month free |
| Work required from you | Ongoing — records are only as good as what you enter | Upload the statements, answer what is unclear, review the categories |
| Months already past | Entered after the fact, by you | The normal case |
| What you hand over | Reports from the file you have been keeping | Excel and PDF with monthly columns, preparation notes, a signature line, and an unaudited label |
Free is not the obstacle — direction is
It would be easy to write this page as though the comparison were about price, and dishonest, because Wave's entry tier costs nothing and ours does not. If price were the whole question the answer would be Wave.
The question is not price. Accounting software of any kind — free or not — produces reports out of records somebody kept. If nobody kept records for the period you have been asked about, there is nothing for it to report on. You would be entering a year of transactions by hand to get to the same place a reading of the bank statements gets to directly.
That is worth doing if you want the books. It is a strange amount of work if what you want is one statement for one request.
The honest recommendation
If you are reading this because you want to start keeping records and you do not want to pay, use Wave, or use the free tier of any of them. We would rather say that than pretend the choice is closer than it is.
Come back when somebody asks you for a statement covering months that nobody wrote down. That is the case this is for, and it is a case that keeps happening to businesses that are otherwise doing fine.
Upload one statement and read the months nobody wrote down. Start from your bank statements.
Questions people ask
Wave has a free plan. Why would I pay for this?
If you are starting from today and will keep records going forward, you should probably use the free plan. This is for the opposite situation: months that already passed with nothing recorded, and a request for a Profit & Loss covering them.
Can I enter last year into Wave myself?
You can, and if you want books at the end of it that is a reasonable path. It means entering every transaction from your statements by hand and deciding what each one is.
Do I have to stop using Wave?
No. This produces a document from your bank statements; it does not touch anything else you use.
Sources
- Wave — pricing — that Wave offers a no-cost starter tier alongside a paid plan, and that it is bookkeeping software the user maintains. Checked 2026-08-28.
Product names belong to their owners and are used here to describe what those products do. Prices and features change; check the vendor's own page for what is true today.
ONE CLICK P&L produces draft financial statements, not accounting, tax, or legal advice, and using it does not create an accountant-client relationship. It is made by SWCPALAB, a product of SW Accounting & Consulting Corp, a California licensed CPA firm.