Powerful restaurant accounting software

Running a restaurant takes time to create great food, great service, and a great atmosphere. Let Wave take accounting off your plate so you can focus on serving up amazing dishes for your guests.

Get started for free

Featured in

Make more dough with our recipe for success

Whether you specialize in fine dining, authentic ethnic dishes, or fun comfort food, you don’t need to be a financial whiz to improve your business processes and optimize your cash flow. Wave is easy to use and can be customized to your unique requirements.

All the right ingredients!

Wave provides everything from accounting, payroll, invoicing, online payment processing, and more. Wave’s extensive menu of features helps your restaurant run smoothly and efficiently.

"My fav tool for invoicing and accounting is Wave. Easy-to-use. And I love the interface!"

Julienne Desjardins - Digital Marketer

"My fav tool for invoicing and accounting is Wave. Easy-to-use. And I love the interface!"

Julienne Desjardins - Digital Marketer

Unlimited accounting, starting at free.

Try Wave for free

Dazzle your customers instead of cleaning up the books

Designed for restaurant owners and managers, Wave accounting software is simple to set up and use, and can be easily customized for any size of business. It’s also great for caterers, bakeries, coffee shops, and take-out and delivery services.

Whip up the right features

Create a Wave account and get started right away. It’s easy to choose and use the level of accounting and business features you want, and you can access your finances anywhere with peace of mind, of knowing your information is backed-up and secure.

Serve your business interests

See your daily sales, food, and labor expenses, cash flow, food write-offs, and other important data at a glance with visual graphs and charts. Dive deeper into the numbers by creating customized reports to see which food and beverage items are driving profits, and find out which expenses are affecting your bottom line.

Get your staff in on the action

With the Pro Plan, it’s easy to add limited permissions so members of your restaurant team can use their expertise to help manage your books. You can quickly get your head chef and bar manager up-to-speed to help find efficiencies and make the most of your resources.

More food for thought

Every day you dish up the perfect balance of culinary excellence, great customer service, and business acumen. A flexible accounting system helps you handle it all, while freeing you up to get back to what you do best—creating an outstanding dining experience.

Stay on track

Our expense tracking and business reporting lets you categorize, add notes, and compare menus, food supplies, and more, so you can find opportunities to keep more of your money. You can also monitor the sales tax you charge to ensure you stay compliant with your local jurisdiction.

Increase the money flow

Take advantage of affordable online payment options to help keep revenue flowing in. When you subscribe to our Pro Plan, connect your bank accounts to Wave for automatic transaction reconciliation, taking even more off your plate.

Tax time prep

Wave uses authentic double entry accounting software, so it’s easy to hand off year-end reports to your accountant at tax time. When you're a Pro Plan subscriber you can add your accountant as a limited user so they can securely access the information they need, freeing up even more of your time.

Unlimited accounting, starting at free.

Try Wave for free

Customers love Wave

4.4 out of 5 stars based on user reviews collected by G2Crowd as of January 2024.

Filled 5 point starFilled 5 point starFilled 5 point starFilled 5 point starHalf filled 5 point star
4.4 out of 5 stars

Frequently Asked Questions

Is Wave's software something I need to install?

What if I just want to try Wave to see if it works for my business?

Can I change plans easily?

Is my data secure when I use Wave?

Do you provide customer support?

Is it easy to cancel for any reason after I subscribe?

Make bookkeeping
a breeze

Get started for free

Make bookkeeping
a breeze

Get started for free

The simple software contractors love

Fire off estimates and invoices, snap receipts, and track expenses—even on-the-go—with Wave’s simple money management solutions for contractors.

Get started for free

Land more jobs, get paid faster

Payment solutions for
your business

1
1
1

Create estimates anytime, anywhere

Use our beautiful templates to whip up professional estimates in just a few taps, even from the job site.

2
2
2

Turn estimates into invoices in a snap

Once the deal is sealed, convert estimates into invoices in seconds. You can even set up recurring invoices for repeat clients!

3
3
3

Never lose track of your payments

Give your clients the convenient option to pay you online by credit card or bank payments through your Wave invoices. Then track them in real time!

Contractor software that works as hard as you do

Stay organized and never lose a receipt

Whenever you make a new business purchase, snap a pic of your receipt with Wave’s mobile app to keep your expenses organized in one convenient place.

Wave’s receipts feature organizes your receipt data for bookkeeping, meaning less manual data entry for you.

Whether you’re using your phone or desktop, your transactions stay in-sync and backed up to the cloud, giving you peace of mind with every upload.

Painlessly manage your people

With Wave’s payroll software, you can pay your employees (or yourself) and generate Form 1099 for subcontractors.

Track who you pay and what you own and keep your customer and vendor information in one place.

Plus, our payroll software is seamlessly connected with the rest of your Wave account to reduce the time you spend on manual bookkeeping.

Stay organized and never lose a receipt

Whenever you make a new business purchase, snap a pic of your receipt with Wave’s mobile app to keep your expenses organized in one convenient place.

Wave’s receipts feature organizes your receipt data for bookkeeping, meaning less manual data entry for you.

Whether you’re using your phone or desktop, your transactions stay in-sync and backed up to the cloud, giving you peace of mind with every upload.

Painlessly manage your people

With Wave’s payroll software, you can pay your employees (or yourself) and generate Form 1099 for subcontractors.

Track who you pay and what you own and keep your customer and vendor information in one place.

Plus, our payroll software is seamlessly connected with the rest of your Wave account to reduce the time you spend on manual bookkeeping.

Stay on-top of your business with contractor-friendly software

Customize Wave to fit your biz

Your business is unique, and every job is different—create custom categories for gas, equipment, rentals, uniforms, or whatever keeps your business running. Easily track every expense, so you know exactly where your money’s going (and when to rein it in).

Stay in-the-know to grow

Get insights into your business’s performance with our handy graphs, charts, and smart dashboard—no number-crunching or accounting degree needed. Plus, view cash flow reports to keep an eye on income and expenses and make smart business decisions.

Our solutions work together, so you work less

Spend time on the parts of your business you actually like.

Ask an expert

Get by with a little 1:1 help

Our (non-judgmental) in-house team of bookkeeping, accounting, and payroll experts is standing by to coach you—or do the work for you.
Learn more about Advisors
Three of our Wave Advisors
4.6

Over 350,000 small businesses
trust Wave to easily button-up
their books

Over 300,000 small businesses trust Wave

Headshot of Wave customer Tatiyanna.
Tatiyanna W.
TruCreates.com

"Wave 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 more time to set up."

A headshot of Wave customers Eric Silverberg & Eli Gladstone.
Eric Silverberg & Eli Gladstone
Speaker Labs

“Wave’s invoicing is unbeatable. In eight years, we haven’t had a single unpaid invoice, thanks to how easy it is to create, send, and follow up. Our invoicing process would be lost without it!”

Wave customer Troy Styke
Troy Styke
Crystal Clean Window Cleaning

Great app for writing estimates and invoices. Lets you send out both from the app. Extremely easy to use.”

Frequently Asked Questions

Is Wave's software something I need to install?

Wave's tools are web-based, so you just need an Internet connection and browser—no installation is necessary for our online software!

If you're looking for an on-the-go solution, you can install our mobile app to help you manage invoices and payments. Download our mobile app on iOS and Android today!

What if I just want to try Wave to see if it works for my business?

Sign up for the Starter Plan to take the bookkeeping and invoicing basics for a spin. Then, whenever you’re ready, upgrade to the Pro Plan to unlock even more money management features. Our plans are built for small business owners at every stage!

Can I change plans easily?

You bet! To upgrade to the Pro Plan, sign into Wave. Visit your dashboard or use your invoicing or accounting features, and click the “Upgrade now” button. Learn more about changing subscription periods and plan types in our Help Center.

Is my data secure when I use Wave?

Our servers are protected physically and electronically. Any connections between you, your bank accounts, and Wave are protected by 256-bit SSL encryption. Wave is a PCI-DSS Level 1 Service Provider.

Do you provide customer support?

We provide different levels of support, depending on the plan and/or the add-on features you choose. Learn more about how Wave support works here.

Is it easy to cancel for any reason after I subscribe?

Yes, you can unsubscribe at any time! The cancellation of your subscription will take effect at the end of the billing period in which you cancel. Learn how to cancel your subscription in our Help Center.

Can I import my data from other accounting apps like Quickbooks?

Yes, switching from other accounting apps or products to Wave is easy! See our step-by-step guide on how to import bookkeeping data into Wave here.

Can I set different account privileges for employees or my accountant?

Yes! Wave makes it easy to invite additional users to your account to help with your accounting. You can grant access to a trusted individual—an accountant, bookkeeper, tax preparer, or business partner, for example—by inviting that person to be a collaborator. See our step-by-step guide on how to invite collaborators to your Wave account.

Why should I switch from my current accounting solution to Wave?

Wave has all the key features you need to keep your books accurate and run your business smoothly. Our double-entry accounting software is trusted by over 2 million small business owners.

With Wave, you'll also have an entire suite of money management features at your fingertips, including invoicing, payroll, and online payment processing. Send invoices to clients, get paid, and manage your books, all in one convenient platform. Wave is truly simple money management solutions for small business owners like you!

What features should I look for in an accounting tool?

Some accounting features you should look out for include the ability to:

- Track income and expenses

- Measure accounts payable and accounts receivable

- Capture and organize receipts

- Automate basic accounting tasks

- Run basic bookkeeping reports

- Generate financial statements

- Calculate cash flow for your business

- Track sales and sales tax

- Add multiple users, such as your bookkeeper or accountant

How does accounting software work?

Accounting software helps business owners understand how money flows in and out of their businesses. It replaces the time-consuming method of collecting receipts in a drawer and manually tracking revenue and expenses in a spreadsheet or with pen and paper.

The right software helps business owners quickly categorize transactions and generate financial statements. These include cash flow reports, balance sheets, profit and loss statements, and expense breakdowns.

Accounting software like Wave can also seamlessly connect with your bank accounts so you can automate tasks like recording transactions and generating reports. This can help you save time and make financial decisions quickly.

Why should I use accounting software for my business?

The right small business accounting software can take the stress out of balancing your business's books, separating your business and personal expenses, and prepping your business for tax season.

Ditching spreadsheets for business accounting software can help you organize your financial documents and statements, reduce headaches during tax season, and remove unnecessary manual work.

When equipped with the right accounting software, you can do more than just basic bookkeeping. You can effectively analyze the financial health of your business, find ways to generate more profit, and move forward with your business plan.

Does Wave’s accounting tool work with my bank?

With a Pro Plan subscription, you can connect your bank account with Wave and automatically import your transactions. This can help you make bookkeeping a breeze.

Less mess, less stress contractor software

Less mess, less stress contractor software

Get started for free