Wave accounting for solopreneurs.
Accountaire pairs Wave accounting for solopreneurs with a paid professional service. The Wave platform stays free, and we take on the monthly bookkeeping review, the quarterly estimated tax payments, the year-end close and the federal, state and Canadian returns for sole proprietors, single-member LLCs and freelancers.
How does Wave accounting for solopreneurs actually work?
Wave is the leading free accounting platform for US and Canadian solopreneurs and very small businesses. The core accounting features (invoicing, bank reconciliation, expense tracking, basic reporting) are entirely free; Wave monetises through paid payroll, payments processing and the optional Wave Advisor service.
For solopreneurs and very small businesses (typically under $150k revenue), Wave is often the right software choice. There's no reason to pay a monthly subscription for QuickBooks when Wave is free and the feature gap doesn't matter at small scale. The constraint is service: solopreneurs still need a real accountant for tax filing, year-end work and strategic advice.
We provide that service inside your Wave subscription. You keep using Wave (it stays free); we handle the bookkeeping cleanup, tax preparation and advisory work. Where a year or more of records is missing, the rebuild is priced as catch-up bookkeeping before the monthly service starts. Pricing reflects scale, from $500/month for basic solopreneur scope including annual tax return.
What we do in Wave.
Professional accounting service inside free software.
- Monthly bookkeeping cleanup We review your Wave entries monthly, fix miscoded transactions, ensure reconciliation is clean. You keep doing day-to-day; we keep books tidy.
- Annual tax returns US: Schedule C (sole props), Form 1040, state returns. Canada: T1 personal return, T2125 self-employment statement.
- Quarterly estimated tax (US) Form 1040-ES quarterly payments calculated. State estimates coordinated.
- Sales tax (where applicable) For Wave users with sales-tax obligations, multi-state nexus tracking. Avalara or TaxJar integrated.
- Annual close & year-end review Year-end reconciliation, depreciation, and clean trial balance prepared for tax return.
- Wave to QuickBooks migrationWhen you outgrow Wave (typically $150k+ revenue or when you hire your first employee), we migrate you to QuickBooks Online cleanly.
- Advisory check-ins Annual planning conversation: pension, business structure (sole prop vs LLC vs S-corp), expense optimisation.
- 1099-NEC issuance For US Wave users with contractor payments above the $600 threshold. W-9 collection, 1099 filing, recipient distribution.
When Wave is the right choice.
Specifically for very small US and Canadian businesses.
US/CA solopreneurs
Single-person businesses under ~$150k revenue. Free software, paid service.
Single-member LLCs
LLC structure with passthrough taxation. Wave + Schedule C handles it.
Side hustles & freelancers
For people running a second income source. Wave is materially cheaper than QuickBooks.
Pre-employee businesses
Until you hire your first employee, Wave is sufficient. Hiring usually triggers a move to QuickBooks + Gusto.
Wave vs QuickBooks, FreshBooks and Neat.
What the free platform actually costs you, set against the three paid alternatives a solopreneur considers.
| Criterion | Wave | QuickBooks Online | FreshBooks | Neat |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Core accounting cost | Free | Paid | Paid | Paid |
| Markets | United States and Canada only | US, Canada, UK, Australia and more | US, Canada, UK | United States |
| Best fit | Sole proprietors and single-member LLCs under about $150k | Anything that hires or holds stock | Consultancies billing by the hour | Expense-heavy service businesses |
| Payroll | Wave Payroll, paid add-on | Full ecosystem: Gusto, Rippling, ADP | Integration only | Weak |
| Multi-state sales tax | Basic, needs Avalara or TaxJar | Strongest of the four | Needs TaxJar | Limited |
| Reporting depth | Profit and loss, balance sheet, little more | Segment, project and class reporting | Project profitability | Expense analysis |
| Our position | Right answer until you hire, then move | Upgrade target, see QuickBooks ProAdvisor accountants | See FreshBooks accountants | See Neat accountants |
Is free accounting software a false economy?
Not at this size, and we will say so even though it means quoting a lower software line than a firm selling you a subscription. A sole proprietor with one bank account, forty invoices a year and no employees gets everything they need from Wave. The feature gap against a paid platform is real and completely irrelevant until the business changes shape. What is not free is the judgement: which expenses are allowable, what to set aside for tax, and when the structure should change.
The move happens at the first hire, almost without exception. Payroll pulls in federal deposits, state withholding, unemployment insurance and a quarterly Form 941, with deposit frequency set by the lookback rules in IRS Publication 15 (Circular E). That is a compliance calendar, not a feature request, and it is the point at which the QuickBooks and Gusto pairing earns its cost.
Worked example, illustrative rather than a real client. A freelance developer bills $96,000 across a year with $11,000 of expenses, leaving $85,000 of net profit on a Schedule C. Self-employment tax alone runs to roughly $12,000 before income tax, payable in four instalments on Form 1040-ES rather than once in April. The client who sets that aside monthly never has a problem. The one who discovers it in filing season does, and free software has nothing to do with either outcome.
Canadian solopreneurs run the same pattern with different forms, filing a T1 with the T2125 self-employment statement and registering for GST/HST once the small supplier threshold is passed, as set out by the Canada Revenue Agency. Our market pages cover both routes: accountants for US small businesses and accountants for Canadian SMEs. Day to day work sits under cloud bookkeeping services, the annual filings under tax compliance, and structure questions under accountants for freelancers and contractors and sole trader accounting. Anything Wave cannot do is done by a person instead, and all of that work appears in our complete accounting service list.
"Wave plus Accountaire costs me $95/month total. My old setup was QuickBooks plus a high-street CPA charging $4k/year. Same outcome, dramatically lower cost."
Wave-specific questions.
Is Wave really free?
When should I move from Wave to QuickBooks?
Can Wave handle US multi-state sales tax?
Does Wave work in the UK?
How much should I set aside for tax?
Do I need to register for GST/HST in Canada?
What happens when I hire my first employee?
How much do you charge for Wave-based service?
Other platforms.
QuickBooks
Common upgrade target when you outgrow Wave.
FreshBooks
Paid alternative for service-based solopreneurs.
Xero
More capable platform once you scale.