This option works great for businesses that only pay certain staff during part of the year, such as the holiday season or the summer months. Ideal for part-time or seasonal employees, you can complete the offboarding process in Wave Payroll as easily as you complete the onboarding process. One of the more convenient features available in Wave professional bookkeeper Payroll is the ability to create a payroll journal entry that will be automatically posted in Wave Accounting. If you’re still a bit unsure about how payroll works, but your payroll needs are simple, Wave Payroll could be a good fit for your small business, particularly if you’re already a Wave Accounting user.
How Wave Payroll works
And, in the long run, an online payroll software provider like Wave can save you a lot of money by carrying value of a bond reducing human error so you can avoid tax penalties (and who doesn’t love saving money?). Upon processing your first payroll, you can use Wave Payroll for up to 30 days, commitment-free. At any time, you can activate to start your billing cycle and gain access to items like tax filing and approving payrolls beyond the current month.
- Our unbiased reviews and content are supported in part by affiliate partnerships, and we adhere to strict guidelines to preserve editorial integrity.
- Developed with smaller businesses in mind, Wave Payroll offers basic payroll capability.
- Wave Payroll, an add-on option available from Wave Accounting, offers basic payroll services, with full-service payroll available in 14 states.
- Some negative points mentioned are the two-step process of paying 1099 contractors and the lack of international payrolls.
- The software provider’s limited version includes most features of the full version, but you cannot process new payroll runs.
- For the busy business owner, Wave Payroll’s customer service options are limited and may not be useful in an emergency.
What Sets Wave Payroll Apart
It also has an open API and, of course, integration with native Wave software. Businesses that use Wave Payroll are generally happy about their experience. The software earned an average of 4.2/5 stars across popular user review collection platforms.
And we look at user reviews to ensure that business owners like you are satisfied with our top picks’ services. We use the same rubric to assess companies within a particular space so you can confidently follow our blueprint to the best payroll software. For solopreneurs needing extra guidance, it also offers personalized bookkeeping services and accounting and payroll coaching services for a fee.
Visit your dashboard or use your invoicing or accounting features, and click the peach “Upgrade now” button. Learn more about changing subscription periods and plan types, and how to cancel your Pro subscription in our Help Centre. Your employees can log into Wave securely to access their pay stubs and T4s, and manage their contact and banking information. If you’re currently using Wave Accounting and are looking for easy integration with payroll, Wave Payroll may be a good fit. However, if you’re in one of the 36 unlucky states that don’t have full-service payroll available through Wave Payroll, you might want to seriously look elsewhere. If you’re not using Wave Accounting, you’d be better served using another payroll services provider.
You can set up integrations, or zaps, to apps like Toggl, Stripe, Gmail and Dubsado. Wave offers a 30-day free trial, which is the industry-standard trial period. However, some competitors offer more, such as Roll by ADP, which provides a three-month free payroll software trial. A PEO payroll service is a co-employer that manages your employee data and other core HR activities for your company, including payroll. While Wave Payroll does offer a few customer support options, including email support and chatbot support, they’re not necessarily reliable. We tried to ask a question through the chatbot feature and didn’t receive a helpful response.
Customer support and experience
Wave is an excellent option for payroll and accounting software for small businesses. Wave’s entire mission is to bring robust accounting, payments, and payroll programs to more small businesses. If you already love using Wave’s free accounting software and don’t mind inventory carrying cost definition a simple payroll system without a ton of robust features, Wave’s payroll software could be a solid, inexpensive fit. Wave charges two base prices depending on whether you process payroll in tax-service states ($40 per month) or self-service states ($20 per month).
We’ve also crafted a guide to small business payroll to help you navigate the process. Our unbiased reviews and content are supported in part by affiliate partnerships, and we adhere to strict guidelines to preserve editorial integrity. The editorial content on this page is not provided by any of the companies mentioned and has not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by any of these entities. Wave Payroll offers all the basic features necessary to run payroll but not much else. Our payroll software is seamlessly connected with the rest of your Wave account to reduce the time you spend on manual bookkeeping.
Sierra Campbell is the lead small business editor for USA TODAY Blueprint. She has also contributed to publications like ConsumerAffairs. She has experience with many B2B and B2C categories.Sierra previously worked as an editor for U.S. News & World Report, where she focused on subjects such as credit card processing, business phone systems, web hosting, home security systems and moving companies.