To help move your information into Wave, check out Wave Advisors. Learn more about Personalized help with Wave Advisors.
1. Set up your Wave account
When you create a Wave account, Wave creates a chart of accounts for your business based on the business type you select. If you have other accounts that you use, add a new account or category to reflect them.
If you add sales taxes to your products or services, create your taxes in Wave. Learn how in Add, edit, or delete a sales tax.
2. Create outstanding invoices and bills
Outstanding invoices and bills can affect your account balances. To avoid double-counting balances during the switch to Wave, recreate any unpaid invoices and bills in Wave first. Learn how to Create an invoice or Create a bill.
As you create your invoices and bills, add your customers, vendors, and products.
3. Set up Wave’s online payments feature
If you want to offer customers the option to pay directly through their invoices, set up Wave’s online payments feature. This simplifies the payment process and streamlines your accounting.
4. Run two trial balance reports in QuickBooks
Run a trial balance report in QuickBooks that covers your entire fiscal year or the duration of your business life if it’s less than a year. Save this report for reference.
Delete any outstanding invoices and bills from QuickBooks, then run a new trial balance report. Save this report for reference.
5. Enter your account balances in Wave
In Wave, on the left-side menu, click Accounting > Transactions. At the top right corner, click Add transaction > Add journal entry. Use your most recent trial balance report to enter the amounts into the journal entry.
Ensure that your debits equal your credits. If you have issues saving the journal entry, double-check that these balances match.
Since Wave doesn’t carry over QuickBooks transaction history, keep a copy of your QuickBooks data for your records.
6. Compare trial balances to confirm accuracy
To verify that your account is set up correctly, run a Trial Balance report in Wave. On the left-side menu, click Reports > Trial Balance. Set your filters and click Update Report. Compare this trial balance with the first report from QuickBooks to ensure your balances match.