A Wave alternative
for store owners.
Wave deserves its reputation: genuinely free accounting that has carried hundreds of thousands of freelancers and small businesses. The catch isn’t quality — it’s fit. Wave is built around invoicing workflows, and a shop doesn’t send invoices. If your day ends with a till count, not an invoice run, here’s the honest comparison.
What Wave is genuinely good at
Free, capable accounting for invoice-based micro-businesses: professional invoices, payment collection, bank-connected bookkeeping, and receipts — with paid add-ons (payments, payroll, advisors) funding the free core. For a freelancer or contractor who bills clients, Wave is one of the best value propositions in small-business software, full stop.
Where it leaves a store owner at close
A shop’s money doesn’t move through invoices — it moves through a till, in cash and card, dozens of small transactions a day. Wave will happily book that as accounting entries, and like all accounting tools it frames profit as a periodic report: review your P&L monthly, reconcile, look back. Its own guidance suggests about ten minutes a month — which is exactly right for bookkeeping, and exactly wrong for the question you have at 9pm tonight.
nouz asks for sixty seconds at close — tonight’s cash, tonight’s card, today’s costs — and answers with tonight’s EBIT: tax stripped out, card fees netted, a fair daily slice of rent already subtracted. Not a report you’ll read next month; a number you act on tomorrow morning.
Wave vs nouz, side by side
| Wave | nouz | |
|---|---|---|
| The job | Free accounting: invoices, bookkeeping, receipts | Daily profit clarity: tonight’s EBIT at close |
| Built around | Invoice workflows (freelancers, contractors, services) | Till workflows (cash + card, daily close-out) |
| Profit cadence | Periodic reports — monthly review recommended | Every day, same day |
| Cash vs card fees | Booked in the ledger as they clear | Card fees netted from card revenue nightly, cash never charged |
| Fixed costs | Expenses when billed | Sliced into each open day automatically |
| Price | Free core; paid payments, payroll & advisor add-ons | €19/mo, monthly billing, cancel anytime |
| Replaces the other? | No — no same-day profit number | No — no invoicing, ledger or tax filings |
Common questions
Wave is free and nouz isn’t — why would I pay?
Pay only if the job matters to you. Wave is free at the job of bookkeeping. nouz’s job is different: knowing tonight whether today paid, every single day. If a daily number changes even one staffing or pricing decision a month, it has covered the €19 several times over. If it wouldn’t, keep Wave and enjoy it.
Can’t I just read my P&L in Wave more often?
You can run the report daily, but it shows what’s been booked and reconciled — bank feeds lag, fees settle later, and fixed costs land as monthly lumps rather than daily slices. nouz computes today from tonight’s till totals, with the daily fixed-cost slice built in. Different math, built for a different moment.
I run a salon and barely invoice at all. Which parts of Wave would I even use?
Honestly — possibly none day-to-day, and that’s the point of this page. If your revenue is services and retail across a counter, your daily tool should start from the till. The free salon P&L template shows the five entries that matter; nouz automates them.
Does nouz do my taxes or year-end?
No. nouz gives you (and your accountant) clean daily profit history, but filings, VAT and year-end stay with your accountant and whatever bookkeeping tool they prefer — Wave included.
Tonight at close, you'll know if today paid.
See a store’s daily P&L working with sample data — no account needed. From €19/mo, cancel anytime.
Open the live demo