I have to agree with the majority of people on this feature. I love the fact that I can open the Wave receipt app, take a snapshot of my receipt and throw it out. Then a couple times a month I go to my desktop and action the receipts. I do not use the banking feature in wave, so this new feature is not a go for me. Please reconsider this feature and make it so that you have the choice to choose the method you would prefer.
We already have the ability to upload receipts and enter transactions ourselves. The loss of the app, and the ocr is a terrible loss of functionality.
One of the reasons I stick with Wave is because of the Receipt feature. You're making the life of your software developers easier, not us, the consumers.
Poor decision to take away the receipts function. I would like to see a Wave app for smartphones that is more than just receipts. I also question your description of what happens now. Do people really "double entry" by both downloading data from their biz credit card account AND scan those receipts? That makes no sense. No one would do that on purpose! The only receipts we scan are when we had to use a non-business card OR cash to pay a biz expense. We manually enter a receipt only we have to occasionally. Probably < 1% of transactions - but we appreciate the scan feature for those few times.
I will echo everyone else in saying that I'm very disappointed with the removal of the OCR functionality. I do not auto sync transaction data from my bank. I either upload receipts and auto generate transactions through OCR or I use the Google sheets bulk upload. This change will break my user flow in a major way. Also, even if I do switch to syncing data from my bank, I will now have to wait for the transaction to come through into Waves from my bank, find the corresponding receipt and upload them one at a time. I cannot just take a pic of the receipt at the time I made my purchase and let Waves handle the rest. Perhaps this decision you've made was heavily influenced by the issues raised by users that have processes that don't align with the existing functionality, but you haven't accounted for the use cases that are working really well currently. When changing functionality, you should make sure you don't break existing user flows that are already working very well for users.
This removes the best feature of Wave Apps.
Let's be honest here, NOBODY asked for this other than the beancounters at your HQ. I understand that many of your customers are only using the free features of the site and to run this OCR scanning process costs you money, so how about offering a paid version of receipt scanning?
Depending on people's workflow, this is the worst decision you guys could have made, for many of us. PLEASE KEEP THE RECEIPTS FEATURE SOMEHOW. I've been in love with the workflow of capturing photos of receipts and then assign them a few times a year to one of my 3 small businesses. Manually adding transactions to each account (I do not have separate business accounts for all so cannot have automatic transactions imported), then taking photos of all receipts, manually sorting through them and then attaching them to a transaction? THAT WILL TAKE DAYS AND DAYS instead of a few hours. Please reconsider. And not great how you are selling this... I feel like it will take a lot of work and maintenance off your plate and adding it to ours.
And as suggested above: I WOULD BE SUPER HAPPY TO PAY SOME MONEY FOR THE OCR FEATURE!
I love the OCR Processing as it is a function that is very important. I am also grateful for your software being free also and have an interest in utilizing other services you provide but for some reason my bank won't connect and I wanted sign up last your for your banking but it never arrived as was interested in your merchant account also to integrate. Please don't discontinue the OCR Processing as to be honest I want to avail of your other services but I can't with your program which leads me to someday not grow here but leave unfortunately as I loved many software's in the past but they did stuff like your doing. Please find revenue streams most people that would gladly sign up for instead as I realize you need income. Thanks
We’re excited to announce that our team has been hard at work leveraging your feedback
I wholeheartedly question the actual feedback you got from real clients when the responses you are getting in this thread is all disappointment on this "enhancement". This is pure spin that it's 'Good News' and a 'Time Saver' when in actuality it's a step backwards in ease of use for your product suite.
This is both a plus and a minus. On the one hand, It was always frustrating not being able to just find a receipt in my email and upload it to an existing transaction while on the Wave Desktop. On the other hand, I also use the Receipts app to immediately capture cash receipts especially on the go - I'm in property management. If I have to wait for the transactions to populate from my bank account, I'll be waiting a couple days, which is a danger of losing them. if I have to create a new transaction in order to photograph it immediately, I'll still have duplicate transactions. This is really a half step. You need to get it all the way to full functionality.
So will I have to log in to the wave app on my phone every time I need to upload receipts? This was the best part of wave - I open the app, the camera automatically opens, one click and done. Back the truck, back to work. Now I cannot do that because the transaction won’t yet be in the system. I have to hope I don’t lose the receipt. Really bad move. Looks like I will be changing software.
This decision was clearly not made by listening to your customers. Using the app to quickly scan and input receipts is one of the best features and makes the bookkeeping easier. I’m very disappointed to see that you are taking this away and trying to sell it as a step forward.
Sounds like you just couldn't find a way to fix the actual problem- duplicate entries. Using a browser on the phone for this is not ideal. And now we have to store receipts until transactions come through. Definitely not your best work.
The take away here is; Wave made the mistake of equating _Small Business owner _with_ low intelligence_ and thought we would just accept this as easier purely because they said it was.
I have news - As small business owners, we value every second it takes us to do everything because we are the ones doing everything. Every second I spend at a PC hand typing transactions is a second I stop making money and start costing my business. You have clients working out of their cars, out of woodshops, on construction sites, out of kiln ovens and under the hood of cars. We don't sit at desks and its just an extra task - its a big deal - bigger than you thought it would be obviously. Be transparent and roll this change back and take another stab a solution that does not hurt the clients that put food on your tables.
This time, for giggles - actually ask some of us what works for our businesses and what would hurt us if it disappeared. Though by my count you have about 4 pages of what does not work already
I really enjoyed using wave. and transitioning to a new software is not fun. but this will definitely force my hand. For anyone else that is looking, i found this: Ditch the shoebox and save with a snap
Snap photos to add receipts on the go. Upload or email receipts to QuickBooks in seconds.
We'll match your receipts to existing expenses or create new expenses for you.
QuickBooks sorts your receipts into tax categories so you feel confident come tax time.
I just hope that Wave adds this new functionality and keep the existing functionality intact. All wave has to do is enable attachments to transactions and that should solve the problem. This to me is actually going backwards.
Just adding another voice of disappointment about the changes. Like many people here, snapping a picture of a receipt and having OCR to prepopulate the details was incredibly convenient. This update is going to add a considerable amount of time to my bookkeeping as I can't link my accounts and I'm going to be manually entering every receipt (the ones I don't lose) at the end of each month. This is something that will force me to leave the platform at year end.
This is a very bad idea - or spin, for operational efficiency that benefit Wave, and not your users.
Wondering if anyone (like me) who feels this is a step backwards can recommend an alternate software that offers similar functionality as what Wave used to offer?
If someone can suggest an option, I would be grateful, as I will be outta here!!
Quickbooks uses OCR to match your receipt with the transaction from the bank import. You’re trying to compete with that by... removing OCR? Making your tech less intelligent? Yikes...
WOW, Wave seriously??!!!!!! The mobile app is such a great feature and receipts can be loaded on the go Smh!!!!! I can’t believe you think this is such a great idea....... and who did you ask..... Wasn’t me or the others posting about this...... Seriously looking for another place to take my business I don’t have time to go through all of this......
It often takes 2-3 days before bank transactions show up in Wave (when the connection works—it's currently not working at all), so I find the receipt upload and OCR image processing technology to create a new transaction extremely valuable for my business. I honestly never minded merging the duplicate transactions; it only takes a few seconds and is a minor inconvenience for having the ability to create new transactions from my receipts rather than needing to manually type everything in. I am very disappointed with this so-called "improvement" and hope that you will reconsider this decision.
I think the assessment of improving the user experience by removing the Receipts app and moving everything to Waveapps is a serious miscalculation. The Receipts app is one of the best features of Wave - period. Removing it to replace it with a completely different workflow is a mistake. This smacks of cost cutting measures by new ownership - i expected some changes but not ones that have this much impact. I will try it - I am forced to - but it could be the end of my relationship with Wave.
I see the history now. There is a discussion out there with some 20-40 users asking to attach a receipt directly to a transaction. It has literally been less than 1 year of that discussion thread and this is the drastic change Wave chose.
They never requested the Mobile Receipts App to be discontinued or OCR removed, but to add a dragndrop attach receipt option on the web/desktop version.
I had a feeling the H&R take over would shake the company. Your "listening" also begs the question - which high paying customer or newest owner is pushing the app/OCR removal?
@wave Let the community vote - poll us. You service more than 40 users.
Without the app/OCR, might be the final push to Quickbooks.
This is no enhancement. There could be better ways to manage duplicates, but killing off one of the really good features is not the right way. Time to re-think a USP-killing move.
This is epic. Thank you so much Wave team. I’m so thrilled about this new workflow. I wouldnt be opposed to a “Transactions App” I’ve been waiting so long for this!
What you haters are missing is the TIME saved: searching, matching, merging, purging, adjusting & verifying receipts with transactions
This new way the data + receipt is entered ONCE, ACCURATELY
Please do not remove the existing receipt function! Don't get me wrong, I love the new functionality you are rolling out to upload a receipt directly to a transaction! That is fantastic and eliminates a bunch of double work and I love it. That said, there are plenty of situations where generating a transaction from a receipt is super helpful! Perhaps there is a transaction that happened outside of a connected bank account (cash for instance) that needs to be input. Right now, all I have to do is upload a receipt to create that transaction, but if you remove this functionality, then I'll have to do double work by creating a transaction manually and then upload a receipt to that transaction. Also, let's say only part of a transaction is an expense that I can write off for business taxes. I'll need to upload a receipt for the part of the transaction that qualifies, and then have the remainder of the transaction as a separate transaction. This is easily done by uploading the receipt and creating one transaction, while editing the other transaction. If you remove this functionality, I'll have to create transactions manually... I highly urge you to keep both functionalities and not remove the existing receipt functions. Both should live together in the system.
This is epic. Thank you so much Wave team. I’m so thrilled about this new workflow. I wouldnt be opposed to a “Transactions App” I’ve been waiting so long for this!
What you haters are missing is the TIME saved: searching, matching, merging, purging, adjusting & verifying receipts with transactions
This new way the data + receipt is entered ONCE, ACCURATELY
@LittleBiz What YOU are missing is that all of the "haters" as you call them are users who have loved and promoted Wave to all their colleagues because it was the only solution that just worked in their eyes. And more importantly, they DON'T use bank imports so it already IS DONE ONCE, ACCURATELY. The OCR and emailing of receipts was the main reason many of us joined and continue to use this platform for coming up on a decade now. Can't believe they are sunsetting this feature...it's literally the distinguishing factor.
Please do not remove the existing receipt function! Don't get me wrong, I love the new functionality you are rolling out to upload a receipt directly to a transaction! That is fantastic and eliminates a bunch of double work and I absolutely love it. That said, there are plenty of situations where generating a transaction from a receipt is super helpful! Perhaps there is a transaction that happened outside of a connected bank account (cash for instance) that needs to be input. Right now, all I have to do is upload a receipt to create that transaction, but if you remove this functionality, then I'll have to do double work by creating a transaction manually and then upload a receipt to that transaction. Also, let's say only part of a transaction is an expense that I can write off for business taxes. I'll need to upload a receipt for the part of the transaction that qualifies, and then have the remainder of the transaction as a separate transaction. This is easily done by uploading the receipt and creating one transaction, while editing the other transaction. If you remove this functionality, I'll have to create transactions manually... I highly urge you to keep both functionalities and not remove the existing receipt functions. Both should live together in the system.
Comments
I have to agree with the majority of people on this feature. I love the fact that I can open the Wave receipt app, take a snapshot of my receipt and throw it out. Then a couple times a month I go to my desktop and action the receipts. I do not use the banking feature in wave, so this new feature is not a go for me. Please reconsider this feature and make it so that you have the choice to choose the method you would prefer.
We already have the ability to upload receipts and enter transactions ourselves. The loss of the app, and the ocr is a terrible loss of functionality.
One of the reasons I stick with Wave is because of the Receipt feature. You're making the life of your software developers easier, not us, the consumers.
Poor decision to take away the receipts function. I would like to see a Wave app for smartphones that is more than just receipts. I also question your description of what happens now. Do people really "double entry" by both downloading data from their biz credit card account AND scan those receipts? That makes no sense. No one would do that on purpose! The only receipts we scan are when we had to use a non-business card OR cash to pay a biz expense. We manually enter a receipt only we have to occasionally. Probably < 1% of transactions - but we appreciate the scan feature for those few times.
I will echo everyone else in saying that I'm very disappointed with the removal of the OCR functionality. I do not auto sync transaction data from my bank. I either upload receipts and auto generate transactions through OCR or I use the Google sheets bulk upload. This change will break my user flow in a major way. Also, even if I do switch to syncing data from my bank, I will now have to wait for the transaction to come through into Waves from my bank, find the corresponding receipt and upload them one at a time. I cannot just take a pic of the receipt at the time I made my purchase and let Waves handle the rest. Perhaps this decision you've made was heavily influenced by the issues raised by users that have processes that don't align with the existing functionality, but you haven't accounted for the use cases that are working really well currently. When changing functionality, you should make sure you don't break existing user flows that are already working very well for users.
This removes the best feature of Wave Apps.
Let's be honest here, NOBODY asked for this other than the beancounters at your HQ. I understand that many of your customers are only using the free features of the site and to run this OCR scanning process costs you money, so how about offering a paid version of receipt scanning?
Depending on people's workflow, this is the worst decision you guys could have made, for many of us. PLEASE KEEP THE RECEIPTS FEATURE SOMEHOW. I've been in love with the workflow of capturing photos of receipts and then assign them a few times a year to one of my 3 small businesses. Manually adding transactions to each account (I do not have separate business accounts for all so cannot have automatic transactions imported), then taking photos of all receipts, manually sorting through them and then attaching them to a transaction? THAT WILL TAKE DAYS AND DAYS instead of a few hours. Please reconsider. And not great how you are selling this... I feel like it will take a lot of work and maintenance off your plate and adding it to ours.
And as suggested above: I WOULD BE SUPER HAPPY TO PAY SOME MONEY FOR THE OCR FEATURE!
I love the OCR Processing as it is a function that is very important. I am also grateful for your software being free also and have an interest in utilizing other services you provide but for some reason my bank won't connect and I wanted sign up last your for your banking but it never arrived as was interested in your merchant account also to integrate. Please don't discontinue the OCR Processing as to be honest I want to avail of your other services but I can't with your program which leads me to someday not grow here but leave unfortunately as I loved many software's in the past but they did stuff like your doing. Please find revenue streams most people that would gladly sign up for instead as I realize you need income. Thanks
I wholeheartedly question the actual feedback you got from real clients when the responses you are getting in this thread is all disappointment on this "enhancement". This is pure spin that it's 'Good News' and a 'Time Saver' when in actuality it's a step backwards in ease of use for your product suite.
DISAPPOINTED.
This is both a plus and a minus. On the one hand, It was always frustrating not being able to just find a receipt in my email and upload it to an existing transaction while on the Wave Desktop. On the other hand, I also use the Receipts app to immediately capture cash receipts especially on the go - I'm in property management. If I have to wait for the transactions to populate from my bank account, I'll be waiting a couple days, which is a danger of losing them. if I have to create a new transaction in order to photograph it immediately, I'll still have duplicate transactions. This is really a half step. You need to get it all the way to full functionality.
Sounds like you just couldn't find a way to fix the actual problem- duplicate entries. Using a browser on the phone for this is not ideal. And now we have to store receipts until transactions come through. Definitely not your best work.
The take away here is; Wave made the mistake of equating _Small Business owner _with_ low intelligence_ and thought we would just accept this as easier purely because they said it was.
I have news - As small business owners, we value every second it takes us to do everything because we are the ones doing everything. Every second I spend at a PC hand typing transactions is a second I stop making money and start costing my business. You have clients working out of their cars, out of woodshops, on construction sites, out of kiln ovens and under the hood of cars. We don't sit at desks and its just an extra task - its a big deal - bigger than you thought it would be obviously. Be transparent and roll this change back and take another stab a solution that does not hurt the clients that put food on your tables.
This time, for giggles - actually ask some of us what works for our businesses and what would hurt us if it disappeared. Though by my count you have about 4 pages of what does not work already
I really enjoyed using wave. and transitioning to a new software is not fun. but this will definitely force my hand. For anyone else that is looking, i found this:
Ditch the shoebox and save with a snap
Snap photos to add receipts on the go. Upload or email receipts to QuickBooks in seconds.
We'll match your receipts to existing expenses or create new expenses for you.
QuickBooks sorts your receipts into tax categories so you feel confident come tax time.
I just hope that Wave adds this new functionality and keep the existing functionality intact. All wave has to do is enable attachments to transactions and that should solve the problem. This to me is actually going backwards.
Just adding another voice of disappointment about the changes. Like many people here, snapping a picture of a receipt and having OCR to prepopulate the details was incredibly convenient. This update is going to add a considerable amount of time to my bookkeeping as I can't link my accounts and I'm going to be manually entering every receipt (the ones I don't lose) at the end of each month. This is something that will force me to leave the platform at year end.
Wondering if anyone (like me) who feels this is a step backwards can recommend an alternate software that offers similar functionality as what Wave used to offer?
If someone can suggest an option, I would be grateful, as I will be outta here!!
Quickbooks uses OCR to match your receipt with the transaction from the bank import. You’re trying to compete with that by... removing OCR? Making your tech less intelligent? Yikes...
The mobile app is such a great feature and receipts can be loaded on the go
Smh!!!!!
I can’t believe you think this is such a great idea....... and who did you ask.....
Wasn’t me or the others posting about this......
Seriously looking for another place to take my business I don’t have time to go through all of this......
OCR Receipt entry is THE reason I use Wave.
If this ceases to exist, I will ceast to use the app or any accounting related to it.
Very disappointed.
It often takes 2-3 days before bank transactions show up in Wave (when the connection works—it's currently not working at all), so I find the receipt upload and OCR image processing technology to create a new transaction extremely valuable for my business. I honestly never minded merging the duplicate transactions; it only takes a few seconds and is a minor inconvenience for having the ability to create new transactions from my receipts rather than needing to manually type everything in. I am very disappointed with this so-called "improvement" and hope that you will reconsider this decision.
I think the assessment of improving the user experience by removing the Receipts app and moving everything to Waveapps is a serious miscalculation. The Receipts app is one of the best features of Wave - period. Removing it to replace it with a completely different workflow is a mistake. This smacks of cost cutting measures by new ownership - i expected some changes but not ones that have this much impact. I will try it - I am forced to - but it could be the end of my relationship with Wave.
There is a discussion out there with some 20-40 users asking to attach a receipt directly to a transaction. It has literally been less than 1 year of that discussion thread and this is the drastic change Wave chose.
They never requested the Mobile Receipts App to be discontinued or OCR removed, but to add a dragndrop attach receipt option on the web/desktop version.
I had a feeling the H&R take over would shake the company. Your "listening" also begs the question - which high paying customer or newest owner is pushing the app/OCR removal?
@wave Let the community vote - poll us. You service more than 40 users.
Without the app/OCR, might be the final push to Quickbooks.
~User since 2016
There could be better ways to manage duplicates, but killing off one of the really good features is not the right way.
Time to re-think a USP-killing move.
What you haters are missing is the TIME saved: searching, matching, merging, purging, adjusting & verifying receipts with transactions
This new way the data + receipt is entered ONCE, ACCURATELY
Please do not remove the existing receipt function! Don't get me wrong, I love the new functionality you are rolling out to upload a receipt directly to a transaction! That is fantastic and eliminates a bunch of double work and I love it. That said, there are plenty of situations where generating a transaction from a receipt is super helpful! Perhaps there is a transaction that happened outside of a connected bank account (cash for instance) that needs to be input. Right now, all I have to do is upload a receipt to create that transaction, but if you remove this functionality, then I'll have to do double work by creating a transaction manually and then upload a receipt to that transaction. Also, let's say only part of a transaction is an expense that I can write off for business taxes. I'll need to upload a receipt for the part of the transaction that qualifies, and then have the remainder of the transaction as a separate transaction. This is easily done by uploading the receipt and creating one transaction, while editing the other transaction. If you remove this functionality, I'll have to create transactions manually... I highly urge you to keep both functionalities and not remove the existing receipt functions. Both should live together in the system.
@LittleBiz What YOU are missing is that all of the "haters" as you call them are users who have loved and promoted Wave to all their colleagues because it was the only solution that just worked in their eyes. And more importantly, they DON'T use bank imports so it already IS DONE ONCE, ACCURATELY. The OCR and emailing of receipts was the main reason many of us joined and continue to use this platform for coming up on a decade now. Can't believe they are sunsetting this feature...it's literally the distinguishing factor.
Please do not remove the existing receipt function! Don't get me wrong, I love the new functionality you are rolling out to upload a receipt directly to a transaction! That is fantastic and eliminates a bunch of double work and I absolutely love it. That said, there are plenty of situations where generating a transaction from a receipt is super helpful! Perhaps there is a transaction that happened outside of a connected bank account (cash for instance) that needs to be input. Right now, all I have to do is upload a receipt to create that transaction, but if you remove this functionality, then I'll have to do double work by creating a transaction manually and then upload a receipt to that transaction. Also, let's say only part of a transaction is an expense that I can write off for business taxes. I'll need to upload a receipt for the part of the transaction that qualifies, and then have the remainder of the transaction as a separate transaction. This is easily done by uploading the receipt and creating one transaction, while editing the other transaction. If you remove this functionality, I'll have to create transactions manually... I highly urge you to keep both functionalities and not remove the existing receipt functions. Both should live together in the system.