This is very disappointing. The Wave Receipt App is amazing. I can log a business purchase before I even leave the parking lot of the store. Then I don't have to worry if I lose the paper copy. Probably the best convenience feature of the entire Wave system.
This is insane, you take away one of the most useful features of the app. Receipts are the driving force to capture data, OCR makes it so it's ready and just needs audited. How in the world did someone say, yeah, I guess this makes sense. Just horrible. This is going to take my bookkeeping on receipts from a few minutes to finding something else out there. Just WOW.
An awful change. This will now cost hours more work. Instead of people snapping pics and having transactions made, I will now have to collect all receipts from everyone, and then manually create a lot of transactions - a process that was a lot more automated before.
I have to agree with the many that this is a terrible death to a useful OCR feature. A simplification of workflow instead is needed, but this approach is just plain stupid. Wave constantly fails to understand the difference in what is value and what is cumbersome. The people making UX decisions are the opposite of user centric. There is no way any customer of wave would have said, "Yes, please take away the OCR. I prefer to waste as much times as possible doing something manually instead of having automated assistance. My life is not hard enough. Please simplify the flow by a button or two, but make me read and type until my fingers fall off for every manual transaction I make." I have been on and off using Wave, though have not become a dedicated customer because whenever Wave announces a new feature I cringe because it is hit or miss on whether the good of change will outweigh the wrecking. I have no idea of how this company stays afloat or who funds it. I tried it for business once and felt burned by a feature change in the past, so I limited use to keep track of shared expenses and budgeting to see how the company progressed, and took my actual business out of it even though the billing and vendor aspect was beneficial. I can't imagine asking an accountant using this to go from OCR to typing in cash receipts data.
— Ability to upload a receipt as an attachment to a transaction: great improvement.
— Removing need for the "Receipts" view step process: wonderful improvement.
— Getting rid of the current app: meh, I have no issue logging into the website, as long as it runs smooth and is easy to use as the app. (May cost Wave less to focus on the site and not a site plus mobile app). I can always take a photo with my phone and add the transaction when it is convenient.
— completely removing ORC: are you high? at minimum it could have been used with a link to process individually per case. For example, uploading a receipt outside of an existing transaction could create a new transaction with OCR option (non-statement accounts/funds, like cash). However, when uploading a receipt attached to an existing bank transaction there is no need to OCR. What development cost is it to Wave to keep OCR technology working as a part of manual transactions? That would have given the Wave tool edge OVER the competition.
I have been using Wave for many years and the main reason why I signed up for an account in the first place was its OCR function. At that time I really bought into the idea of how using Wave receipts would save time and the hassle of manually inputting receipt details. After all these years, the OCR function is still one of the functions I value most about Wave. I've tried other accounting SAAS but I decided to stick to Wave for the sole reason of Wave receipts -- exactly like what one of the members here, JCA, remarked about the "Wave tool edge over the competition". Goodness!! Why does Wave choose to go down the same path as its competitors?! If only this decision can be vetoed by users.
I think you guys should read the comments and look what MOST people have to say. I'm not sure how many people you guys surveyed to see if this is a feasible change but from the comments below it looks like a lot of people are disappointed. Personally I love the receipts app I'm a little confused as to why you're letting it go.
I love WAVE for what I do, UNFORTUNATELY, this is why I am a free user; I wanted to see if I could depend on the consistency of the system and its developers before I put the full weight of my businesses on them. This is a game changer. Back to the drawing board I go. Now I have to reconsider everything including other systems. I was just getting settled in..
1. OCR on the road is the best! Gone....
2. Manual entry of very receipt on the road? Seriously, who would think this is better in the 21st century? Might as well enter manually in Exel for goodness sake! or better yet, go back to the shoebox.
Technology should be forward moving not backwards.
I would love it if WAVE would reconsider this change but I am a realist and have no expectation that this will happen. Too bad!
The loss of email receipts is the equivalent of moving back to the stone ages of accounting. Literally 100% of my receipts are email. Im looking for a replacement over this single feature. In addition, it is a stunningly bad move to disable the existing feature before providing the feature intended to be its replacement. Now Im glad I hadnt yet moved to Wave Money, which was on my agenda for July.
So now I have to login each time I want to upload a receipt?! It was easy to just send out an email, and sorting out the details from my account once every quarter
This was a HORRIBLE CHANGE.
We had plans to move to Wave Money this quarter and those are officially scrapped.
We had plans to upgrade our account, scrapped.
We have recommended Wave to numerous small businesses for it's crazy-awesome capabilities which included emailing receipts. This was core to our business operations since most of our receipts are sent via email. Additionally, we used the mobile app regularly on the road to upload receipts and reconcile once a quarter.
You took BOTH of those features away.
Now we'll be moving our accounting to another platform that offers the ease of use we require.
I do have compassion for the Wave Developers, they use AWS and it's likely Amazon charges them every time a receipt is scanned or OCR is used, not to mention the cloud storage to support archive of the actual receipt files even though they are heavily compressed. Given the amount of free users it's likely it wasn't financially viable for this to continue even though it's one of the best features of Wave. However, ditching the feature I think will harm the community overall. OCR isn't as expensive as it needs to be. Apple has a bunch of tech built into iOS that allows this to happen on device for free. A better use of resources would have been to develop a non-cloud way to do OCR and keep the feature in a slightly modified capacity.
Please don't get rid off OCR! And did I understand well, that recipes won't be stored anymore in Wave? That was my digital backup! Now I have to store them again somewhere else?
This significantly diminishes the value and utility of this product. As a small business owner, it is imperative I keep costs low and remain efficient with my time. I will be looking for another solution that meets my needs unless these features are reactivated.
This is INCREDIBLY DISAPPOINTING - the OCR function is the most useful feature of Wave. If cost is the rational behind the decision, why not ask your users to pay for the feature instead of just removing the functionality? I guess now it really is time to move to another accounting package.
This is making my life harder. Instead of developing an AI to automatically match receipts and imported transactions, you are going backwards, asking you customers to do the job. You just created the self check-out of bookeeping softwares.Congrats !!
As a customer, I am paying the price for your lack of expertise and innovation. This is extremly disapointing,
I will end up checking your competition and most likely switch.
Please someone tell your CEO to read all the complaints.!
I really appreciate this simplification that requires me to do a job that was once automated!
Also looking forward to washing my own dishes when I get my dishwasher replaced with the new model that tells me to do it myself, and my brand new weedwacker that came with a set of clippers so I can just do it by hand instead.
Saving negative amounts of hours is super exciting.
email receipts feature is very useful for my way of working, please if possible keep the Email receipts feature. it is not harming your new functionality. i would really appreciate if you can continue it...
I should have left a comment sooner. I read this article a few weeks ago and it confused me because it seemed like you were making the app worse, not better. I thought I was reading it wrong. Turns out, I wasn't. You removed one of your best features. Why?
Wave was acquired by H&R Block 2 years ago. Is this the beginning of your parent company gutting important features to force us to use their software? Or are you just cutting costs regardless of whether or not it pisses off your users so that your parent company can let Wave print money while it slowly dies off? Typical tech acquisition BS. Long live capitalism! 🇺🇸
What H&R Block (WaveApps) isn't getting is not the change and loss of the feature, it is we now can't TRUST H&R Block. How can I ever trust any part of this company? I guess this will be my last week with wave or any H&R Block products. I will definitely recommend all of my military collogues to stay far away from anything to do with H&R Block because they can't be trusted.
I just don't understand how this is 'better' it may have been better if you left or improved se of the old functionality but emailing receipts and OCR made it such a streamlined process especially when it was paired with auto forward rules on my email side.
Sounds more like a cost saving exercise for wave to save on processing overheads by having people do it manually. Really disappointed.
The feature of taking a photo of receipt and Wave reading the image and creating the transaction was half the reason for using Wave for me personally. This is a useful feature that saves me lots of time each month. Removing this and replacing with a manual process is hard to see as anything other than a step backward. Also on mobile devices like phones, generally software is delivered by app as this is easier. It's awkward to use a browser on a small device. As there is already an app that works perfectly it seems to make no sense to remove it and replace it with a browser. Again a step backward.... Come on Wave - let's go forward, not backward!
I just found out that this change was happening on June 14th when the email came back saying that it wouldn’t accept my email sending my receipt.
It was simple for me to forward the invoice / receipt and update it when I had time (probably just before tax season). Not so straight forward now is it?
I will contemplate other platform options now, I don’t really know what else is available at the moment.
Comments
This is very disappointing. The Wave Receipt App is amazing. I can log a business purchase before I even leave the parking lot of the store. Then I don't have to worry if I lose the paper copy. Probably the best convenience feature of the entire Wave system.
This is insane, you take away one of the most useful features of the app. Receipts are the driving force to capture data, OCR makes it so it's ready and just needs audited. How in the world did someone say, yeah, I guess this makes sense. Just horrible. This is going to take my bookkeeping on receipts from a few minutes to finding something else out there. Just WOW.
An awful change. This will now cost hours more work. Instead of people snapping pics and having transactions made, I will now have to collect all receipts from everyone, and then manually create a lot of transactions - a process that was a lot more automated before.
I have to agree with the many that this is a terrible death to a useful OCR feature. A simplification of workflow instead is needed, but this approach is just plain stupid. Wave constantly fails to understand the difference in what is value and what is cumbersome. The people making UX decisions are the opposite of user centric. There is no way any customer of wave would have said, "Yes, please take away the OCR. I prefer to waste as much times as possible doing something manually instead of having automated assistance. My life is not hard enough. Please simplify the flow by a button or two, but make me read and type until my fingers fall off for every manual transaction I make." I have been on and off using Wave, though have not become a dedicated customer because whenever Wave announces a new feature I cringe because it is hit or miss on whether the good of change will outweigh the wrecking. I have no idea of how this company stays afloat or who funds it. I tried it for business once and felt burned by a feature change in the past, so I limited use to keep track of shared expenses and budgeting to see how the company progressed, and took my actual business out of it even though the billing and vendor aspect was beneficial. I can't imagine asking an accountant using this to go from OCR to typing in cash receipts data.
— Ability to upload a receipt as an attachment to a transaction: great improvement.
— Removing need for the "Receipts" view step process: wonderful improvement.
— Getting rid of the current app: meh, I have no issue logging into the website, as long as it runs smooth and is easy to use as the app. (May cost Wave less to focus on the site and not a site plus mobile app). I can always take a photo with my phone and add the transaction when it is convenient.
— completely removing ORC: are you high? at minimum it could have been used with a link to process individually per case. For example, uploading a receipt outside of an existing transaction could create a new transaction with OCR option (non-statement accounts/funds, like cash). However, when uploading a receipt attached to an existing bank transaction there is no need to OCR. What development cost is it to Wave to keep OCR technology working as a part of manual transactions? That would have given the Wave tool edge OVER the competition.
I don't think that take away the wave receipt app will be a good idea.
I have been using Wave for many years and the main reason why I signed up for an account in the first place was its OCR function. At that time I really bought into the idea of how using Wave receipts would save time and the hassle of manually inputting receipt details. After all these years, the OCR function is still one of the functions I value most about Wave. I've tried other accounting SAAS but I decided to stick to Wave for the sole reason of Wave receipts -- exactly like what one of the members here, JCA, remarked about the "Wave tool edge over the competition". Goodness!! Why does Wave choose to go down the same path as its competitors?! If only this decision can be vetoed by users.
I think you guys should read the comments and look what MOST people have to say. I'm not sure how many people you guys surveyed to see if this is a feasible change but from the comments below it looks like a lot of people are disappointed. Personally I love the receipts app I'm a little confused as to why you're letting it go.
I love WAVE for what I do, UNFORTUNATELY, this is why I am a free user; I wanted to see if I could depend on the consistency of the system and its developers before I put the full weight of my businesses on them. This is a game changer. Back to the drawing board I go. Now I have to reconsider everything including other systems. I was just getting settled in..
1. OCR on the road is the best! Gone....
2. Manual entry of very receipt on the road? Seriously, who would think this is better in the 21st century? Might as well enter manually in Exel for goodness sake! or better yet, go back to the shoebox.
Technology should be forward moving not backwards.
I would love it if WAVE would reconsider this change but I am a realist and have no expectation that this will happen. Too bad!
The loss of email receipts is the equivalent of moving back to the stone ages of accounting. Literally 100% of my receipts are email. Im looking for a replacement over this single feature. In addition, it is a stunningly bad move to disable the existing feature before providing the feature intended to be its replacement. Now Im glad I hadnt yet moved to Wave Money, which was on my agenda for July.
So now I have to login each time I want to upload a receipt?! It was easy to just send out an email, and sorting out the details from my account once every quarter
This was a HORRIBLE CHANGE.
We had plans to move to Wave Money this quarter and those are officially scrapped.
We had plans to upgrade our account, scrapped.
We have recommended Wave to numerous small businesses for it's crazy-awesome capabilities which included emailing receipts. This was core to our business operations since most of our receipts are sent via email. Additionally, we used the mobile app regularly on the road to upload receipts and reconcile once a quarter.
You took BOTH of those features away.
Now we'll be moving our accounting to another platform that offers the ease of use we require.
This is rough! Please bring back the email receipts option!
Email receipts please.
This action eliminates the single feature that drew me to your product. I guess I need to start the quest for a product that supports my needs.
I do have compassion for the Wave Developers, they use AWS and it's likely Amazon charges them every time a receipt is scanned or OCR is used, not to mention the cloud storage to support archive of the actual receipt files even though they are heavily compressed. Given the amount of free users it's likely it wasn't financially viable for this to continue even though it's one of the best features of Wave. However, ditching the feature I think will harm the community overall. OCR isn't as expensive as it needs to be. Apple has a bunch of tech built into iOS that allows this to happen on device for free. A better use of resources would have been to develop a non-cloud way to do OCR and keep the feature in a slightly modified capacity.
Please don't get rid off OCR! And did I understand well, that recipes won't be stored anymore in Wave? That was my digital backup! Now I have to store them again somewhere else?
This significantly diminishes the value and utility of this product. As a small business owner, it is imperative I keep costs low and remain efficient with my time. I will be looking for another solution that meets my needs unless these features are reactivated.
This is INCREDIBLY DISAPPOINTING - the OCR function is the most useful feature of Wave. If cost is the rational behind the decision, why not ask your users to pay for the feature instead of just removing the functionality? I guess now it really is time to move to another accounting package.
This is making my life harder. Instead of developing an AI to automatically match receipts and imported transactions, you are going backwards, asking you customers to do the job. You just created the self check-out of bookeeping softwares.Congrats !!
As a customer, I am paying the price for your lack of expertise and innovation. This is extremly disapointing,
I will end up checking your competition and most likely switch.
Please someone tell your CEO to read all the complaints.!
I really appreciate this simplification that requires me to do a job that was once automated!
Also looking forward to washing my own dishes when I get my dishwasher replaced with the new model that tells me to do it myself, and my brand new weedwacker that came with a set of clippers so I can just do it by hand instead.
Saving negative amounts of hours is super exciting.
This is a terrible decision to get rid of the receipts app. I loved that feature!
email receipts feature is very useful for my way of working, please if possible keep the Email receipts feature. it is not harming your new functionality. i would really appreciate if you can continue it...
I need the email receipt feature. please dont remove it.
I should have left a comment sooner. I read this article a few weeks ago and it confused me because it seemed like you were making the app worse, not better. I thought I was reading it wrong. Turns out, I wasn't. You removed one of your best features. Why?
Wave was acquired by H&R Block 2 years ago. Is this the beginning of your parent company gutting important features to force us to use their software? Or are you just cutting costs regardless of whether or not it pisses off your users so that your parent company can let Wave print money while it slowly dies off? Typical tech acquisition BS. Long live capitalism! 🇺🇸
What H&R Block (WaveApps) isn't getting is not the change and loss of the feature, it is we now can't TRUST H&R Block. How can I ever trust any part of this company? I guess this will be my last week with wave or any H&R Block products. I will definitely recommend all of my military collogues to stay far away from anything to do with H&R Block because they can't be trusted.
Sounds more like a cost saving exercise for wave to save on processing overheads by having people do it manually. Really disappointed.
The feature of taking a photo of receipt and Wave reading the image and creating the transaction was half the reason for using Wave for me personally. This is a useful feature that saves me lots of time each month. Removing this and replacing with a manual process is hard to see as anything other than a step backward. Also on mobile devices like phones, generally software is delivered by app as this is easier. It's awkward to use a browser on a small device. As there is already an app that works perfectly it seems to make no sense to remove it and replace it with a browser. Again a step backward.... Come on Wave - let's go forward, not backward!
It was simple for me to forward the invoice / receipt and update it when I had time (probably just before tax season). Not so straight forward now is it?
I will contemplate other platform options now, I don’t really know what else is available at the moment.