Image OCR is the primary reason I use waveappsbin the first place. It creates an expense transaction automatically with all the important info from a receipt. Unfortunately it got retired. Just wondering is it to costly to have the AI OCR running or to maintain the mobile apps?
I thought this is an innovative app/company that always seeking to improve its user experience and features. It’s nice that I am able to upload receipt attach to each transaction now and I for one has been waiting for this. However, by retiring mobile app and OCR processing feature will cost you. Now I have to either find an import file or manually enter: - Description - Date of transaction - Amount of transaction - Upload the image to my computer and upload it to attach to the transaction. (I don’t like to use my mobile phone to login to your website and type all the details and then upload that receipt image. You should have your developers to try to create some receipts that way manually and you will know what I mean.)
People like me will be forced to look for alternatives. Why do you want to kick away your customers this way? Sadly, it was a perfect app to use for my small business. More sadly, the company probably is not even reading this.
What happened to receipts!??
Why can't I add receipts anymore ? It was working perfectly, now I have to enter every detail on the app manually!
I tried the other wave app and there are NO receipt options in it at all!! But this support site keeps saying you can add receipts in the app!?
not true so far!
What a dreadful, retrograde decision. It took a few seconds to forward a receipt by email into the very user friendly App but it is now a very tedious process. I can’t believe you think this is progress.
I thought I was missing something when I couldn’t automatically upload receipt and transaction as before but it looks like Wave has removed one of its best feature!!!! Really disappointed.
I can understand if this feature is expensive to maintain but it would have been great to give subscribers an option to pay for the service instead of removing it altogether under disguise of ‘upgrade’. I am sure most of the subscribers will be happy to pay for that service if you want to put that back on.
I run three companies through Wave and process a few thousand receipts for one company. I had just got going (late I know) on taxes for last year and the Receipts move happened. I cannot believe that OCR is gone and I can't scan from my phone. I haven't the time to manually add all my receipts. And I was going to add a new company to my Wave account but now I will unfortunately have to find an alternative. Why fix something that's not broken?! Most of us would have gladly paid a monthly fee to keep things as they were. I definitely appreciated the no cost but will pay to move on.
I have the same sentiment as everyone else. I mainly used Wave for the OCR for receipts. Now instead of taking about 10 seconds per receipt it takes 5 minutes. Absolutely awful decision and I will be checking competitors out now. Have been a happy Wave customer for years but will gladly move on if ANY other company offers this feature. Downgrade.
I'm at a lost now on what to do with my accounts halfway thru the year, as I depend solely on the OCR features in wave.
Decided to quit complaining, and just move on.
I am looking to move to Xero, Quickbooks or Foreceipt.
Tried Xero, and Hubdoc features are better receipt OCR than Wave (even before wave removed it), but a bit pricey.
Haven't tried the rest.
Saw your recommendations on Foreceipt.
Quickbooks any good?
Using Zoho now...it's pretty good and very professional. Has great OCR feature with a drag and drop and email expense forwarding system. About $5/mth subscription.
I am having a hard time navigating this new receipt feature.. Typically my husband would snap a picture of receipts while working on the road with the mobile application. The receipts including picture would automatically populate to the desktop version making my work easy of categorizing simple and fast and ACCURATE. Now, Im in a complete time suck with receipts. Please go back to the old version.
I have to agree with most of the people in this comment section. Uploading receipts on the go was super easy. I am not sure I will have the time to sit down and actually do it this new way, unless I am missing something. Was adding payroll to my wave subscription, but might have to step away as the convenience of this app is not the same.
I appreciate your team's work to continuously make changes that will benefit the user, but I think this was for the worst. Would appreciate at least an explanation, e.g. you are not servicing sole prop that manually batch and uploads receipts and heading in the direction of SMBs to serve them better without OCR.
Previously, I had to do 2 clicks (Purchases > Receipts) to get the Receipts window, then another 4 clicks to upload each receipt (Upload > Locate File > OK > X to clear notification). Click 6 times for first one, 4 times for subsequent ones.
Then, I would have one screen where I can see every single receipt that I've uploaded and reviewed. Now, I have to...
click 7 times for first receipt (Create a new > Transaction > Add expense > Dropdown > Receipt > Click to other window > Drag drop > OK) and 6 times for subsequent ones.
Also, no OCR? That was one of Wave's unique value propositions. It was my lifesaver. I thought you might monetize this, but I also don't see this on your pricing. So if you add in me having to manually fill stuff in...what's the point of technology anyway? That basically adds several minutes to each transaction rather than a simple review from before.
Also, after I click Save, I have NO IDEA where the transaction goes if I forget to fill in a date. Then I have to filter and not a clean way to see a collection of all receipts I've saved.
This update is a HUGE steps back.
It was once of the best feature of wave that I recommended to so many entrepreneurs and freelancers. Now there is no point of using the app.
I request a roll-back of the OCR feature in the need few weeks or I will also be leaving Wave. I cannot spend tens of hours manually enterring every single reciept. Happy to pay a subscription for it in the future, but bring this back ASAP!!!
Extremely disappointed with this change. The workflow is now horrible and the ability to upload receipt pdfs and have them processed was a massive feature for me. Removing it has pushed me to look for an alternative.
What happened to all of my receipts that were uploaded but not posted yet?
Strongly recommend you do a straight 180 on all of these changes. Terrible updates!
I'm with the rest of the folks...removing the ease of downloading receipts just ruined the whole Wave experience for me. As a small business owner with a ton of receipts, removing the OCR feature killed my time management. Please bring it back!!! Or as many others are doing, I'll have to find another program and find a way to integrate what has already been processed into another platform...also a huge time consumer!! Very upset....
Hey @rwcgh, I've spoken with the Wave Money team here, and they have confirmed that correct workflow here would be to enter the amount in your default currency and then attach the receipt. If you look at your bank/credit card statement, you should see that the amount calculate there as opposed to an amount in a foreign currency! In addition, this change is for accounting purposes; if you were to enter the transaction in a foreign currency, you wouldn't be able to reconcile your account.
Hi @Rebecca_B321! Emailed receipts had to be posted to Accounting for them to be attached to their respective transactions once we released the new Receipts feature and removed the old Receipts page. If they were received by Wave and not posted to Accounting, they will be available in your Receipt data export under Settings > Data Export. In this case, please use the missing images and re-attach them to the expense transactions, or use the information on the receipt to create a new expense transaction.
Hey @alohastar , I'm sorry you've been having some issues with the switch to the new workflow. To clarify, were these receipts in the app not already posted to accounting? If so, was the transaction already in your Wave account? If this is the case, you can go ahead and merge the duplicates, or delete the one uploaded from the mobile app. If not, could you please clarify exactly what the issue is you're seeing in your account?
Hello @brambe , I'm sorry that the file size limit is sometimes too small for you to upload receipts. Could you please let me know the file size and format? Then I can pass this information on to our Development team, and if it becomes an issue multiple users report, we can look into adjusting the file size limits! For the time being however, please continue using your current workaround of re-sizing the files.
Hi @jk122234 and @Jonathan van Rensburg ! All receipt images, whether posted to accounting or not, can be found in the Receipt data export under Settings > Data Export. You can download this export, and use the images to attach to existing transactions, or create new ones.
Hey @phoneticsound , to upload a receipt into Wave by attaching it to a transaction, please follow the steps here
This change is horrible! It is not feasible to enter in each receipt as a business owner. I now have to look for another accounting program because this is an absolute deal breaker without OCR functionality.
Very disappointed by this "update". This is not an update if you are removing a feature that everyone is using and enjoying. It might be a way to bring back OCR as a paid option later, but don't try to fool us, this isn't an improvement.
So far, I hate it. Now I have to wait for transactions to post, then scan or take a picture of a receipt, then attach it. This means I still have to save my paper receipts OR have a bunch of hard to read, look alike, images to try to sort through to match to the transaction. I'm a photographer. I am often traveling. I often do not have reliable data coverage, and even if I did, there is no way I am doing all this on the tiny phone screen. I'm sure this saved YOU some money by not having to support the app or the email OCR, but it really annoys your user. THIS DID NOT MAKE MY LIFE BETTER.
We liked and used all three of these features (see below) very well as part of our workflow so removing them is very discouraging on your corporate approach and seems to lack voice of customer. Taking a picture of the paper receipt from the app, which is then filed under receipts where it can be reviewed and brought into transactions with the OCR doing the hard work was fantastic...
Here's what was removed:
1. Wave receipts mobile application: The new, streamlined feature in waveapps.com unifies your receipt and transaction management in a single experience on both mobile or desktop.
So we just want to open the app and take a picture of the receipt (in our case in particular while travelling) - we actually don't want a unified experience.
OCR image processing: with the new feature, receipts are simply attached to transactions, so the images no longer need to be processed to create transactions.
The OCR is really cool and user friendly - the OCR is where you could say it is "simply" processed and brought into receipts. "Simply attached" means actually we as clients do more work to prep and attach the receipt.
Receipts page (Purchases > Receipts): this page served as a hub to manage your uploaded receipts, and move them through statuses to post to your accounting. The new feature eliminates this manual process, so this page is no longer needed.
To us, this was good organization which allowed a review of receipts prior to being brought into transactions - not a manual process as now we will have to seek them out within the transactions which would be more manual then having them organized and do our regular reconciliations.
So basically, the items removed were items we (your clients) liked used successfully and smoothly - please put them back as the feedback is pretty loud and clear. If it is a question of costs, let's deal with that. But cutting out things that work well for your small business client base is just not the right way to go.
P.S. I just took the time to read a lot of the comments after writing this post on behalf of our company - wow way to go users!!! Now Wave your turn - do you listen to us or not?
I have a bunch of receipts uploaded but not yet posted to the book, Now with the page gone, where do i get back those receipt? Do i have to re-upload them ? (please tell me that's not the case)
And why is OCR taken away? It is a very useful feature that makes our lives easier.
Overall, I do not think the change is positive. Another strike on reconsidering using the service.
I LOVED Wave because I could email receipts on the go. I cannot imagine why they cancelled this beloved feature. So many receipts we never even get in paper form and some are not easily downloaded or screenshotted (they're in the body of an email and/or too long for a single screen grab). It is also a pain in the ass to download, log in and upload. An email forward saved so much time. I also loved the image processing, it saved a huge amount of time.
Will be looking for another service provider that offers these functions. Why did you make our lives harder Wave????
Comments
I thought this is an innovative app/company that always seeking to improve its user experience and features. It’s nice that I am able to upload receipt attach to each transaction now and I for one has been waiting for this. However, by retiring mobile app and OCR processing feature will cost you. Now I have to either find an import file or manually enter:
- Description
- Date of transaction
- Amount of transaction
- Upload the image to my computer and upload it to attach to the transaction. (I don’t like to use my mobile phone to login to your website and type all the details and then upload that receipt image. You should have your developers to try to create some receipts that way manually and you will know what I mean.)
People like me will be forced to look for alternatives. Why do you want to kick away your customers this way? Sadly, it was a perfect app to use for my small business. More sadly, the company probably is not even reading this.
Bad, bad, bad!!! This decision ruined an almost perfect product!
What happened to receipts!??
Why can't I add receipts anymore ? It was working perfectly, now I have to enter every detail on the app manually!
I tried the other wave app and there are NO receipt options in it at all!! But this support site keeps saying you can add receipts in the app!?
not true so far!
What a dreadful, retrograde decision. It took a few seconds to forward a receipt by email into the very user friendly App but it is now a very tedious process. I can’t believe you think this is progress.
I can understand if this feature is expensive to maintain but it would have been great to give subscribers an option to pay for the service instead of removing it altogether under disguise of ‘upgrade’. I am sure most of the subscribers will be happy to pay for that service if you want to put that back on.
I run three companies through Wave and process a few thousand receipts for one company. I had just got going (late I know) on taxes for last year and the Receipts move happened. I cannot believe that OCR is gone and I can't scan from my phone. I haven't the time to manually add all my receipts. And I was going to add a new company to my Wave account but now I will unfortunately have to find an alternative. Why fix something that's not broken?! Most of us would have gladly paid a monthly fee to keep things as they were. I definitely appreciated the no cost but will pay to move on.
fist the quote
Wave receipts mobile application: The new, streamlined feature, - who are you kidding. there is nothing streamlined about it.
it should say "the new way to waste a lot of time ,and frustrate you has been introduced" we have removed the simple way
Why have you done it. Just put it back to how it was
I have the same sentiment as everyone else. I mainly used Wave for the OCR for receipts. Now instead of taking about 10 seconds per receipt it takes 5 minutes. Absolutely awful decision and I will be checking competitors out now. Have been a happy Wave customer for years but will gladly move on if ANY other company offers this feature. Downgrade.
I'm at a lost now on what to do with my accounts halfway thru the year, as I depend solely on the OCR features in wave.
Decided to quit complaining, and just move on.
I am looking to move to Xero, Quickbooks or Foreceipt.
Tried Xero, and Hubdoc features are better receipt OCR than Wave (even before wave removed it), but a bit pricey.
Haven't tried the rest.
Saw your recommendations on Foreceipt.
Quickbooks any good?
Using Zoho now...it's pretty good and very professional. Has great OCR feature with a drag and drop and email expense forwarding system. About $5/mth subscription.
Please bring back the OCR feature,
happy to pay a subscription if needed.
The new process is a big step backwards.
John
i agree, we need that receipt feature by email. It is quite important to have easy accounting.
Not happy about this, may have to move away. You guys were the best. The receipts app was so easy and helpful.
I am having a hard time navigating this new receipt feature.. Typically my husband would snap a picture of receipts while working on the road with the mobile application. The receipts including picture would automatically populate to the desktop version making my work easy of categorizing simple and fast and ACCURATE. Now, Im in a complete time suck with receipts. Please go back to the old version.
I have to agree with most of the people in this comment section. Uploading receipts on the go was super easy. I am not sure I will have the time to sit down and actually do it this new way, unless I am missing something. Was adding payroll to my wave subscription, but might have to step away as the convenience of this app is not the same.
retiring the older system is creating inconveniences to the users
what happened to the receipts that was online that I haven't posted yet ??
I appreciate your team's work to continuously make changes that will benefit the user, but I think this was for the worst. Would appreciate at least an explanation, e.g. you are not servicing sole prop that manually batch and uploads receipts and heading in the direction of SMBs to serve them better without OCR.
Previously, I had to do 2 clicks (Purchases > Receipts) to get the Receipts window, then another 4 clicks to upload each receipt (Upload > Locate File > OK > X to clear notification). Click 6 times for first one, 4 times for subsequent ones.
Then, I would have one screen where I can see every single receipt that I've uploaded and reviewed. Now, I have to...
click 7 times for first receipt (Create a new > Transaction > Add expense > Dropdown > Receipt > Click to other window > Drag drop > OK) and 6 times for subsequent ones.
Also, no OCR? That was one of Wave's unique value propositions. It was my lifesaver. I thought you might monetize this, but I also don't see this on your pricing. So if you add in me having to manually fill stuff in...what's the point of technology anyway? That basically adds several minutes to each transaction rather than a simple review from before.
Also, after I click Save, I have NO IDEA where the transaction goes if I forget to fill in a date. Then I have to filter and not a clean way to see a collection of all receipts I've saved.
This update is a HUGE steps back.
It was once of the best feature of wave that I recommended to so many entrepreneurs and freelancers. Now there is no point of using the app.
I request a roll-back of the OCR feature in the need few weeks or I will also be leaving Wave. I cannot spend tens of hours manually enterring every single reciept. Happy to pay a subscription for it in the future, but bring this back ASAP!!!
Extremely disappointed with this change. The workflow is now horrible and the ability to upload receipt pdfs and have them processed was a massive feature for me. Removing it has pushed me to look for an alternative.
What happened to all of my receipts that were uploaded but not posted yet?
Strongly recommend you do a straight 180 on all of these changes. Terrible updates!
I'm with the rest of the folks...removing the ease of downloading receipts just ruined the whole Wave experience for me. As a small business owner with a ton of receipts, removing the OCR feature killed my time management. Please bring it back!!! Or as many others are doing, I'll have to find another program and find a way to integrate what has already been processed into another platform...also a huge time consumer!! Very upset....
Hey @rwcgh, I've spoken with the Wave Money team here, and they have confirmed that correct workflow here would be to enter the amount in your default currency and then attach the receipt. If you look at your bank/credit card statement, you should see that the amount calculate there as opposed to an amount in a foreign currency! In addition, this change is for accounting purposes; if you were to enter the transaction in a foreign currency, you wouldn't be able to reconcile your account.
Hi @Rebecca_B321! Emailed receipts had to be posted to Accounting for them to be attached to their respective transactions once we released the new Receipts feature and removed the old Receipts page. If they were received by Wave and not posted to Accounting, they will be available in your Receipt data export under Settings > Data Export. In this case, please use the missing images and re-attach them to the expense transactions, or use the information on the receipt to create a new expense transaction.
Hey @alohastar , I'm sorry you've been having some issues with the switch to the new workflow. To clarify, were these receipts in the app not already posted to accounting? If so, was the transaction already in your Wave account? If this is the case, you can go ahead and merge the duplicates, or delete the one uploaded from the mobile app. If not, could you please clarify exactly what the issue is you're seeing in your account?
Hello @brambe , I'm sorry that the file size limit is sometimes too small for you to upload receipts. Could you please let me know the file size and format? Then I can pass this information on to our Development team, and if it becomes an issue multiple users report, we can look into adjusting the file size limits! For the time being however, please continue using your current workaround of re-sizing the files.
Hi @jk122234 and @Jonathan van Rensburg ! All receipt images, whether posted to accounting or not, can be found in the Receipt data export under Settings > Data Export. You can download this export, and use the images to attach to existing transactions, or create new ones.
Hey @phoneticsound , to upload a receipt into Wave by attaching it to a transaction, please follow the steps here
This change is horrible! It is not feasible to enter in each receipt as a business owner. I now have to look for another accounting program because this is an absolute deal breaker without OCR functionality.
Roll this nonsense back to the way it was!
Very disappointed by this "update". This is not an update if you are removing a feature that everyone is using and enjoying. It might be a way to bring back OCR as a paid option later, but don't try to fool us, this isn't an improvement.
So far, I hate it. Now I have to wait for transactions to post, then scan or take a picture of a receipt, then attach it. This means I still have to save my paper receipts OR have a bunch of hard to read, look alike, images to try to sort through to match to the transaction. I'm a photographer. I am often traveling. I often do not have reliable data coverage, and even if I did, there is no way I am doing all this on the tiny phone screen. I'm sure this saved YOU some money by not having to support the app or the email OCR, but it really annoys your user. THIS DID NOT MAKE MY LIFE BETTER.
We liked and used all three of these features (see below) very well as part of our workflow so removing them is very discouraging on your corporate approach and seems to lack voice of customer. Taking a picture of the paper receipt from the app, which is then filed under receipts where it can be reviewed and brought into transactions with the OCR doing the hard work was fantastic...
Here's what was removed:
1. Wave receipts mobile application: The new, streamlined feature in waveapps.com unifies your receipt and transaction management in a single experience on both mobile or desktop.
So we just want to open the app and take a picture of the receipt (in our case in particular while travelling) - we actually don't want a unified experience.
The OCR is really cool and user friendly - the OCR is where you could say it is "simply" processed and brought into receipts. "Simply attached" means actually we as clients do more work to prep and attach the receipt.
To us, this was good organization which allowed a review of receipts prior to being brought into transactions - not a manual process as now we will have to seek them out within the transactions which would be more manual then having them organized and do our regular reconciliations.
So basically, the items removed were items we (your clients) liked used successfully and smoothly - please put them back as the feedback is pretty loud and clear. If it is a question of costs, let's deal with that. But cutting out things that work well for your small business client base is just not the right way to go.
P.S. I just took the time to read a lot of the comments after writing this post on behalf of our company - wow way to go users!!! Now Wave your turn - do you listen to us or not?
I have a bunch of receipts uploaded but not yet posted to the book, Now with the page gone, where do i get back those receipt? Do i have to re-upload them ? (please tell me that's not the case)
And why is OCR taken away? It is a very useful feature that makes our lives easier.
Overall, I do not think the change is positive. Another strike on reconsidering using the service.
Such a shame. The OCR scanning was one of the hallmarks of the software! Please bring it back, even as a paid option.
I LOVED Wave because I could email receipts on the go. I cannot imagine why they cancelled this beloved feature. So many receipts we never even get in paper form and some are not easily downloaded or screenshotted (they're in the body of an email and/or too long for a single screen grab). It is also a pain in the ass to download, log in and upload. An email forward saved so much time. I also loved the image processing, it saved a huge amount of time.
Will be looking for another service provider that offers these functions. Why did you make our lives harder Wave????
This is the worst "upgrade" of all time.