Not a fan of the new Wave
PiercePrimm
Member Posts: 6
1) don't like the new Accounting > Transactions view. I could very quickly verify transactions and know when the Online balance agreed with the Verified balance. Using the "old" transactions I could perform weekly "reconciliation" in minutes.
2) Difficult to get reconcile to work because of time-stamp on transactions. Seems I have to change the date on transactions to get reconciliation to work. Exasperating
2
Comments
Totally agree. I logged in and was like WTF happened since I was last here?! I had all the transactions/balances verified and looking good and now, apparently, everything (FOUR bank accounts) with transactions since I set up in Wave from March 2018 now all have to be re-reconciled?
Absolutely agree. Does anyone know if there is a way to revert back to the old interface? If not, I may have to cancel my Wave account and go to another system
@PiercePrimm @ripeka @kellyeliz07 Thanks for your input regarding the new features with the latest software update in Wave. Further improvement on the reconciliation feature is one of the first things to work on for our product roadmap in 2019, so the insight here is very useful to us. With that being said, the big change with reconciliation is that it doesn't require transaction review now, so even if you don't get to your transactions to categorize, you'll know they're all in the account.
@JamieD - what was the customer research process leading up to the release of the new Wave? Was the new-look reconciliation feature beta tested by Wave customers?
Hey @commverick, @Justin_A ^ this might be something you can speak more directly to!
@commverick would you be so kind as to elaborate on what challenges you're encountering around marking transactions as reviewed, and going through reconciliation? Are your issues centered around not being able to see a running balance on the transactions page? There are some known challenges that we're looking to address in early 2019 around reconciliation, but would hate to presume that we understand your specific issues. Thanks for your input and Happy New Year.
@Mani My question would be: what is the purpose of marking the transaction reviewed? For instance, a transaction marked review means that 1) the transaction matches a transaction on the "bank/ccard" account and 2) it has been categorized correctly.
I used to review transactions for a particular account in Wave, categorize, and mark them verified while keeping an eye on the online vs. verified balances. One of the issues I've had in the past is that Wave will miss retrieving some online transactions and, because I could see the "balances" at the top of the transactions' review, I could spot this right away. Then, I only had to look though a limited number of transactions (not the entire month) to find the missing ones. This workflow was very efficient for me. Also, as I remember, there was no official "reconcile to statement" process in the old wave. Basically, I was reconciled when my "balances" were equal; and, I performed this task weekly to avoid transaction hell at the end of a statement date. So, bottom line, that workflow doesn't exist in the same way. I can live with that; I just wanted you to see my perspective.
OK. Now, for the new reconcile function. First, I did not like seeing that last years of work suddenly become "un-reconciled". It was kinda like Wave was screaming at me that I'm not doing things right. Bad UX. But, my concrete issue with the reconciliation process is that if the transaction date stamps don't "line up" correctly, I have to play some games to get reconcile to complete. I should be able to easily select transactions that don't belong in the current statement, then move on quickly to completion. Here's why I think that; at this particular point in the reconciliation workflow, I've done a ton of work categorizing transactions and marking them reviewed. I don't want to have to add transaction values in my head to determine which transactions to be "un-reviewed" or dates changed. Maybe that's not really what I have to do to get reconcile to complete, but I didn't see any other "visual ques" leading the way.
@PiercePrimm, yes, you're right. We've failed to make this as useful, effective, and elegant as our prior system, and we're going to rectify that hopefully by either the end of Q1 or early Q2 this year. Apologies for the inconvenience to date.
Many people are expressing their discontent on a process change. You simply do not break what is not broken. And it is broken for sure. Adding a search by values, gl account parent-child and performance improvements would have been plenty. Actually, leaving it completely alone would be better than what we have now, (actually do not have now). An accounting system without a register balance is not an accounting system. What is WAVE now?
@Clifton I hear you, and feel your frustration. You mentioned several features you're seeking like search by value, sub accounts, and rolling balances and reviewed transactions being visible as you reconcile. We'll be looking to improve on these as has been discussed.
To help appreciate what has actually changed, I'll share a few reasons why the new system is superior to the old. Multi-line transactions allow for you to capture important information that would have resulted in a journal entry in the past, or multiple unlinked transactions that frustrated many users. Cash basis reporting has rolled out across several reports and more are coming. Significant speed improvements were made to transaction management, reports, and the like. The Chart of Accounts was made more robust and approachable. But most importantly, the underlying technology was put into place so that we can innovate faster and build + enhance all of these needs you're highlighting more quickly than we were able on the older platform.
We take your words to heart, and we'll use it as motivation to be a better solution for everyone.
Just got the update and the title of this thread is a severe understatement!
These are just a few of the regressions I've seen in the first 15 minutes. Why work so hard to make things more difficult to use?
This speaks to me on a deep level! With the implementation my legacy books re-imported with additional historic data and my In-Wave work went sideways. Instead of Wave working "backwards" and recognizing my verified transactions as items I have manually reviewed/confirmed then alerting me to a point in the legacy import where the accounts/transactions disagreed, it started from the new import date and (predictably) the entire account was screaming red.
It took a bit to re-remove the legacy transactions and get my starting balance re-stated, but I can't remove the legacy statements from my reconciliation page. If this could be an option - at least hiding the legacy statements - I would feel less like Wave is upset with me and more like we're on the same side.
Some, but not all of my transactions can be categorized. For some, its impossible. This is a terrible "improvement". You have taken something that was working fairly well and made it useless to me. I'm not just ranting because you have changed the process. You have added functionality (the review process) that does NOT work and serves no real purpose. Prior I could just verify a transaction wit a single click. I think its time to look for something else. You people have made a real mess of it.
Who ever heard of a check register without a running balance after each transaction? This column is sorely missing from the Transactions page. It makes it impossible to see if my accounts will have enough money in them after various payments hit over the coming weeks. PLEASE add a Balance column!
Hi, just a quick question. I do books for a friend of mine, so don't have access to a running bank balance. My issue is, before the update with importing bank statements, I would check categorization, verify and update and these transactions would disappear. Great, loved it, it kept me on the same page with stuff that was done and handled.
With the new update, I categorize and verify, but everything stays there? When I log in again (weekly) I find that stuff that I had verified previously (not everything) is no longer verified. I may have a small brain and not an expert in bookkeeping but this is really confusing me. I can no longer keep track of stuff that I have done previously. Is there a way to 'update' these transactions so they disappear again?
@JeanIng With the migration, there is an option to review the transactions on the specific transactions page. The list view in our classic software for the transactions page automatically filtered the list so that all unverified transactions would display, while the verified transactions were hidden. With that said, you will need to adjust the filter each time you land on the transactions page itself (you can change the filter to reviewed/not reviewed which will allow you to work on the transactions that have been looked at already). In terms of the transactions not saving after you've reviewed them -- do you notice this happens often? Could you provide me an example of this?
I would like to say that the behavior of Transactions & Reconciliation work well together now. All of my issues have been resolved. I can quickly reconcile now and find transactions that need to move "up" in time to allow reconcile to complete. Now that I reconcile each month, I just mark transactions (in the Transaction view) as Reviewd once they've been categorized. I've modified my workflow and it works well for me now. I APPRECIATE THE CHANGES MADE!