I would like to chime in on this post but before I do, I would like to thank this platform for being available as a free tool for anyone to use. I've learned so much because of it and I'm still learning while costing me no money. So, again, THANK YOU!
Today is December 16, 2018, and Wave has changed to which I believe is a better platform overall. Although not available yet, I would love to simply have the option to upload a receipt to any transaction already established. Just as other's have mentioned, my transactions automatically get imported from my bank so the simple option of adding a receipt to a transaction seems to be the best solution for this issue. I'm sure Wave will attend to this and I can't wait for it to be available
@PushingRealEstate. Thank you so much for your candid feedback. It's really nice to hear that you are loving the software and your suggestion on how we can improve even more so. We're hoping to have this discussion in the new year and hopefully add the attachment feature on transactions sooner rather than later.
@Mani It sounds like you are trying to over engineer a solution that automatically links the items. That would be great however I have worked with several corporate expenses tracking applications. They are paid large sums of money by billion dollar companies. They have a very simple solutions that works great. You upload the images with the application, go to the expense tab and select from your "library" of receipts. Once attached they no longer display to be attached to another expense. They also allow you to forward receipts from travel companies, airlines, travel sites, rental car and hotel companies. They all display in the library for attachment at a later time. If someone likes the ocr functions that you have and don't want to link to a bank account allow them to use the current functionality. For everyone on this thread that would like to import transactions (this ensures that you have all transactions) and manually attach the receipts when they are categorizing expenses. Thanks so much.
I'm pretty new to this and have tried quite a few programs out. Wave is nice. I actually like the duplicate transactions because I have to merge them, and it's like a checkpoint to make sure that receipts are added. QB is hard. I like that QBSE can match receipts and transactions, but with a little automation there, Wave would be way better than anything else for my use.
To all who are reading this thread. I'd like to assure you it's not a matter of if, but when we switch to the attachment model for receipts. It's difficult to peal back the layers for you in how software architecture and prioritization makes it difficult to sometimes act quickly on what seems like a straightforward change. We are very seriously looking at making this transition in 2019, but we can't yet commit to when. As our software has matured, so too have the needs of many of our users, so we'll try to do right by you on this front as we also try and improve on hundreds of other areas of Wave. I know it's not yet working software in your hands, but at least you know we're thinking about this feature and change as we listen to your feedback.
Wow this is still an outstanding issue? Is this something that is really going to be addressed? Its important for me to attached my receipts to existing transactions!
While this isn't directly possible as things stand, you can merge a transaction uploaded to your bank to one created when you uploaded your receipt. This will make both transactions into a single transaction which will be linked to your receipt. This process takes only around 5 clicks and is very reliable.
Hi Alexia
You are completely missing the point. You have repeated the fact that we can merge transactions, and here you say "in 5 clicks" - this is no benefit to accounting, 5 clicks is a lot when you are looking at merging hundreds of receipts. Wave need to get this ridiculous situation sorted. It just requires one file attachment button, something well-used in the current world of tech. You can attach a file and all sorted of things on platforms such as Xero, Quickbooks, not to mention Facebook, What's App, etc. Why is it so hard to get this on Wave????? It's so counter-intuitive to suggest we upload the receipt and then merge the transactions, and a complete waste of time. I recommend spending £2 a month to get the basic Xero package - it's far better than Wave.
There are several other really annoying features in Wave too - when you search for a receipt or transaction, it keeps reverting the search criteria to the last 25 receipts, or the last X number of transactions, so when you make changes and refresh the page you have to again scroll down to find where you were merging. I've had to copy/paste all my data painstakingly into an Excel report (because apparently you can't Export to Excel either) to manually cross-check for duplicates, and again go back into Wave and remove them.
Yes there are great features such as invoicing and importing bank transactions, I think you have nailed those, but you need to nail these other items - as people have said before me, they are really very basic.
Just wanted to chime in and say I can't believe this feature hasn't been added yet...It's true, we do not know the software architecture intricacies, but as a software engineer myself, I can say this feature is NOT that complicated to add if the engineers did a half-decent job designing the software in the first place. The "merge" feature (automatic or not) is NOT what we are asking for.
I love wave and everything it stands for, but this lack of functionality is a huge negative in my mind and is currently stopping me from fully implementing it for my business.
@Mani said:
We are very seriously looking at making this transition in 2019, but we can't yet commit to when.
The inability of being able to easily attach receipts to existing transactions has made using Waves a massive chore as my business has grown. Unfortunately, I can't wait around in hopes the feature will release this year. I'll be trying out different accounting software, and perhaps I'll check back here in a year in hopes that there have been improvements.
I am also pretty shocked that this doesn't exist yet - especially when you look at how essential it is vs. ease of implementation. Uploading pictures of receipts should be easy. If you have bank sync, this takes twice as long as it should.
I have only just started using the Receipts app on my phone, and I've scanned about 30-40 receipts in the past month. Now I've uploaded my bank statement, and just run into this problem. Pretty much all of my receipts were paid for using my bank card, so every transaction is duplicated. I now have to go through an manually merge every transaction.
This is a big waste of time, and the possibilities for error are greatly increased by these duplicates.
Hi everyone. Thanks so much for the continued comments and feedback on this. I understand it can be frustrating to sit around and wait for something, but to echo what Mani said above, this is not a matter of if, but a matter of when we make this transition. I can't provide you with a concrete timeline, but please know that all of this feedback helps as we look to continuously improve Wave's platform.
@alexlewiszarkos Can you elaborate on how and to what extent community feedback influences this feature's release date? I'm more than happy to rally other users and/or keep nagging if it helps.
@Mani This feature is critical for my business. Wave is an amazing product and I have no doubt there are a million things on your plate, but can we receive a more precise release window?
@nripin@HOSPM thanks for your continued advocacy. This is on our radar. The reason we don't commit to timelines is due to the complex environment of building software across our entire product suite and user base. That said, this is how we see the future of receipt management, and the workflows it enables thereafter (e.g., reimbursement from client via an invoice).
I'm still hopeful for the receipt attachment option to be available. I'm still very grateful for this platform and this community. @Mani, please let us know when this feature would be available
Over 1 year later and this feature still isn't here? Wave (without any disrespect) you need to seriously look into a more agile development life cycle model. This feature request is BASIC at best and something you need to tackle now, at the risk of losing customers to other accounting software.
At a BEAR MINIMUM: Simply create an "Attach Receipt" UX button to each transaction and allow the user to upload a receipt image.
IDEAL SOLUTION: Use Object/Text Recognition (you already are using the technology to extract the Vendor, Price and date from the receipt app when uploaded) and run a check, to see if this matches up with any existing transaction imported from bank statements or connected bank. IF true, prompt "would you like to match", and voilla.
@giuls I respect that this feature is a big need, as evidenced by the conversations taking place in this thread. If it helps, you can attach a receipt image to an expense transaction in Wave! Once you post an imported receipt from the Purchases > Receipts page, it'll create an expense transaction which--by default--includes a link to the receipt image. As a heads up, if you also have your bank connection importing these expense transactions from your bank statement, you'd need to merge the two identical transaction together, and this will still maintain the link to your receipt image.
Just came across this thread. I’ve searched through all accounting software/apps and find everyone is geared towards merchants(for example in amazon)
But all merchants I’m sure buy on amazon and therefore have expenses.
The simplest accounting is to:
save an invoice with a receipt of payment next to it. That’s it
So to import all amazon invoices/eBay etc with payment transaction next to it is one of the most important pieces of information for an accountant !!!!!
All softwares cover the sales but not the expenses !
It must be something to do with making money on sales .
Hi @Lenny ! For some additional context, many of our customers are service-based rather than e-commerce businesses or brick-and-mortar storefronts.
When features such as this aren't available, it's not a matter of withholding them for some reason. It's usually a matter of prioritization and time; when we build something, we aim to release the best possible version of that thing, which takes a significant amount of time. We're also working on multiple things in tandem, including continuous improvements to existing functionality.
I know I'm reiterating points that have already been made in this discussion. I also totally understand that a long wait is frustrating. Our commitment is to update you as information becomes available to us. If I can assist with anything else in the meantime, please let me know.
Hi Charlotte, thanks for your reply. I look forward to seeing a feature in the future. But for now I don’t know how something so important in accounting is not available. It’s like having a car with no wheels !
In need of this feature too, new receipt being able to recognize an existing transaction and match it to just add the receipt to the transaction. Just like the "Transfer" from one account to the other will find the corresponding amount and hint it to you to click, this one could be even more automatic, as the amount, date and merchant all match.
And, I would like to support the development and product management team on this one, concerning all the requests above, delays and all. Sometimes things can look so simple to add, but depending on how the software has been thought or designed it could be a lot harder to do. The reverse is also true, sometimes it looks really complicated but it's so easy to implement "under the hood". And anyway, yes it's been a year or so that this thread started and no it's not been implemented yet (merging is still a good way to do it but still not the best)... but thin about everything else that has been done in the past year! Wave is great, I love it and I support it.
Any updates on when this basic functionnality will be launched? It is really time consuming to merge transactions. So much so, that we are thinking of giving up the receipt part...
Hey @miguelMediavilla - thank you for the feedback! Unfortunately there still isn't an ETA to be offered, but I can say this is something we're actively working on at the moment, and is on the roadmap for one of our priority projects for this year. Stay tuned for further updates, I just didn't want to leave this thread wondering if this is still even being looked at!
Comments
I would like to chime in on this post but before I do, I would like to thank this platform for being available as a free tool for anyone to use. I've learned so much because of it and I'm still learning while costing me no money. So, again, THANK YOU!
Today is December 16, 2018, and Wave has changed to which I believe is a better platform overall. Although not available yet, I would love to simply have the option to upload a receipt to any transaction already established. Just as other's have mentioned, my transactions automatically get imported from my bank so the simple option of adding a receipt to a transaction seems to be the best solution for this issue. I'm sure Wave will attend to this and I can't wait for it to be available
@PushingRealEstate. Thank you so much for your candid feedback. It's really nice to hear that you are loving the software and your suggestion on how we can improve even more so. We're hoping to have this discussion in the new year and hopefully add the attachment feature on transactions sooner rather than later.
@Mani It sounds like you are trying to over engineer a solution that automatically links the items. That would be great however I have worked with several corporate expenses tracking applications. They are paid large sums of money by billion dollar companies. They have a very simple solutions that works great. You upload the images with the application, go to the expense tab and select from your "library" of receipts. Once attached they no longer display to be attached to another expense. They also allow you to forward receipts from travel companies, airlines, travel sites, rental car and hotel companies. They all display in the library for attachment at a later time. If someone likes the ocr functions that you have and don't want to link to a bank account allow them to use the current functionality. For everyone on this thread that would like to import transactions (this ensures that you have all transactions) and manually attach the receipts when they are categorizing expenses. Thanks so much.
To all who are reading this thread. I'd like to assure you it's not a matter of if, but when we switch to the attachment model for receipts. It's difficult to peal back the layers for you in how software architecture and prioritization makes it difficult to sometimes act quickly on what seems like a straightforward change. We are very seriously looking at making this transition in 2019, but we can't yet commit to when. As our software has matured, so too have the needs of many of our users, so we'll try to do right by you on this front as we also try and improve on hundreds of other areas of Wave. I know it's not yet working software in your hands, but at least you know we're thinking about this feature and change as we listen to your feedback.
Kind folks who face the same concern please vote up the first thread, so they can know what we need the most !!
Wow this is still an outstanding issue? Is this something that is really going to be addressed? Its important for me to attached my receipts to existing transactions!
Just throwing my request on the pile: I'm a new waves user and being able to attach receipts to and existing transaction would make life easy.
Hi Alexia
You are completely missing the point. You have repeated the fact that we can merge transactions, and here you say "in 5 clicks" - this is no benefit to accounting, 5 clicks is a lot when you are looking at merging hundreds of receipts. Wave need to get this ridiculous situation sorted. It just requires one file attachment button, something well-used in the current world of tech. You can attach a file and all sorted of things on platforms such as Xero, Quickbooks, not to mention Facebook, What's App, etc. Why is it so hard to get this on Wave????? It's so counter-intuitive to suggest we upload the receipt and then merge the transactions, and a complete waste of time. I recommend spending £2 a month to get the basic Xero package - it's far better than Wave.
There are several other really annoying features in Wave too - when you search for a receipt or transaction, it keeps reverting the search criteria to the last 25 receipts, or the last X number of transactions, so when you make changes and refresh the page you have to again scroll down to find where you were merging. I've had to copy/paste all my data painstakingly into an Excel report (because apparently you can't Export to Excel either) to manually cross-check for duplicates, and again go back into Wave and remove them.
Yes there are great features such as invoicing and importing bank transactions, I think you have nailed those, but you need to nail these other items - as people have said before me, they are really very basic.
Thanks
Louise
Your system is great, thank you for offering it for free.
Just want to add that this is a needed feature, please try to give this priority
Just wanted to chime in and say I can't believe this feature hasn't been added yet...It's true, we do not know the software architecture intricacies, but as a software engineer myself, I can say this feature is NOT that complicated to add if the engineers did a half-decent job designing the software in the first place. The "merge" feature (automatic or not) is NOT what we are asking for.
I love wave and everything it stands for, but this lack of functionality is a huge negative in my mind and is currently stopping me from fully implementing it for my business.
The inability of being able to easily attach receipts to existing transactions has made using Waves a massive chore as my business has grown. Unfortunately, I can't wait around in hopes the feature will release this year. I'll be trying out different accounting software, and perhaps I'll check back here in a year in hopes that there have been improvements.
I am also pretty shocked that this doesn't exist yet - especially when you look at how essential it is vs. ease of implementation. Uploading pictures of receipts should be easy. If you have bank sync, this takes twice as long as it should.
@Mani Any updates on Wave's plans to implement this feature, as per your Feb 23, 2018 comment?
I have only just started using the Receipts app on my phone, and I've scanned about 30-40 receipts in the past month. Now I've uploaded my bank statement, and just run into this problem. Pretty much all of my receipts were paid for using my bank card, so every transaction is duplicated. I now have to go through an manually merge every transaction.
This is a big waste of time, and the possibilities for error are greatly increased by these duplicates.
Hi everyone. Thanks so much for the continued comments and feedback on this. I understand it can be frustrating to sit around and wait for something, but to echo what Mani said above, this is not a matter of if, but a matter of when we make this transition. I can't provide you with a concrete timeline, but please know that all of this feedback helps as we look to continuously improve Wave's platform.
@alexlewiszarkos Can you elaborate on how and to what extent community feedback influences this feature's release date? I'm more than happy to rally other users and/or keep nagging if it helps.
@Mani This feature is critical for my business. Wave is an amazing product and I have no doubt there are a million things on your plate, but can we receive a more precise release window?
@Mani we really need this dude !!
@nripin @HOSPM thanks for your continued advocacy. This is on our radar. The reason we don't commit to timelines is due to the complex environment of building software across our entire product suite and user base. That said, this is how we see the future of receipt management, and the workflows it enables thereafter (e.g., reimbursement from client via an invoice).
I'm still hopeful for the receipt attachment option to be available. I'm still very grateful for this platform and this community. @Mani, please let us know when this feature would be available
Over 1 year later and this feature still isn't here? Wave (without any disrespect) you need to seriously look into a more agile development life cycle model. This feature request is BASIC at best and something you need to tackle now, at the risk of losing customers to other accounting software.
At a BEAR MINIMUM: Simply create an "Attach Receipt" UX button to each transaction and allow the user to upload a receipt image.
IDEAL SOLUTION: Use Object/Text Recognition (you already are using the technology to extract the Vendor, Price and date from the receipt app when uploaded) and run a check, to see if this matches up with any existing transaction imported from bank statements or connected bank. IF true, prompt "would you like to match", and voilla.
Simple, really.
@giuls I respect that this feature is a big need, as evidenced by the conversations taking place in this thread. If it helps, you can attach a receipt image to an expense transaction in Wave! Once you post an imported receipt from the Purchases > Receipts page, it'll create an expense transaction which--by default--includes a link to the receipt image. As a heads up, if you also have your bank connection importing these expense transactions from your bank statement, you'd need to merge the two identical transaction together, and this will still maintain the link to your receipt image.
@Mani Please push for this feature - without it makes adding transactions much harder than it needs to be.
But all merchants I’m sure buy on amazon and therefore have expenses.
The simplest accounting is to:
save an invoice with a receipt of payment next to it. That’s it
So to import all amazon invoices/eBay etc with payment transaction next to it is one of the most important pieces of information for an accountant !!!!!
All softwares cover the sales but not the expenses !
It must be something to do with making money on sales .
The only software that’s close is Greenback.
Hi @Lenny ! For some additional context, many of our customers are service-based rather than e-commerce businesses or brick-and-mortar storefronts.
When features such as this aren't available, it's not a matter of withholding them for some reason. It's usually a matter of prioritization and time; when we build something, we aim to release the best possible version of that thing, which takes a significant amount of time. We're also working on multiple things in tandem, including continuous improvements to existing functionality.
I know I'm reiterating points that have already been made in this discussion. I also totally understand that a long wait is frustrating. Our commitment is to update you as information becomes available to us. If I can assist with anything else in the meantime, please let me know.
I look forward to seeing a feature in the future. But for now I don’t know how something so important in accounting is not available. It’s like having a car with no wheels !
In need of this feature too, new receipt being able to recognize an existing transaction and match it to just add the receipt to the transaction. Just like the "Transfer" from one account to the other will find the corresponding amount and hint it to you to click, this one could be even more automatic, as the amount, date and merchant all match.
And, I would like to support the development and product management team on this one, concerning all the requests above, delays and all. Sometimes things can look so simple to add, but depending on how the software has been thought or designed it could be a lot harder to do. The reverse is also true, sometimes it looks really complicated but it's so easy to implement "under the hood". And anyway, yes it's been a year or so that this thread started and no it's not been implemented yet (merging is still a good way to do it but still not the best)... but thin about everything else that has been done in the past year! Wave is great, I love it and I support it.
Any updates on when this basic functionnality will be launched? It is really time consuming to merge transactions. So much so, that we are thinking of giving up the receipt part...
Hey @miguelMediavilla - thank you for the feedback! Unfortunately there still isn't an ETA to be offered, but I can say this is something we're actively working on at the moment, and is on the roadmap for one of our priority projects for this year. Stay tuned for further updates, I just didn't want to leave this thread wondering if this is still even being looked at!