Wave keeps the books simple. Worklyn connects them to the business.

Free does not have to mean basic business software

Wave has one of the strongest arguments in this category: it offers real accounting and invoicing functionality without requiring a subscription. If that is all you need, Wave is difficult to argue against.

Worklyn's free plan solves a different problem. It gives you somewhere to run the work itself:

• clients
• proposals
• contracts
• projects
• time
• invoices

So the question is not which product is free. It is what you need the free product to do.

If you need basic books and invoices, Wave may be enough. If you need somewhere to actually run a client business, Worklyn covers a different surface.

Before there is an invoice, there is a business

Accounting software often meets the work when money becomes involved. But the story started earlier.

• A client got in touch.
• You prepared a proposal.
• You agreed on the scope.
• A contract was signed.
• The work became a project.
• Hours were spent delivering it.
• Only then was there something to invoice.

Worklyn keeps those stages connected, and it does not stop when the invoice is sent: invoice, payment, reconciliation and margin belong to the same business story.

A customer record is not the whole client relationship

Wave keeps customer information around invoices and payments. That makes sense for an accounting and invoicing product.

Worklyn treats the client as a larger business context. Open a client and the relationship can include proposals, contracts, projects, files, tracked time, invoices, payments, expenses, transactions and financial history.

That lets you see more than how much they paid. You can also see:

• What are we doing for them?
• What did we agree to?
• What is still in progress?
• What have we spent?
• What remains unpaid?
• Was the work actually worth it?

Projects change what the numbers mean

A €3,000 invoice tells you revenue. It does not tell you whether the project was profitable. Maybe it took 15 hours. Maybe it took 60. Maybe there were €700 of project expenses. Maybe half of the invoice is still unpaid.

Worklyn keeps operational and financial information around the same project. Tracked time becomes part of the cost. Expenses become part of the cost. Invoices become expected revenue. Payments become actual money received.

The project becomes more than a task list. It becomes a financial unit of the business.

Both products understand transactions

Wave supports bank transactions, categorization and reconciliation. Its Pro plan adds automated transaction imports and categorization, while Starter users can work with transactions manually.

Worklyn also works with bank transactions. But reconciliation is not the end goal. The useful question is what the transaction is connected to.

• An incoming transaction can settle an invoice.
• The invoice can belong to a project.
• The project belongs to a client.
• An outgoing transaction can become an expense, carrying a receipt and belonging to that same project.

Worklyn keeps the operational explanation around the movement of money.

Receipts should remember why the money was spent

Wave offers receipt capture and can use receipt data to create bookkeeping records. Worklyn approaches the receipt from the business-context side.

The important information is not only the vendor, the date and the amount. It is also:

• What was this for?
• Which project did it belong to?
• Which transaction paid for it?
• Did it affect the margin on client work?

That context is useful today and makes pre-accounting easier later.

Running the work

Worklyn is not built around the moment money enters the books. It covers what happened before it, from client to proposal to contract to project to time, and what happens afterward, from invoice to payment to transaction to margin.

The financial side is part of the operational workflow rather than a separate destination.

Managing projects

If your income comes from client projects, the project itself contains important financial information:

• How much did you quote?
• How much time did it take?
• What did you spend?
• What have you invoiced?
• What has actually been paid?
• What margin remains?

Worklyn keeps those questions close to the work.

Working beyond the US and Canada

Wave is currently available for new businesses located in the United States and Canada. Its support documentation says businesses outside those countries can no longer create a standard new Wave business, and functionality for existing international users has also been reduced.

Worklyn is designed for businesses operating across multiple markets and currencies. For independent professionals in Europe or the UK, that alone creates a very different fit.

Accounting and pre-accounting are not the same thing

Wave helps you keep books. Worklyn helps keep the information that eventually reaches the books organized.

During the month, the question is usually not which general ledger account something belongs to. It is:

• What was this payment for?
• Which invoice did it settle?
• Where is the receipt?
• Which client caused this expense?
• Which project does it belong to?
• Did that project actually make money?

Those are context questions. Worklyn is built to answer them while the business is happening.