“Even though I’d say the service is well worth paying for, it’s free.” David H. Freedman, small biz tech writer for the New York Times.What else are people saying?

Tag: security

Recent enhancements, January 24

Rob Maurin posted this in Wave features and news on Monday, January 24th, 2011.

We’re constantly tweaking, polishing and improving Wave. Most of it happens behind the scenes, but we’ll also let you know occasionally of enhancements that you may want to know more about.

This afternoon’s release addressed about 40 small improvements, with a couple of noteworthy examples:

1. Faster loading for Imported Transactions

For some customers, the Imported Transactions screen was slow to update when there were a lot of transactions involved. That experience should be better now.

2. Faster time-outs for security

Log out when finished for better security

Log out when finished for better security

Wave will now log you out after 15 minutes of inactivity. Though we want it to be as easy as possible for you to get in and out of Wave, this was an important improvement to ensure your data remains safe. Regardless of the time-out feature, we still encourage you to manually log yourself out when you know you’re finished using Wave for the moment. And of course, that goes triple if you’re using a computer that is not your own private machine.

3. Improved FreshBooks integration

We’ve improved the nightly download process, as well as the date interface where you select the range to be imported from FreshBooks into Wave.

4. HTML5 charting

We’ve changed the charts on your dashboard to HTML5. There are several advantages of the new solution:

  • You can now mouse over an expense or income range to see the exact dollar amount. Click on it to go to the expense or income details for that time period.
  • Charts now work on iPhone and iPad, so you can now use those devices to check your finances. Additional future improvements are still needed, though, before these devices can be used to categorize transactions.

As always, thanks for your continuing feedback. It will help us keep on making Wave better.

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Wave will never sell you out

Rob Maurin posted this in Wave features and news on Thursday, January 6th, 2011.

We had an interesting comment from a reader today. He was keeping his distance from Wave because he believed we were selling his data to advertisers. It’s not an unfounded fear, in the sense that there are companies that might do that. Wave, I’m proud to say, is not one of them. I can unambiguously, categorically, flag-wavingly stand up and say that. Wave will never sell you out.

And in order to be perfectly transparent, let me give a bit more detail around my answer, and tell you what Wave will and will not do.

What Wave will never do

Wave will never sell or give individual info about you to anyone. Period.

Let’s call our customer Jim. We won’t ever sell Jim’s name or email. And we sure won’t ever tell anyone that Jim has X in his bank account, or spends Y on his bills.

What Wave will do

Now, Wave does pay for the free small business accounting program somehow, right? Here’s how this works. As you’ll see, at no point does it involve giving Jim’s data to anyone.

  1. An advertiser comes to us with a savings opportunity for small businesses.
  2. The advertiser provides us with a description of the kind of business they want to offer the savings opportunity to. For instance, companies in Pennsylvania that spend more than $150 a month on their mobile phones. Let’s assume that Jim fits the description.
  3. Wave presents the savings opportunity on screen to Jim. (The opportunity is also available to any Wave customer in the geographical area who visits the Savings section.)
  4. If Jim likes the savings opportunity and clicks on the link, he exits Wave and begins interacting with the advertiser. Jim can choose to sign up for the offer or not, and in that process can choose to divulge information to the advertiser or not, just as he would always do when he buys something or deals with a vendor.

As you see, the advertiser learns nothing about Jim from Wave. Wave presents savings opportunities, but Wave passes nothing about Jim back to the advertiser.

Something else Wave might do

Let me continue with my disclosure about your data:

Apart from the example above, there’s the possibility of Wave compiling aggregate data about small businesses. For instance, we might pull together stats that say things like, “In the northeastern states, small businesses spend an average of $X on their mobile phone bills (based on data from 5,000 customers).” We might then share this information with all our customers to help them make smart business decisions, or we might use the data in other ways. But the important thing here is that Jim is never identifiable.

Let’s assume Jim was one of the 5,000 businesses whose anonymous data fed into our average.

  • We never divulge that Jim was included in the mix.
  • We never divulge what Jim or any other individual business spent.
  • We don’t even divulge that Jim is a Wave customer, or that he owns a mobile phone.

The use of data in aggregate like this is done in such a way that Jim’s details could never be deduced or inferred.

Personal and private data are very sensitive things, and our customers have every right to be cautious regarding how their data are used.

So Wave takes privacy and security very seriously, and you have my assurance that we would never give or sell your individual or personally identifiable data to anyone. Period.

-Rob

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Using Wave without connecting your bank account

Rob Maurin posted this in Small business accounting, Wave features and news on Wednesday, November 24th, 2010.

Occasionally people say to us, “Yes, Wave looks great, and I can see how it would save me a ton of time, but I just can’t bring myself to connect my bank accounts and credit cards with an online service.”

No problem.

If you go for the full online connection with Wave, you do turbo-charge your ability to get things done, but it’s not your only option. You can still use Wave to get rid of accounting headaches and find out more about your money. Here’s how:

Upload your bank statements manually

Instead of having Wave talk to your bank account and pull in your transactions, you can download bank statements yourself and bring them into Wave manually.

Advantages:

  • still wa-a-a-ay better than inputting all your transactions manually. It’s more accurate than manual entry and will save a ton of time.
  • you don’t need to share your online login credentials
  • you can use any financial institution, even if your bank isn’t one of the 10,000 that Wave supports

Disadvantages

  • you don’t get a day-by-day view of your money. Your accounting is only as up to date as the last time you uploaded a statement.
  • you have to do it yourself.

We have a super-detailed step-by-step explanation on setting up Wave for manual entry in our FAQ section.
It looks like a lot of work, but that’s only because we spelled out every last step. The whole thing should take no more than 5 minutes.

Use Wave like a traditional accounting application

If you don’t mind the manual entry, you can use Wave like you would any other accounting application. Just input your income, expenses and so on manually.

Advantages:

  • Wave is still easy to use
  • you still get all the tools most small businesses need
  • the tools are still built to make sense for non-accountants
  • you can still track your personal and business expenses in the same application
  • Wave is still free

Disadvantages:

  • manual entry takes more time
  • there’s a risk of human error when you’re putting in numbers
  • your accounting is only as up to date as your efforts

In short, Wave doesn’t rely on a bank connection the way some online dashboards and tracking tools do. Even without connecting to a financial institution, you’ll still have a much better understanding of your money than you do when you cram receipts into a shoebox. And it’s all free.

If you’re still interested in doing a full connection between your bank or credit card accounts and Wave, I can also assure you that we take security very seriously. You’ll find details about our security features in the Security section of our FAQs.

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10 Commandments of our privacy promise

Rob Maurin posted this in Wave features and news on Monday, November 15th, 2010.

If you’re one of the rare breed that actually reads the fine print of a user agreement, you’ll see that Wave is guided by “10 internationally recognized privacy principles.”
“What are they?” you might wonder.

Here goes:

  1. Accountability
    Under this principle, we pledge to be responsible for your personal information, and we put someone at Wave on the hook for this pledge. That person happens to be me. If you ever have concerns about your privacy, I’m the guy who promises to sort it out. Sending a note to privacy@waveaccounting.com comes right to my desk.
  2. Identifying Purposes
    We tell you why we need the info we’re asking for. You’ll find those details spelled out in the Privacy Policy. The short version, though, is that all the information we ask you share with us gets used to tweak the information you see in Wave, to make things easier, or to provide you with value. Some information shapes the savings opportunities you’ll soon see in Wave, but your personal details never get passed to anyone.
  3. Consent
    Wave tells you why we need the info we’re asking for, and gets your permission. We don’t find a back door to learn about you or your business. We only collect info directly from you, or from others (like your bank) that you permit us to connect with. You can also change your mind, and withdraw your consent (i.e., close your account) whenever you want.
  4. Limiting Collection
    We only ask for info that is needed to provide you with the service we’ve promised.
  5. Limiting Use, Disclosure, and Retention
    We only use the info in the way we said we would. We don’t share that info unless you explicitly know about it. If we keep any info on record, we make it clear what that is, and we give you a way to have it removed.
  6. Accuracy
    This internationally recognized principle usually deals with the accuracy of information about you that is shared with others, or that is used to make decisions about you. Since Wave never shares your info, and isn’t making any decisions about you, it doesn’t apply to our relationship with you in the normal way. Also, since you’re the one entering information into Wave, and since we never look at your private accounting unless you explicitly invite us to, most of the burden of accuracy lies with you. But to the extent that we do any number crunching, we pledge to make the information as accurate as we can.
  7. Safeguards
    This one is pretty straightforward. Your information is sensitive, so we handle it very carefully. The more sensitive, the more care. Since we’re talking about your money here, rest assured that Wave and our partners treat your info very, very, very carefully indeed.
  8. Openness
    We don’t hide details from you. If you want to know what we collect and why, for instance, we’ll tell you. No secrets or roadblocks.
  9. Individual Access
    This principle usually means that we’ll tell you what info we have about you. In the case of Wave, since we only have info that you’ve provided, you pretty well know the answer already.
  10. Challenging Compliance
    This means that if you have a concern about your privacy, we’ll listen, and we’ll answer. And if you don’t like the answer, we’ll give you something you can do about it. In practical terms: You can cancel your account and have all your data wiped out. Or you can complain to TrustE, one of the organizations that certify our privacy practices.

That’s a pretty big batch of info to absorb already. If you want more, I’ll say that:

These 10 points come from the Canadian Standards Association’s (CSA) Model Code for Privacy.
The code is modeled on the OECD fair information practices.

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What happens if my computer goes boom?

Rob Maurin posted this in Small business accounting, Wave features and news on Friday, November 5th, 2010.

When your computer suddenly and inexplicably goes kerplooie, how confident are you in your data backup system? (You do have a data backup system, don’t you?)

For most people the prognosis isn’t good. Consider these news releases:

  • only 36% of people surveyed by Acronis (a data backup company) back up once a week; two thirds claim to back up every two or three months, but considering how badly most businesses would be hurt if they lost two or three months worth of data, that’s almost like not having a backup at all. (Story at CNET news.)
  • a third of laptops will die in the first three years of operation, according to SquareTrade, a warranty provider for electronics.
    (PDF report.)

You can almost hear the wailing, can’t you?

Data security and continuity is one of the strengths we built into Wave.

First of all, our customers never need to think, “What happens to my financial information if my computer goes boom?” Your data lives on sophisticated servers in a high-security space, where nobody will ever accidentally spill a non-fat no-foam latte on it.

Second, your data is backed up hourly, so should the unthinkable happen to our servers, your data is fully intact and you can keep on running your business without missing a beat.

So go ahead and live dangerously with your laptop. (That is, live a normal life.) Plug into outlets where people might trip on your cord. Open email attachments and risk getting a virus. Let your kids play games on the computer, or chase the dog around your desk. Sit on the dock and get a bit of extra work done while the uncoordinated neighbour learns to wakeboard.

Even if your computer is just a whisper away from a silicon-zapping crash, your financial data will be secure at Wave.

(This entry originally appeared in an earlier version of the Wave Accounting blog for small business.)

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