Wave at your Fingertips: New Navigation

As we’re starting up a new year here at Wave, we’ve had a lot on our minds. 2016 was a great year:

• Our much-anticipated Invoice by Wave app for Android launched, with 4.7 stars in the app store (an iOS version already exists, and will be getting a big facelift within the next couple of days).
• We implemented speed improvements throughout Wave.
• Our invoicing functionality was essentially rebuilt, with super-customizable templates and great new workflows.
• And we deployed well over 1,000 small improvements to every part of our application, from accounting to payroll to payments.

Now we’re going to make 2017 even better, and it starts with a newer, smarter, more intuitive navigation systemthat puts all of Wave at your fingertips, makes help easier to find, and gives you an advertising-free experience too.

Navigation

As we’ve grown over the years, our system has, too. We’ve nearly doubled the products, services and features we offer, and with this growing range of offerings, it has sometimes become more difficult to find what you’re looking for.

Our new navigation offers a more intuitive approach to finding your way around.

We’ve made use of a design concept called the nested doll principle, inspired by ‘Matryoshka,’ the wooden nesting dolls. By putting similar things, like bank connections, payment information and other banking related pages into one place, those things become easier to find and use.

Previously in Wave you would need to go to different places inside the application to handle similar things: For example, your bank connection lived in the Transactions section, but bank transfers for credit card payments lived in the Payments section. In our new navigation we’ve pulled all those functions into one Banking section.

Looking at the Invoicing section, you can see more problems in the old system: You had some navigation options at the top of the page and some on the left; but you would never see the options at the top (recurring invoices, estimates, and customer statements) unless you had already clicked the left navigation first.

By creating a more expansive left navigation bar, important features are easier to find, giving you a better view of what you can accomplish in your Wave account.

Subdividing the left-hand navigation into sections is also a big improvement.

You probably don’t think about your business in terms of estimates, customer statements or bills, but rather in terms of how much money you’re bringing in (Sales) and how much money you’re spending (Purchases). Our aim was to create more efficient, organic navigation groupings that better reflect how you approach your business finances.

Ads & Help

The navigation system isn’t the only new thing in the Wave interface. You’ll notice that we removed ads from your Wave account.

You’ve trusted us with your credit card processing, payroll, and now with everyday loans to help your cash flow. By providing you these paid financial services, and more to come in the future, we can eliminate the advertising that we used to rely on for revenue.

This provides more room on the screen for you to get things done, and eliminates distractions, so we’re thrilled to be able to give you that effective immediately.

And finally, we’ve made help easier to find. Click the Help icon at the bottom of the new navigation bar to search for answers to your questions, or to open a support request without ever leaving the page you’re working on.

We’re excited to be able to bring you the tools to make this year your best year ever. These improvements to the navigation will allow us to keep rolling out exceptional features and products in 2017 and beyond! We’ve created a comprehensive FAQ highlighting all the awesome changes to help you get up and running.

Cheers to an outstanding 2016 and an even better 2017!