Summary and recommendation
Wave user management can be run manually, but complexity usually increases with role models, licensing gates, and offboarding dependencies. This guide gives the exact mechanics and where automation has the biggest impact.
Wave uses a coarse role-based permission model with three predefined collaborator roles: Owner, Editor, and Viewer.
There are no custom roles, no field-level controls, and no granular permission sets on any plan.
Because Wave has no SCIM or directory sync, every app in your provisioning workflow that touches Wave requires independent, manual lifecycle management.
Collaborator seats are unlimited and carry no per-seat charge on either the Free or Pro plan.
Quick facts
| Admin console path | Settings > Collaborators (within a specific Wave business) |
| Admin console URL | Official docs |
| SCIM available | No |
| SCIM tier required | Free / Pro |
| SSO prerequisite | Yes |
User types and roles
| Role | Permissions | Cannot do | Plan required | Seat cost | Watch out for |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Owner | Full access to all features of the Wave business including billing, settings, and all financial data. | Free (all plans) | No per-seat cost | Each Wave business has exactly one owner; ownership cannot be transferred through the UI according to community reports. | |
| Editor | Can view and edit financial data, invoices, transactions, and reports. Cannot manage billing or account settings. | Cannot manage billing, cannot add or remove other collaborators, cannot access payroll (payroll access is separate). | Free (all plans) | No per-seat cost | Collaborator role granularity is limited; Wave does not offer custom permission sets beyond the predefined roles. |
| Viewer | Read-only access to financial data and reports. | Cannot create, edit, or delete any records. | Free (all plans) | No per-seat cost |
Permission model
- Model type: role-based
- Description: Wave uses a simple role-based model with a small set of predefined collaborator roles (Owner, Editor, Viewer). No custom roles or granular permission sets are available.
- Custom roles: No
- Custom roles plan: Not documented
- Granularity: Coarse - limited to a handful of predefined roles with no field-level or module-level permission controls.
How to add users
- Log in to Wave at my.waveapps.com and select the relevant business.
- Navigate to Settings in the left sidebar.
- Select 'Collaborators'.
- Click 'Invite a collaborator'.
- Enter the collaborator's email address.
- Select the appropriate role (Editor or Viewer).
- Click 'Send Invitation'.
- The invitee receives an email and must accept the invitation to gain access.
Required fields: Email address, Role selection
Watch out for:
- The invitee must have or create a Wave account to accept the invitation.
- Collaborator access is per-business; a user must be invited separately to each Wave business they need to access.
- Payroll access is managed separately from general collaborator roles and may require additional setup.
| Bulk option | Availability | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| CSV import | No | Not documented |
| Domain whitelisting | No | Automatic domain-based user add |
| IdP provisioning | No | Not documented |
How to remove or deactivate users
- Can delete users: Unknown
- Delete/deactivate behavior: Official Wave documentation describes removing a collaborator from a business, which revokes their access. Whether this constitutes a permanent deletion of the collaborator record or a deactivation is not explicitly documented in available official sources.
- Log in to Wave at my.waveapps.com and select the relevant business.
- Navigate to Settings in the left sidebar.
- Select 'Collaborators'.
- Locate the collaborator to remove.
- Click the remove/delete option next to their name.
- Confirm the removal.
| Data impact | Behavior |
|---|---|
| Owned records | Transactions, invoices, and other records created by the collaborator remain in the business account after removal. |
| Shared content | Not documented |
| Integrations | Not documented |
| License freed | Wave does not charge per collaborator seat, so removing a collaborator does not affect billing. |
Watch out for:
- Removing a collaborator only removes their access to that specific business; their Wave account itself is not affected.
- Official documentation does not describe a way to restore a removed collaborator other than re-inviting them.
License and seat management
| Seat type | Includes | Cost |
|---|---|---|
| Collaborator seat | Access to a Wave business as Editor or Viewer; unlimited collaborators allowed. | $0 - no per-seat charge on any plan. |
| Pro plan subscription | Bank transaction automation, receipt scanning, and other Pro features for the business owner/account. | $16/month billed annually or $19/month billed monthly (as of available pricing data). |
- Where to check usage: Settings > Collaborators within each Wave business to view current collaborators.
- How to identify unused seats: No built-in last-login or activity reporting for collaborators is documented in official sources. Admins must manually review the collaborator list.
- Billing notes: Wave does not charge per collaborator seat. Billing is based on the business plan (Free or Pro) and optional add-ons such as Payroll and payment processing fees. Unlimited collaborators are available on all plans.
The cost of manual management
Collaborator access is scoped per business entity, so a user who needs access to multiple Wave businesses must be invited separately to each one. There is no last-login or activity audit trail documented in official sources, which means identifying stale accounts requires manually reviewing the collaborator list inside every business.
There is no bulk import or IdP provisioning path to reduce this overhead.
What IT admins are saying
Community evidence is not specific enough to quote or summarize yet for this app.
The decision
Wave is purpose-built for small businesses under $100K revenue with fewer than ten employees, and its permission model reflects that scope. Every app or workflow that depends on consistent, auditable access control will hit hard limits quickly given the absence of custom roles, audit logs, and automated provisioning.
If your organization manages multiple Wave business entities or requires offboarding guarantees, the manual overhead compounds with headcount.
Bottom line
Wave's collaborator model is functional for small, stable teams but creates meaningful operational drag at any scale involving multiple business entities, frequent role changes, or compliance-driven access reviews.
The absence of SCIM, audit trails, and custom roles means every provisioning and deprovisioning action is a manual, per-business task with no programmatic fallback.
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