Wave is a free cloud accounting and invoicing app that can collect card payments directly on an invoice. BulkyGen is an offline Windows app that turns a spreadsheet of clients into a batch of PDF invoices in one run, with no payment collection built in. If you want customers to pay online through the invoice itself, Wave does that and BulkyGen doesn't — read on for where each one actually fits.
What Wave is for
Wave bundles free invoicing with basic accounting: track income and expenses, send invoices one at a time or on a schedule, and let clients pay by card or bank transfer straight from the invoice. It's cloud-based and free for the core invoicing and accounting features, with Wave taking a cut of payments processed through it.
What BulkyGen is for
BulkyGen isn't an accounting tool and doesn't process payments. It takes a spreadsheet — your existing client list and line items — and produces a folder of finished, branded PDF invoices in one run, entirely on your computer. You still collect payment however you already do (bank transfer, cash, a separate payment link); BulkyGen's job stops at "here are your invoices."
Where Wave genuinely wins
- Online payment collection. A client can pay a Wave invoice by card immediately, from the invoice itself.
- Built-in accounting. Income, expenses, and basic reports live in the same product.
- Free at the core. No licence fee for standard invoicing and accounting — Wave earns from payment processing instead.
- Cloud access. Usable from any device, not tied to one Windows PC.
Where BulkyGen genuinely wins
- Bulk from a spreadsheet in one run. Wave supports importing data, but BulkyGen is built specifically around spreadsheet-in, batch-of-PDFs-out, with automatic column matching for whatever headers your export already uses.
- Fully offline. Nothing about your client list, line items, or totals touches a server — the whole run happens locally.
- No payment-processing cut. Since BulkyGen doesn't handle payment collection, there's nothing taken from what your clients pay you.
- A one-time licence option. Pay once for a lifetime licence instead of an ongoing relationship with a payments-funded free product.
Where BulkyGen doesn't win
Stated plainly:
- No online payment collection at all — BulkyGen produces the PDF; getting paid is on you.
- No accounting, expense tracking, or reporting features.
- No recurring/scheduled invoices — every batch is something you run yourself.
- Windows only, and local to one machine per device slot on your licence (see device limits on pricing).
Pricing, honestly
Wave's current fee structure for payment processing and any paid add-ons are [[VERIFY: Wave's current payment-processing fees]] — check Wave directly, since payment-processing rates in particular change more often than most software pricing.
BulkyGen: free forever for up to 7 invoices a day, a 7-day bulk trial, then $9/month, $90/year, or $249 once for a lifetime licence with no per-payment fee of any kind, since it doesn't process payments — see pricing.
Which one should you use?
If you want clients to pay by card directly from the invoice, or you want invoicing and basic bookkeeping in one place, Wave covers that and BulkyGen doesn't. If you already collect payment your own way and just want the actual PDFs generated fast from a spreadsheet without a payments middleman, a first bulk run takes a few minutes to set up.