We show that in theories in which supersymmetry breaking is communicated by renormalizable perturbative interactions, it is possible to extract the soft terms for the observable fields from wave-function renormalization. Therefore all the information about soft terms can be obtained from anomalous dimensions and beta functions, with no need tc, further compute any Feynman diagram. This method greatly simplifies calculations which are rather involved if performed in terms of component fields, For illustrative purposes we reproduce known results of theories with gauge-mediated supersymmetry breaking. We then use our method to obtain new results of phenomenological importance. We calculate the next-to-leading correction to the Higgs mass parameters, the two-loop soft terms induced by messenger-matter superpotential couplings, and the soft terms generated by messengers belonging to vector supermultiplets. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science B.V.