Open source alternatives (any OS)

[Mike]

I still haven't gotten Linux up again. But hey, we've barely begun replacing HARDWARE (house fire Nov 6th, one bedroom has been finished so we were able to send that &((^%% trailer back, but there's little room inside the house yet).

Here's my question.

Accounting software? Anything exist that is ready for the real world among the open source alternatives? Anybody familiar with using any of these. Actually, I might find something only partially ready OK since being able to do on-line banking unimportant (trivial volume so hand matching easy).

I am treasurer of a 501(3) and yes, lost that computer/software too. Insurance will be coming through but we don't HAVE to replace the QuickBooks Pro (Non-profit Edition -- (suuposedly) the version I had before didn't do ANY of the special things specific to non-profits! The new edition supposedly does acknowledgement letter but does it segregate "qualified" from "non-qualified" donors?)

It isn't TERRIBLE keeping books by hand the old fashioned way given that the total volume of entries is <<100/month (and sometimes <10/month). I can even use OO Calc spreadsheets instead of paper. So all I miss is something that would do automatic POSTING. Over half my errors are posting errors!

PS -- what woud be great would be some index of open software BY FUNCTION (what does it do?)

PSS --- keep your backups somewhere safe! Not on high shelves in the same building (all melted). The drives on the stand alone word processing machine were recoverable. The drives on our personal main machine -- well it was running at the time of the fire, no luck. The 501(c)3's machine didn't stand a chance (in the room where the fire was, a puddle of plastic).

[bluesdog]

The OSSwin business section (http://osswin.sourceforge.net/#business_software) may have something for you

[AndreL]

Here's my question.

Accounting software? Anything exist that is ready for the real world among the open source alternatives? Anybody familiar with using any of these. Actually, I might find something only partially ready OK since being able to do on-line banking unimportant (trivial volume so hand matching easy). Have you looked at "gnucash"?
Gnucash can track finances in multiple accounts, keeping running
and reconciled balances. It has an X based graphical user interface, double entry, a hierarchy of accounts, expense accounts (categories), and can import Quicken QIF files and OFX files.Or "grisbi"?
Grisbi is a personnal accounting program. Grisbi can manage multiple
accounts, currencies and users. It manages third party, expenditure
and receipt categories, as well as budgetary lines, financial years,
and other informations that makes it adapted for both personal
and associative accounting.

Grisbi can import accounts from QIF, OFX and Gnucash files. It can
prints reports using LaTeX or export them via HTML. PS -- what woud be great would be some index of open software BY FUNCTION (what does it do?)
If you use "synaptic" and clic on the "sections" button... you'll have that!

Hope this helps.
.

[danieldk]

Although I don't have any first-hand experiences, I have heard some fairly positive comments about GNUCash since they moved to GTK2+.

[Mike]

"Although I don't have any first-hand experiences, I have heard some fairly positive comments about GNUCash since they moved to GTK2+."

That's exactly the sort of information I needed, what might be working adequately now although not a couple years ago (last time I looked at the question).

I will of course have to consider what would be usable in any environment (ugh, Windows) because I can't constrain who might be Treasurer in the future. I'm probably the only person in the chapter who could use a 'nix only application.

BTW --- a "selling point" for open software. It's more than just myself pushing this on the board. One thing that may help us is the poor comaptibility between versions of MS crap. We keep breeding records over many years in xls spreadsheets, and one of the problems is data entered with different verson of MS EXCEL over the course of time. Well guess what. OO Calc manages to handle that just fine. Instead of gobbly gook appearing in some column, manages to recognize that data was from a different version of EXCEL and you end up with everything in the same version format after you save! So I'll probably end up giving out lots of copies of OO (though actually only the people accepting the data need to be able to convert it).

[Mike]

Just begun checking out the leads, and I can see that GnuCash 2.2.0 stable just relased yesterday! And available for Windows too (I explained why that is an unfortunately necessary consideration). Now all I need to do is find a source on CD as at the house I can rarely get over 28.8 kbaud. Well worst come to worst, I do know some custom burn services and even my ISP would do it if I asked.

The other leads not so useful. Grisbi says it doesn't do (standard) "double entry" as required for legal purposes. And the category "any sort of business software" isn't what I meant. My bad for not making it clear what the problem is when I bemoaned lack of a useful index (it is exactly the "broadness" of a category like "business" that is the problem).

Anyway -- I'll have to check GnuCash 2.2.0 out.

[danieldk]

Mike, let us know if we can help out. I think many of us with a broadband connection would be happy to burn stuff you need on CD and mail it.

[lisi]

Mike, let us know if we can help out. I think many of us with a broadband connection would be happy to burn stuff you need on CD and mail it.

Hear, hear!

Lisi

[bluesdog]

SQL-Ledger ERP (http://www.sql-ledger.org/) also looks interesting, although setup looks a bit more compicated, as it requires a server and sql database...

Both gnucash and sql-ledger are available via apt, btw :)

[Mike]

Thanks for the offer, but "on-disk" does this ridiculously cheaply. Actually below the accepted "customery" fee a creator of free software is entitled to ask for "a copy on standard medium" (remember, there is no obligation to make available downloads, though anybody can do so if they wish).

So in a couple days I can begin my evaluation.

Please understand that this didn't become "ripe" till the just released GnuCash 2.2.0 stable. There wass no point in my evaluating an application however good it might be if it wasn't platform independent, not available for the more commonly used operating systems (not a question of whether I could run it under Linux/BSD but whether whoever took over as Treasurer could run it under the operating system they normally used).