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Accounting Systems on Linux?
cuebei asks: "OK, Slashdotters -
let's talk accounting systems for small-mid sized businesses. With
the popularity of Linux servers running various e-business services
such as web, directory, mail, commerce, etc, it only makes sense for
Linux to become a more mainstream platform in the business
world. One of the areas where I can foresee Linux being used
extensively is in the area of accounting. Linux is both reliable and
scalable, two key requirements for any accounting package. So who uses
Linux for HR/Accounting? What options are out there? Open-source or
commercial? If you were starting your own business and standardized
on Linux as a platform, what accounting package would you use and why?"
I think there is a piece of software called "GNUCash" or something. You may want to check it out.
Everything is mainstream now.
Open source accounting/HR software is a great idea. Not only could your company get useful software for next to nothing (having to pay someone to modify it for their company would be the cost), but if they wanted to expand it in the future to include other areas of interest, they could just modify their code to do it, preferebly paying the same person to code in a new part of it. The only problems I would see with it would be trying to train the staff on its use.
Job? I don't have time to get a job! Who will sit around and bitch about being broke and unemployed then?
GPL'd, web-based, double entry accounting system
for businesses. Full internationalization support
for several languages, currencies and chart of
accounts, written in Perl. Good stuff.
Webpage here
GNUCash is *not* a business accounting system.
It is a *personal* accounting system.
Try Google instead of wasting bandwith on
Slashdot.
Thanks and have a nice day.
In my experience (manufacturing, specifcially chemcial manufacturing), the accounting software is almost irrelevant. The trick is finding a suitable manufacturing package and then you just use whatever accounting package that works with it.
That being said I'd be ecstatic if there was good process manufacturing software available for Linux! But the gamut of features would be rather daunting- solid flexible modules for inventory with lot tracking, formulations, hazmat and environmental reporting as well as MSDS and labelling, production BOM, scheduling, heck throw in HR...and of course the mentioned accounting package.
Heh, give me all of this and our company switches to Linux!
Requirements are not only that they are reliable and stable. That doesn't even begin to touch it.
How about a capable accounting system and billing package rolled into one capable of being deployed TODAY?
RH's Interchange is a good start, but still isn't enough to compete with the big boys.
It might just be me, but in my former experience being a SysAdmin for several junior oil companies, one thing really stood out in the IT and infrastructure areas: These people were extra conservative.
Whereas the exploration group was running on really nice (for the time) new SGI machines, the production group was being more reserved with Sparc/SUN solutions and the accounting department was positively in the dark ages with an old AS/400 mainframe. It was considered quite radical when they migrated to a bunch of AIX boxes and they were terrified to do it.
Don't misunderstand me, I'd love to see the adoption of linux and open-source solutions in this arena, but I feel that this is likely an area that will meet with substantial resistance.
Lacking any traditional desktop software packages, you could always use web-based commercial products like QuickBooks for the Web or Oracle Small Business Suite.
-Entropy [think outside the system]
Our company uses BillMax, but my personal view is that the system was cobbled together without much thought on scalability and is missing a lot of features. We are currently porting the system over to an in-house PHP application.
I suggest staying away from BillMax unless you really want to adapt your company to it instead of the other way around (as it should be)
Anonymous for a reason.
Slightly off topic (maybe) but I have an associate who is over at CAI. His job is director of Professional Services. They have a pretty substancial HR package which is being ported over to linux currently.... Not sure what their plans are for accounting, but HR is a start!!!!
If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice. RUSH
An "accounting" package is not enough these days. Lets face it, developing relationships with customers is what it's all about. Which means that getting information in and out of your systems in the quickest possible manner is what will win in the face of competition. Enterprise Resource Planning systems from the likes of SAP and Oracle are what give big business the edge. Sure you don't have $250K to spend on solutions from these guys but Appgen, Compiere, and GNU Enterprise are bringing these kind of systems to the masses. The most promising at the moment seems to be Compiere but it does require some up-front costs - (nothing a small business could'nt handle if they were planning on a Windows deployment anyway). Check them out!
He who knows not what his nose knows......
I know that there are several accounting packages out there that support Linux (Computron being one) but they are mostly expensive.
The one problem with an open-source accounting package is that accounting standards are constantly changing and the software would often have to be changed to reflect new standards. Anyone working on such a project would have to be well-versed in each of the new SFAS (Statements of Financial Accounting Standards) as they come out. That's not a fun project for a CPA let alone a layperson.
What about designing or paying someone to create a MySQL or Postgres database and some client client software? I'm not 100% sure but I'd guess accounting software is just a low end database at it's heart.
But of course SAP R/3 is available. Cheap too!
Ok, so who is going to talk our accountants (who deal with 100 other companies as well) into installing Linux so they can do our quarterlies and taxes?
Linux is for lamers.
Try Appgen. It runs on Linux and seems to work well. I took a programming course in it and hated it myself. It was very old fahsioned. But then I am a programmer not an account it. You will have to pay for it but you can get the source.
Enter the financial stat sheets for a few Open Source companies. If your accounting software says "fucked company," things are working just fine. If the software says "paradigm shift, unlimited upside potential," chances are you bought the accounting software from an Open Source supplier. format and start over.
Appgen makes MyBooks, which is very similar to quickbooks, and can be purchased with development modules. This is made by the same people who do Moneydance.
$99 for 5 users -- I have a detailed list of questions about this product submitted to Appgen, which I am currently evaluating as a possible recommendation for clients. So far, the demo looks good.
www.appgen.com
mySAP has been running on ;-).
Linux for quite some time now.
But perhaps that's nothing for small businesses
-- www.linux-laser.org - Open Source Laser Show Software for Linux
Nathan.
People who quote themselves bug the crap out of me -- Me.
Now, before you have a fit... There is NOT much for choice for small to medium sized businesses for Linux. Unless it is being used for a file/print server or internet services, there isn't shit. Most small busineses can not or choose not to spend the money to hire competent help or a qualified Linux professional. I have seen installations done by the usual techie from the local university and wouldn't wish that on anyone, much less a small business. All that succeeds in doing is making the client think Linux is shit. It is not when implemented considering its' limitations and done well. As far as apps are concerned - find me a small business that will pay for the Oracles and SAPs that are around. None. They are thrifty and usually haven't grown enought to understand that the more they invest in their computer systems, the better the rewards.
I work for a small software company that has a windows based accounting package specificaly written for the hospitality industry. We have several linux server installations and have found them to be faster and more stable than the windows equivilant. We use Progress RDBMS as our backend and have had great results. With a samba share setup it looks the same to our support as well as our customers as a NT installation and it saves the customers a great deal on the up front costs. I am pushing to move towards a server appliance that can just be snapped onto a network but we are not there yet mainly due to the fact that we are unsure as of yet if the market would be interested.
One very very important thing that commercial vendors "get" is the fact that a user of such a package is probably NOT accountant, and needs extensive hand-holding when dealing with accounting matters which often have legal implications.
Commercial packages understand this. QB will offer to set up a chart of accounts based on 'interview'. QB will warn you if you are entering things that don't make sense from accounting standpoint.
Writing a ledger app is very easy. Writing an easy-to-use app which provides assistance at every step of the way is not.
This is probably the only case where I think that hand-holding is essential for a product, and why QB is still the only commercial software I use now.
Actually, now that I have acquired more familiarity with accounting concepts, I may migrate to SQL-Ledger, however, these are things that matter for me:
a) Payroll. Its a real pain to compute all the various taxes by hand. Its a real pain to track all changes to tax law for your state to be in full compliance. Now, if sql-ledger guys wanted to do payroll, they'd need to track law changes across all 50 states. Somehow, I don't think it'll ever happen.
b) Compliance (which relates to payroll). Certain reports (941,W2,940, state forms,etc) have to be _right_. Most of them are payroll-tax-related. The penalties are severe and "your honour/officer, my linux software made a mistake" does not cut it.
As I wrote on k5 in October:
Armor Systems' Advantage and Premiere, both fine accounting packages (I gather -- I don't use them) both run on Unix. I don't know anything about their feature set, or even the difference between the two, but my girlfriend's mother (an accountant) runs them on her network, though on DOS, and she likes 'em fine. I've had to paw through the manual on a number of occasions when figuring out the whole multi-user setup, and there are constant references to making it run properly under Windows/DOS, Novell and Unix. Presumably it would be possible to get it to run under Linux.
-Waldo Jaquith
If you were starting your own business and standardized on Linux as a platform, what accounting package would you use and why?
You want my honest opinion? (And I know I'm going to get flamed for saying this.) I wouldn't use Linux at all.
Don't get me wrong--I'm not anti-Linux by any means. Linux remains an important learning tool for CompSci students and others interested in learning about hacking together an operation system from scratch. But I can't recommend Linux for business use.
Here's my experience. I run a fairly successful business with a mid-sized accounting department. My employees have years of experience with Windows and Windows-based accounting software. It would simply not make sense to re-train them to use Linux.
The same goes for someone starting a business. Don't ignore basic business sense. There are more potential employees out there who are already trained with Windows. If you do decide to go with Linux, whether out of short-sighted greed or out of the desire to support some vaguely defined set of principles, prepare to spend righteously on your training budget. Linux still has a long ways to go, as far as usability.
--
I support a US first strike
expr does the job for me just fine ;)
There are a couple of open source apps on slashdot, and Linux already runs commercial db products such as those based on Oracle,DB2 or Progress. The problem for an open source project is that every country has different mandatory and/or statutory accounting rules that need to be followed, so in order to gain the cross-national critical mass that an open source accounting project would need, it would have to recruit experienced accountancy/ERP/CRM programmers from a multitude of different countries, with a project leader from each country assuring that his/her countries requirements are not ignored. This could be the biggest sourceforge project of all time!
my company is slowly moving our *nix based accounting system to linux. our accounting system is very flexible, however we specialize in account for hardware stores, lumber yards, and construction. although our software runs well under linux we have met considerable resistance from our customer base. we often get customers who would prefer paying for SCO Openserver than use a "free os", after all "how good could it be if it is free". we hope as more of our customers begin to us linux for their mission critical accounting, they will realize that linux provides a robust platform for small to medium sized business. so far its been an uphill battle.
http://www.abcsinc.com
Seems like HR / Accounting systems are basically database, and as part of the package the vendor sends along some management clients. The clients are not the core technology, and are probably easilly ported and platform independent of the server.
For the database you have the standard choices, (Oracle, DB2, some others). The clients are kind of independent of the server.
I am not answering the question, I am just speculating that there is a bit more to the choice than which vendor. If you are buying an HRIS or accounting system, and your definition of mid-sized company and my definition of mid-sized company mesh, than I would imagine that the platform will not be a big deal. This is not consumer software, this is server software, and my impression is that the playing field is a bit more level.
Now as for an open source alternative, that looks like a shame. A quick search does not turn up much for HRIS projects that are open sourced. Does not seem like such a tough task to tackle. Right -- lets just whip up a MySQL object model, store information about employees and have a PHP interface and XML and java [catching my breath]. These systems tend to be pretty complex, fairly specific (to the business processes that they fit in place with). Also, there are all kinds of legalities that go along with HR and accounting for mid-sized businesses.
So basically my answer is: PeopleSoft or Ceridian or IBM (just three quickies off the top of my head) would probably love to sell you a Linux HRIS. Maybe I am wrong, but this sort of thing was probably migrated to Windows from Unix back in the day, not the other way around. The key word above is sell.
I can not wait to see what Open Source solutions turn up here, but it is a difficult problem to solve, an my expectations are low.
Troll Like a Champion Today
DISCLAIMER: I'm not trying to sell this program, just sharing info on a product I am currently working with.
,"Linux".
I've been setting up Appgen's beancounter software. Can't say much about it, because I'm currently installing, importing files, and configuring it (I'm working on a client/server version), but the client can run on Win**, Mac, Linux, and Unix (*BSD, Solaris, SCO. YMMV). The server program runs on *nix (even on things like AIX, RS/6000, AT&T, and NCR) and NT/2000. If you want to run it just on one workstation, you can do that too. The Linux server program is not the prettiest thing (vt100 based), but it takes up very little of your precious resources. The Linux client program for KDE and Gnome is *VERY* nice looking and easy to work with (though I don't know squat about accounting). It could convince people that Linux might just have a place on a non-tech's desktop. I was impressed and I'm not very easily impressed.
It's not open source in the GNU sense, but it does come with the full sources and a C tool kit. I didn't have to sign an NDA, so make of it what you will.
Check out http://www.appgen.com. They're a *very* Linux friendly company and actually have tech support that doesn't freak out when you say
btw, It's not nearly as expensive as some beancounter programs I've seen out there.
/*drunk.. fix later*/
If you were starting your own business and standardized on Linux as a platform, what accounting package would you use and why?
Whatever the accountant/CFO/treasurer was most familiar with. The cost of the manpower is going to greatly exceed the cost of the software, in this instance.
ok then your [sic] infringing on my copyright! Could you as [sic] me next time before STEALING my comments for your own?
Ontopic: how about instead, he uses Linux for the server. You can uptime, scalability, reliability, lower memory footprint, etc.
Linux is a great teaching tool, but not my first recommendation for business use, even as far as servers go. (Also, I don't think any knowledgeable person has accused Linux of having excellent scalability.)
Depending on price and application considerations, Solaris, Win2k, or *BSD would all beat out Linux. I'd recommend Win2k for servers if you can't afford the type of Admin talent needed to properly maintain a *nix box; Solaris if you need the best, and are willing to pay; *BSD, otherwise.
we use open systems (osas.com - i think)
they certify for redhat, we use suse
Oracle's suite of financial, ERP, and CRM applications are available on Linux.
sql-ledger is written in perl and works synergistically with open source successes such as postgresql and apache to provide an excellent double entry accounting package for multiple users and multiple companies. It is currently translated into 17 different languages and being actively developed at this time. It's worth the effort to look into it now because of a soon-to-come big leap in functionality on the release of version 1.8. Setting up is not complicated and for the purposes of testing (or running a private installation) you can use Doug Neal's very capable dnhttpd webserver written in perl (included in the distribution tarball). Kudos to Dieter Simader, the main developer from Canada and a host of other dedicated developers throughout the world. Great work guys!
I've been using Oracle Small Business for the last year or so to manage the books for my business. It's reasonable to subscribe to, is completely web based, and includes Quickbooks/Peachtree import/export facilities.
I have always used Quickbooks. Since I sure they are already doing a OS-X port maybe a Linux port can be wrangled out of them.
There is an online quickbooks, god only knows how it works on browsers other than IE and I think there is a hefty monthly fee.
Accounting programs are certainly killer-apps for computers, like office suites. Thankfully Microsoft doesn't own this segment so maybe there is hope for Linux inroads.
Since Oracle's database runs on Linux perhaps Financials will run on Linux too? Does anyone know? It's a bit of an academic point really because the purchase price and maintenance cost of the software usually dawfs the hardware cost people generally go with the common hardware / software platform (in Perth here it seems to be Sun / Solaris or IBM / AIX). No one wants to be bleeding edge with their mission critical corporate data. Even in our own company's office, which is entirely Linux, we have to keep an old windows box on the network just to run MYOB. Sad really.
Brett.
"Don't forget the prunes." L. Francis Herreshoff
NOLA (http://nola.noguska.com/) is a GPL'd web based business accounting/inventory system built on PHP and MySQL, and should support other db's with only minor porting.
Disclaimer: I work for them.
We're an small company making extensive use of open source software and recently settled (after an exhaustive morning searching freshmeat) on NOLA by Noguska Software.
It's Apache/PHP/MySQL-based and a very comprehensive solution (according to our normally-Windows-using CFO). It has a simple interface, and covers accounting, inventory, point of sale, contact management, billing, puchasing, and reporting.
It's also completely GPL'ed. Check it out - it rocks!
You know they call 'em fingers but I've never seen 'em fing. Oh, there they go.
I'm not a programmer but I've acted as an accountant for a small organization.
Qbooks can be great for a *really* small company. It does a bunch of things automatically, ie: write paychecks, and w-2's. (A small business that has less than 10 people on the payroll doesn't need one person dedicated solely to producing payroll.) The tax wizards need to be updated, so KBooks or any other financial software for small companies would need to produce patches whenever tax law changes.
Another key feature you'd definitely want to include in KBooks, would be the "export to a spreadsheet" option. You could improve on the QBooks/Excel relationship by allowing the spreadsheets to be automatically updated from KBooks.
Good luck!
Linux Canada makes an accounting package and a POS package.
The one thing I still look for in a accounting package is the ability to do batch imports into the journals like AccPac (at least the dos version).
---- If only I could be respected without having to be respectable.
We use accounting software from American Business Systems and have for many years. We're pretty happy with it, though it is all text based.
We used it first under Interactive, and now under Solaris, but it runs under Linux too, or any platform that Acucobol supports.
I use Vmware to run QuckBooks for my
business and Quicken for my personal stuff.
They are in two different VMs and it runs
great. No complaints. I run them on a 2x400 MHz
with 256 MB RAM. I run them with Win98 and
using suspend mode makes the startup and
shutdown time insignificant (relatively).
So when Quicken/QuickBooks decides to crash
the OS. I just restart the VM.
I also do backups on the Linux drive using SAMBA
and am able to do unified backup on the Linux
system only. If I wipe stuff out I reinstall vmware
win98 and Quicken/Quickbooks, and then use
the last backup files. Works great. It is also
a small and portable way to move to a new
system when I can afford one.
Z
When we started our ISP seven years ago we almost died in the first few months because we couldn't get the bills out -- off the shelf software was not setup to handle recurring billing models.
What we ended up doing was writting a custom web-based billing system that is now in its third iteration all in PERL and Postgresql
Its like George Clason extolled through his protagonist "Arkad" in the Richest Man in Babylon -- pay yourself
If you cannot bill your clients accurately and timely, you cannot make payroll
Look at how McLeodUSA is dying a horrible (and well deserved) nasty death -- ever since they took over Ovation here locally in the Twin Cities, they have yet to get a single invoice correct -- its so bad we had to switch to another provider in order to get their attention.
The Last impression is often a lasting impression -- your billing is an almost free marketing channel to your clients
Make it work for you
Old age and treachery almost always overcome youth and skill.
Just some feedback on the commercial front. I run a linux based server farm with win clients at work. Our accounting department, prior to me working there, chose mas90 which runs off an nt server in a multi-user environment. When I tried to serve mas90 off a linux samba server, mas90 choked. Apparently it will not run off Samba share without corrupting the data (this according to our MAS90 consultant). I ended up putting it on our head accountants win2k workstation and having all the other accounting people access her win2k share p2p. If anyone has worked around this problem, please let me know :D
I spent a lot of time last year looking for open source accounting software. I'm not happy about it, but I would not recommend open source enterprise accounting to anyone who wants to keep their job/business.
Cost: Yes, commercial accounting systems are incredibly expensive. Unfortunately, fucking up your financials is far, far more expensive than investing money in good, supported software. Call a few lawyers and accountings who do auditing and ask for quotes on hourly rates if you're not sure. Bad accounting will ruin a business very, very quickly.
Reliability: I believe in the basic cathedral/bazaar theory, but there just aren't enough people writing and using open source enterprise accounting packages for the theory to apply. Unless there are tens of thousands of users, I have to assume that there are bugs in the system and I don't know where they are. See costs, above.
Personnel: if I need to hire someone from a temp agency to sit at a workstation and do AR for a few days, I don't want to spend half the time I'm paying an outrageous fee training them on an obscure system or how to use their damn operating system. If I need to have someone set up the system (as I am not an accountant), and pay truly outrageous amounts for their time, I sure don't want to spend thousands of dollars getting them familiarized with the system. Especially when they will still be punting on decisions that can affect the system years later.
Everything that I've said isn't true if there's an open source solution that becomes widely used...but accounting is really the last area of your business where you want to be on the bleeding edge of software development. In other areas, the bleeding edge might give you a competitive advantage, but in accounting, you will just plain bleed.
more like...
#!/usr/bin/fairy
because he wanted people's opinions on the options as well. so in that respect, dooshbag, it really is a valid question. dooshbag.
I work for an HR consulting company. We customize web-based HR software for clients, so I know a thing or two about this. The web IS the future of HR/Accounting applications. Even Peoplesoft is offering a web-based interface to replace thier client-server technology.
I can also say there is Huge money in this. My last project had a $1.5 million buget for a relativly small HR system.
The problem is everyone dose HR differet, so trying to create an open source product that works for even a handfull of businesses (say nothing of a majority) is near impossible. Every company organizes itself different.
To answer the question acutually asked there are several systems from Workscape and Peoplesoft that run on the J2EE platform (specificaly BEA Weblogic) and Oracle. Both of which run on linux.
--No sig, not that clever!
"Failure is not an option, it's part of the standard package"
If you know one accounting app you know them all -- MeNeXT
You may feel this way but many financial types do not, and have very strong preferences between packages. The original post is consistent with my experience. Another factor is training and support of accounting staff. A bunch of clerks familiar with (say) MAS-90 will have a learning hurdle going to any new package. With some packages the transition is sharper than others.
-- We all have enough strength to endure the misfortunes of other people. La Rochefoucauld
The commercial program "/rdb" uses the Unix shell as a 4GL and the Unix file system as a DB. See http://www.rsw.com.
/rdb is the included set of programs called /act that provide source code for a double-entry accounting system for small businesses. See the book by Rod Manis et al., "UNIX Relational Database Management," ISBN 0-13-938622-X.
/rdb does, but Revolutionary Software will give the support that most businesses are willing to pay for. http://www.rsw.com provides some web examples and your accountant will give you advice on details such as choosing depreciation methods, tax filings, and so on.
On top of
Although this system is terminal-based, it would not be too hard to set it up and then move modules to web clients and a true relational database backend. Public domain Perl scripts already do much of what
So if they don't like Linux being free, soak 'em good for it and turn it into "excellent quality of support" which should please the customer and get some referrals.
blog.sam.liddicott.com
If I were starting up, and had someone who was very smart
about accounting, I'd use SQL Ledger. It's open source, and
looks nice, but I'm sure there are things missing that you
would have to work on.
Rumor has it that IBM is forcing CA to port AccPac to Linux,
so maybe that is an option.
He's absolutely right.
It's quite obvious to me that none of you "flamers" have ever actually had to deal with an accounting department. Accountants are miserable, cantankerous, and best left totally alone! What that means kiddies, is if your accountant has an old 486 running 3.1 and he's happy with it...you don't fuck around with it! Don't fall into the trap of thinking that you can somehow enlighten your accountant or make his life better by giving him what you think is "new and improved". You will just confuse the hell out of him, piss him off, and leave him thinking even more that you (and all techies for that matter) are just a useless bunch who do nothing but screw things up and cost the company money. Newsflash: This this is the guy that signs your paychecks...do you really want him pissed off at you? Also in many companies, accountants wield considerable influence. Not someone you want to have badmouthing you now is it? For God's sake, do yourselves a favour and leave the accounting department alone as much as possible!
You're using her as bait, Master!
You may want to take a look at Hansa Financials, which is now available on Linux. We were looking at it a few years ago as a back-end to integrate with an e-commerc product (never happened).
The nice parts are that the system has a documented client/server protocol (which they call "Open TCP/IP" for no good reason). Can run on Windows, Mac and Linux. Fairly sensible licensing, from memory. Nice people.
From my limited experience (I'm no accountant), it did what you'd expect, but you saw a lot more of the database directly than you do with Sage Line 50 (the other package I know a bit about).
"don't fall into the fallacy of believing that Perl can solve social problems. Maybe Perl 6 can, but that's a ways off"
We wrote our own web based accounting system. It works fine. And it wasn't that hard. Really. And it has _exactly_ the features we need.
Programming is fun and easy. Maybe it isn't the solution for you - but too many people dismiss it without really trying.
Let's not stir that bag of worms...
1. Write Free Software
2. ???
3. PROFIT !!
Yesterday i went to the Cheesecake Factory in Seattle which, if youve never been to it, is basically like eating in a yuppie restaraunt with great cheesecake and looks on the inside like a post modernistic vaginal cavern. Anyway, while i was waiting I noticed that the really nice flat touch screens they had were using KDE with a custom program for seating everyone, which must have also been backed by a UNIX machine of somekind so they can easily page you on that little platic advertisement pager they give so that they dont have to look at you while you wait the 2 hours it takes to get a seat since grandma can't finish her cheesecake in under 4 and a half hours.
Apgen Software makes an accounting package, written in Java. It seems, from their full featured demo, to be very comparable to QuickBooks, and is very full featured for the small to midsize business. My wife is thinking of starting her own business, and this is very much in the running for her choice.
http://www.donnalgroup.com/APPGEN/Apps.html
crap indeed. post some crap that's not so crappy, willya?
I'd write my own using MySQL, and HTML::Embperl.
If it's your own business, and you want to do things right, your software should be written to match your way of doing business. Computers exist to make the procesess better. If you taylor the software to the processes (no canned 'solutions' for business running stuff), you can focus on what it is you are actually selling, as opposed to figuring out 'how do I do that with this software?' For anything I'd run myself, I could write the code in a couple of days, and the fact that you can look at the stuff using nothing more than a browser is a big plus, especially as you grow and have people other than yourself interacting with your data.
Have you looked into Kapital? from thecompany.com? All I know about it is it is a KDE app. I don't know about its suitability for business.
Uh.
... I hate the quickbooks UI and its incosistencies.
I use GNUCash for my business accounting. Does it work? Yes. Does my bank account balance? Perfectly. Can I track expenses, revenue, profits? Stocks, Fixed assets? Yes. Honestly business accounting is far simpler than personal accounting... the business spends money in much more predictable ways.
GNUCash is great. Its at least as good as quickbooks... actually its a lot less confusing
There is another accounting package available for linux other than appgen. It is at www.sysprousa.com. I think the product name is called 'impact'.
Check out the WyattERP project. It is an Open Source ERP for Linux. There is already at least one medium-sized company that runs nothing but WyattERP for all its needs - from the receptionist to invoicing to HR.
Hello.
Thanks for the recommendation for mySAP.
I wonder if there are any other choices for ERP / Accounting / Office systems out there, for medium sized enterprises?
If there are, is there a list somewhere, preferrably those that compare features / ease of use / ease of maintanence / scalability / etc. ?
Thanks in advance !
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
The one problem with SAP-DB at this point, from the "can we make it ubiquitous" perspective, is that it's a real pain to compile.
It was coded on mainframes, and the suite of compilation tools are based on that approach. Thus the code base (and compile process) is "cryptic upper-case 8 character names everywhere."
It's a desparate pain to try to compile it, so it has not quickly moved towards being ubiquitously available. Red Hat doesn't include it in trivially-installable manner in the manner of MySQL or PostgreSQL. Debian folk can't do apt-get install sapdb .
Give it some more time, and get some more public input, and it'll get more attention.
Of course, that would merely bring us to the point where it would start being an interesting "data storage" substrate for an accounting application. Then comes the 'real" work of determining what tables, fields, relationships, and such exist, and how to manage UIs...
If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate.
First, to the dude who flamed the poster of the original discussion, I hope you can see from the response here that the posting was worth while.
Now for the subject.
ERP on Linux. A lot of the responses have been somewhat misleading as the responders may not be looking at the issue from the same point. Are accounting products client or server based? Of course there are different products that fulfill different needs.
QuickBooks, a Windows based product may be well and good for small businesses etc but these products just do not make it in the corporate world. You need one of the big boys.
Oracle, PeopleSoft, SAP, Lawson or JDEdwards to name most of them (I really can't consider Great Plains).
These systems can run your entire company both financially and from an HR perspective.
The key thing is to determine what level of user you are or are likely to become.
The issue for linux is one of trust as was previously mentioned. Linux is not yet deemed sufficiently reliable, there are different measures of reliability, for users in this market space. The major manufacturers of ERP software all consider linux as a potential contender in this market but until users demand support for Linux it will not be forth coming.
I am working at a company that is moving off of green screen terminals to windows based systems for communications between franchises and headquarters. Let me tell you something, these franshizees are not interested in learning how to use a computer, they aren't interested in changing from their existing platform and they don't want to spend any money.
So, they attempt to network a Windows NT or Windows 2000 machine themselves. They then attempt to install this terrible, terrible software. These people just want to sell their product. They have no desire to become computer geeks or even know how to do more than simply plugin their sales and orders.
Don't even start with, "Why don't they use Windows XP or something." This is a large corporation, if you have never worked in a large corporation, you won't understand. However, it is mandated that they only use those two Operating Systems.
With the way things used to be, the average call time was 5 to 10 minutes. Nowadays, the average support call can stretch into 45 minutes or longer hand-holding someone that has no desire to setup a computer system.
What they should have done to modernize things and through a GUI on top of everything. Was to setup simple thin-clients running a very limited set of applications. A central Linux server with several thin-clients running off of it that only allow the users to access a web browser, perhaps a word processor and maybe one or more other applications.
Most of the franchises have in-house accounting systems that run on some form of UNIX, so they could very easily tie into those and get all the "benefits" of super-slow intranet connection...
Of course, if they did that, then they wouldn't be being fair to their business partner, Microsoft.
--
.sig seperator
--
If you ignore the other uses of a tool, does that make the tool less useful, or you less useful?
It's written in COBOL and has interfaces to Perl. We used this successfully to handle our webpage when I worked at Affordable Computers.
You can view more info at http://www.samco.com
"How would this sentence be different if pi equaled 3?"
Appgen has software packages from a home user to a business application. Linux, MacOS, or Windows.
As a rock-in-roll Physicist once said, No matter where you go, there you are.
I don't live in the US, and I never will. But from what I have heard, AccPac performs the same role (ubiquitous SME accounting software) that MYOB does in my own beautiful country, Australia.
AccPac have a Linux port.
* It seems to be software you can get competant accountant with many years experience using, minimising training costs and staff overtime while necessary to move to a new system
* It has a fairly good reputation and large amounts of existing systems
* it can import data in a wide variety of formats from its competitors.
It's not Open Source, but it might be the best tool for the job, which should be any competant technical persons criteria for selecting software.
On top of it, MS is giving away Money. The
Oracle has a small business accounting package that provides just about everything a small business could ask for. It's $99 a month.
s s/index.html?content.html
http://www.oracle.com/online_services/smallbusine
"On the Internet, nobody knows you're a dog!" - a dog
you forgot an apostrophe.
I'm not an accountant with any opinions on the product, but Southware has an entire line of business software (accounting, inventory control, service mgmt, and sales) that runs under Linux. Apparently, Southware runs under Acucorp's COBOL engine which supports over 600 platforms.
The accountants/managers I know who have used it call it "very adequate." Unfortunately, I have no idea of its pricing but I know it's not free.
Since we are talking small business, I should like to say that this is one market that MS is in process of massacrating. They have a $1500 small
business package that is reasonably complete, sold by their Great Plains subsidiary. Since $1500 is about equal to the cost of 1 computer or 1 day of an accountant's or 2 days of a consultant's time, it is pretty hard with which to compete. Unless a firm is already gone to a non-MS OS almost completely, you are selling uphill if the customer knows about this. I compete with MS, but luckily, the $1500 package is not 100% complete for everything, so we can sell some features that are still priced competitvely with the corresponding features in the higher-priced Great Plains packages. But I doubt this niche will last too long. This is an attractive field to enter only for those who like to play in traffic with steamrollers.
How about www.netledger.com?
Actually, Microsoft has made some serious acquisitions in this segment. They bought Great Plains last year, and they bought Solomon earlier. So MS owns a good segment of medium-sized enterprise accounting software.
Check out the logo here.
Quickbooks on the Web looked very cool on one of my Engineer's browser... until *I* tried it. I run Linux with Netscape and I got redirected to a page that told me I was running the wrong version of MSIE and that their "Web Based" accounting package only works on Win95, Win98, Win2K, ME, and XP. So much for the convenience of using your accounting package from anyplace in the world. Cross off Quickbooks from this list... because they require MSIE 5.0 or better they render themselves out of the running
No one ever had to evacuate a city because the solar panels broke!
This question brings up the single most overlooked topic regarding the acceptance of Linux as a mainstream business platform. I'll state it as a hypothetical question:
"When my accounting system suddenly fails without notice, effectively putting my business OUT OF BUSINESS immediately, WHO DO I SUE?"
Until this question can be answered in a positive way, Linux will be relegated to the backend, and sorry to say, non-critical systems such as web servers and the like. A business' bottom line IS their bottom line, period.
So Advantage is headed Linux, aye? Looking for ANYTHING better than SCO Unix (as installed, perhaps in 1972 with three-wire printer/modem/terminal links and no networking at all) I steered them towards Triad's Falcon instead.
;)
But then, I'm working on moving them in the direction of Linux anyway.
If you'd like some help with that (as I'm on a temporary stint here at Chicago's Largest Lumberyard) let me know.
Brian Fahrlander
kilroy@kamakiriad.com
ICQ#5119262
--- For a good time mail uce@ftc.gov
here is a link to their feature matrix as compared to quick books.
oh, and best of all, MyBooks runs on whatever platform you choose. Their developers actually listen to customer requests, and you can get tech support without forking out your credit card number!
We are moving to a product called Distrib running on Linux.
Distrib is based on Unidata (from IBM/Informix). Whilst the package is costly (AU$90k), it will easily handle our AU$100Million business.
---- Put Sig here:
At my place of work, we use a product from Macola that runs on either Pervasive P.SQL 2000 (used to be Btrieve) or Microsoft SQL Server (I know...I know) but we run it on Pervasive.
Now, here's the thing, with a box running Samba and Pervasive (runs on Linux), I know I can get the Macola client (Windows only) to run with a Linux server, but Macola won't support it in this configuration. So, I'm stuck with NT until I can get a better solution. So I'll check out SQL Ledger, NOLA, etc. and hope they offer as much functionality.
From the posts, SQL-Ledger uses a pgsql backend and NOLA uses a MySQL backend.
I'm not sure what others think, but I for one would be very scared about using MySQL as a mission-critical backend.
Several articles comparing the two (a good one here) have come up with the same basic complaints, MySQL might be fast in overall, but it fails 3 out of 4 of the basic ACID tests (Consistency, Isolation, and Durability). So it's extremely fault intolerent.
PostgreSQL is fully ACID compliant and is thus a more reliable backend.
Yes, there are plug-in table managers for MySQL that are ACID compliant, but it's nicer to know that the core product already meets these basic requirements for a robust database.
So be sure you take a look at technology behind the systems before committing your critical systems to them.
passetspike!
However, please Do Not use it as a remote administration / accounting tool that serves over the internet. Its place is inside the firewall.
The reasons is that it doesn't have a session control-related audits. Any user that types in http://hostname/sql-ledger/ir.pl?login=admin&path= bin/mozilla could get into the syste under the name 'admin', given the attacker knows the username "admin" (not hard), and regardless of that account's permission. indeed the same scheme is workable on any other .pl program.
You can apply This patch to fix it, if you don't worry about shared proxies.
And yes, this patch has been sent to the author. His comment was more along the line of accountants are not script kiddies, so we don't need to worry too much. That is probably reasonable, too.
A prime problem with GnuCash vis-a-vis trying to get the "bleeding edge" functionality is that it is an absolute pain to get compiled. The functionality may be worth it, but if it's daunting to build, that's a problem.
In exactly the same manner, there are all sorts of projects out there to build some really cool JavaEnterprize-Foo-Beans- Coffee-Espresso-Transactional- EE goodness; if it takes someone who's an expert in all of:
Excuse me if I don't jump up and down cheering at the vast complexity of this.
In contrast, SQL-Ledger is indeed quite straightforward to set up. A bit more manually-involved than I'd like, but certainly not badly so.
If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate.
Being a construction company, we have recently upgraded from an AS/400 (which was emulating a System/36 to run our old System/36 software) to an RS/6000 running AIX and a package called COINS (COnstruction INdustry Software) by New York based Shaker Computer. This software is based on a Progress database engine, and is a closed-source software package. We went live less than two months ago, so no verdict yet, but so far the server has never crashed once. I just wish we had a more standard flavor or Linux than AIX. Some of the new commands are disorienting.
Too bad this couldn't have been two separate questions, one for small businesses, one for medium sized ones. So many of the very negative answers are based on someone's 'experience' in a mid to large sized business.
I have worked with many small offices that use from one to ten computers. I was doing on-site tech work, mainly fixing hardware and killing viruses. I learned how to use several accounting and inventory packages because the customer didn't know how to use it fully. From changing a template in Quickbooks for a one-man office, to specifying which LPT port to send various reports and billings to in Raintree, and then doing print capture to send LPT2, LPT3, and LPT4 to other stations for laserjet, color inkjet, or dotmatrix. I learned how to do this with each package in about 15 minutes.
This would be a good area to specialize in if you were going to start a business supporting it. Find a nice Linux accounting app, have basic hardware knowledge so you can replace hard drives, install a network if needed, and get a tape drive for daily backups. (No insult meant there, just some computer gurus only know the OS, not the hardware; you have to be able to troubleshoot and repair problems in both areas for this.) Install linux on each system, and show the customer how easy it is to use. Get a clientelle of about 50 small businesses, and you're set off to a good start.
Also, from what I have seen, I would rather have a DOS-style than a Windows-style accounting program. Less overhead on the computer and network, and more stable. And as another poster said, make sure it uses the ENTER key, not the stinking TAB to switch fields. Punching in numbers with one hand while turning pages with the other is much easier that way.
I am a CPA in private practice, and for many years I sold accounting software to small and medium sized businesses. At the risk of trolling for flames, I would have to STRONGLY suggest that you not use Linux for accounting in a small to medium sized business environment. (Note: This is defined a company up to $50,000,000 U.S. in revenue) Why?
1. Unless you are blessed with outside accountants like me who read Slashdot and know the difference between Debian and Mandrake, your choice may create significant problems at month/year end when one of my many slightly to nearmost completely computer illiterate colleagues tries to either download/extract your data or wants you to generate a file that to import into either Excel or their audit/trial balance package. Reason: 99.9999% of tax programs/CPA audit software/CPA trial balance software is written in Windows, and all of it takes an Excel file. (Hint: Not being able to do this quickly/easily = higher costs (annually)).
2. Your CFO/controller will have a lot easier time finding people who can work in the Windows environment to do the basic grunt work of entering invoices, bills, and time so the system can print checks (including your own paycheck). In some 15 years in public accounting, highly computer literate, easily trained, low cost clerks are about as easy to find as naturally occurring penguins in the Sahara. Not everybody runs (or wants to run Linux). Most everybody knows Windows, and your clerks will also know some Excel and at least one or two Windows accounting packages.
3. As much value as I see in open source, I would have a very hard time accepting an open source accounting solution as a CPA auditing a set of books. Unless the company is one of the Generals (Foods, Tire, Motors) or equivalent and possesses the internal programming staff and the full time accounting staff to verify that the stuff works right, it's not worth the risk to be a beta site and discover the bugs. Folks, were talking about real money here, and most of my colleagues would be real skittish about any system that "somebody downloaded from the Internet" (It's bad enough to do that with established, old-line accounting sofware companies, and I've got the scars to prove it.) And if you can't convince us that the books aren't bogus (intentionally or otherwise), good luck with the banker.
In short, yes, accountants are conservative and prefer things that we KNOW will work consistently and correctly all of the time. We also like things that have a low total cost of ownership, and unfortunately, Linux and accounting packages don't have it right now. My "as close as I'm gonna get to a professional recommendation without sending a bill" is live with an off-the-shelf, low cost, Windows (there, I've said it) package such as DacEasy, Best BusinessWorks, or Peachtree. Just promise me no QuickBooks, OK?
I'm not really a CPA, I just play one on TV
I read about NOLA when the press release came out. It looked pretty good.
The books MUST balance. For every credit there MUST be a debit. Without Exception under any circumstances. Even if the servers power goes out after debiting one account for $1,000,000 dollars but before crediting another respectively. Any real accounting system must be ACID compliant.
I found this useful for some, had other stuff also but couldn't find the bookmarks.
Accounting For Linux
When shit hits the fan get some of these https://youtu.be/pY-GncsZ-UE
As others have pointed out, SQL ledger is really quite nice but you need to be able to "plug it in" to the other business applications that are being used.
So you either write SQL ledger modules for *everything* or you use some sort of middleware. I have a short document which describes why you need middleware:
http://www.yelm.freeserve.co.uk/middleware/
There's lots of very expensive and proprietary middleware systems from such companies as IBM and WebMethods. Something open would be handy.
Deleted
Not like MS gets sued for selling a faulty product
Fire Carly
I agree with one other poster who mentioned Compiere. It is a very complete, robust, and *awesome* ERP/CRM system. http://www.compiere.org
Daniel
Oh well ouch. Afaik Microsoft only had that piece of crap "IMHO" Money. I stand corrected, but I was thinking this question refered to desktop small-biz stuff. On the "enterprise" level, in my experience, customization is important. Therefore microsoft is competing custom programmed or custom tailored solutions.
Microsoft Business Plan, Verticle Integration. Though aquisition and intimidation.
Know nothing about it, but looked it up on Google. Might as well share my research:
SQL Ledger
Christopher Browne's List of Free Software for Business Accounting
Mini review of SQL Ledger
Short discussion of SQL Ledger from GNU.ORG
AllCommerce, an ecommerce and fulfillment system
GNU Enterprise
Linux-Kontor is a free ERP (enterprise resource planning) software suite.
Bush's education improvements were
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I have my own computer/networking business, and I run the entire operation on linux. One of the tasks I have been trying to accomplish is to devise feasable and easily scable linux solutions for small to mid-sized businesses.
Much of the more prominent tasks(email, internet, word proc. spreadsheet, etc..) are easily taken care of. The challenge is where office or field specific functions come into play, especially where databases are concerned. While there are many db solutions and many office suites, trying to intergrate them has been difficult.
Star Office (at this moment), seems to offer the best solution, but trying to get AdabasD set up correctly is like pulling teeth (at least for me.)
I would rather build all of the tables and forms fresh, so as to fit the platform around the network, rather than visa-versa, which a certain Evil Empire has been known to do.
I have found that customers WILL perform the "extra work" to migrate to a new platform, so long as A: they don't have to change the way they do business, and B: they won't have to be forced to migrate or upgrade for a least a VERY long time.
Accounting, tracking, AC/AR, all can be created according to the customer's needs and desires in linux: that is one of my selling points. However, there needs to be some improvement in the ability to intergrate different applications, and make it appear seamless.
Silk Software has a fully integrated accounting, inventory management, POS, rental, payroll, etc, etc software package available for linux. check out the website for more info.
-and.. yes... i of course work for silk
"Nyquil - The stuffy, sneezy, why-the-hell-is-the-room-spinning medicine."
True. Most of the business world uses excel. I used to be a power excel user but have switched whole heartedly to openoffice.
My project manager asks for time reports in excel format and gets them. He does not need to know that I wiped Windows from my workstation 8 months ago.
When clients send file attachments - they are often Word documents. Open Office reads these files without a problem, complete with styles, graphics, and embedded excel charts. I am able to edit these files and send them back to the client (who often uses a Mac in my business) again they do not need to know that I am using a "non-standard" OS (as if the Mac is more standard).
I run a small business (two employees) that has to work with two different currencies -- most of the revenue is USD, but salaries, taxes, and dividends are CAD.
I switched to GnuCash at the beginning of this fiscal year and have been happy enough -- it supports double-entry well, and multicurrency is only moderately awkward. The reports have been adequate for me (and the tax people) so far, at least. It responds fast, and supports arbitrarily complex split entries, which are important for my work.
Sanbukid, your company already has programmers on staff, right? Then put this home-built package into OpenSource ASAP!
Your in-house guys are already going to be spending time debugging, so it's not like your company has anything to loose. If it's good, you get free testers every time someone decides to implement the system, providing feedback and making your own product better.
Eric S. Raymond mentions in his Homesteading the Noosphere, there is no value lost to your company, only benefit to be gained.
Bob-
The Ludwig von Mises Institute. The reasoning individuals economics
Unix accounting software is far more mature and feature complete then this group seems to know. It has been in wide deployment longer then any Windows accounting software. A quick search on google shows many professional and mature Unix accounting/bookkeeping packages that will run on linux. This was one of the areas of initial application development that occurred in the 1970s. Many/Many companies developed internal accounting packages that were made into commercial products. Windows is the newcomer to this...IMIO
Get a free ipod.
I have a master's degree in business administration and have run a small company for years with Medlin's double entry general ledger accounting package for DOS and Windows. I've run it under Dosemu and Wine. The DOS version may be unsupported by now. It was nothing special, just basic double entry accounting, but I'm of the opinion that's elegant simplicity.
I use Proseries' tax programs under Wine to compute tricky stuff like depreciation schedules and tax returns.
Medlin's general ledger only costs US$ 38.00 and Proseries applications don't cost much more if you use their "pay per return" option.
One of my consulting clients is an accounting shop, run by a guy who's the classic example of someone who'd love to be free from the frailties and idiocies of Windows, but can't make the switch. He has to run not only a high-buck, accountants-only tax package, but numerous other programs (such as Quicken and MS Money) to handle data brought to him by clients. None of these programs or reasonable equivalents are available in Linux versions, or I would have moved his whole office off of Windows years ago.
Most people here seem to be posting wildly about giant enterprise-scale packages. The truth is that most businesses are small businesses. Not only are they flexible, but they can really appreciate the cost savings associated with a free operating system.
I don't know what's available in the open source realm, but if you're ok with a commercial package, you might want to try ACCPAC. This is a mature package, originally from the DOS/Windows world, and recently migrated to Linux. It's got all the usual stuff: accounts payable, accounts receivable, general ledger... this is a package that I've seen CFO's really enjoy working with, to the point where they detest having to use anything else. Give it a try.
Tired of FB/Google censorship? Visit UNCENSORED!
One benefit to Oracle Applications is that it runs entirely as Java Applets over a web browser, requiring no more on the client than a browser bookmark.
It does use several keyboard accelerators which I've never figured out how to hit under Linux or Solaris JVMs, though.
Yes, accountants are extra conservative, in the practical sense. That's what they are paid for, after all.
However, reliability is the key. The simple reality of Linux' stability is a selling point beyond compare.
Add to that the fact that they could not care less what OS it runs on, so long as it is always available, and never looses data, and you have a perfect match in Linux and a journaling file system.
Beyond that, the OS itself doesn't buy you anything. It's the application that does the real work. Without trust in your app, nothing matters at all.
Bob-
The Ludwig von Mises Institute. The reasoning individuals economics
At this point it is vapor ware, but we are porting our application to Linux. It was ported this summer to Sun from HP. I think it will be a month. www.mccue.com
Only 'flamers' flame!
With the use of an Internet Application Server and a JVM and a few drivers you can use Oracle Financials, HR etc..
Oracle 9i I believe is getting certified on Redhat 7.2. I have tried this at home and on a large scale this is relatively easy, although I am sure there are a lot of companies that will do it for you for a lot $$$$.
Apache for the web server- also on Linux.
Oracle's Application server 9i- also on Linux Clients access modules through Netscape! or any other Java enabled browser of version 1.1.8. or later.
Lotsa power and allows for a huge system.
Oracle also now has Real Application Clustering so it can be MASSIVE. I have seen it in action. So if you hae a few extra millions...no one does it bigger.
"Laugh, and the whole world laughs with you. Cry, and they still think it's funny." - Mr. Boffo
Netscape on Linux SUCKS. Can you imagine having to look at that interface all day every day just to do your books? Sheesh.
Bullcrap. I'm using a nightly build of Mozilla (same codebase as the Netscape Communicator 6.x series), and its interface does not suck. Granted, it defaults to a Netscape 4 lookalike skin, but that's quite easily changed.
Will I retire or break 10K?
I noted the mid-comment political rant. It gets worse. Ashcroft's boss spent a good deal of his formative years drunk. Same with the V.P.
All you can do is be philosopical: The poorly educated need people like themselves in the government so they can feel represented.
So you're saying that General Motors' accounting is simpler than balancing my checkbook?
I've been narfing around with Appgen MyBooks for the last couple of days. It seems to be a very complete package with Linux, Windows and Mac OS X versions.
I installed the package on my Linux server and installed the client app (it is client-server) on Windows and Linux. I created a company and turned on access control. I was able to connect to the same database on both Linux and Windows. It uses host based authentication for access to the database. When I connected to the server from the Windows box, it asked for server, username and password. It actually seems to use some form of record locking. When I had a quote open on the Linux system, and tried to open the same quote on Windows, it complained that it was already open and would only allow read-only access. It also seems to have functionality for importing QuickBooks data but I haven't been able to test this.
There are additional functions for an accountant to get many different reports. I can't imagine that an accountant that can drive QuickBooks wouldn't be able to run MyBooks with a small amount of startup effort.
My wife (3rd year Business student) checked it out and said that it looks pretty complete. I downloaded only the basic MyBooks demo version but the purchase is only $99 for a five user license. There is a professional version that seems to have payroll added to the functionality for $799 for a 10 user license. The web site is not terribly good at explaining the difference between the two packages but considering another poster's comments about payroll being difficult to do, I would imagine that the payroll portion could cost the extra $$
The application seems to be written in Java (it installs a JRE) and performs identically in Linux and Windows. I can only imagine that Mac OS X is similar.
I am researching this package since I'm looking for alternatives to things like Symix for my customers. Unless I find some show stoppers, it looks like this is what I'm going to recommend to them.
NOTE: I'm not an accountant, nor do I play one on television...
Cheers!
"Don't make me angry... you wouldn't like me when I'm angry."
-David Banner
Some moderators just don't get it do they!!! + 3 Funny. >>> Apparently this was also on the 'school' blackboard in Zoolander. Worth a look!
Not that I am advertising something, just that is what I know as I work with it:
a.Oracle has its applications 11i released for Linux.
b.You can go for a ASP model - oracle has on it website accounting for some small monthly fee.
cheers.
I have been saying for five years that this is the biggest hole in the Linux software world. For a small business like the one I work for (about 750,000US/year) we aren't running custom apps etc. We are currently using MYOB for the mac. Why... It is the ONLY non windows off-the-shelf accounting package that handles Canadian payroll. There is no Linux alternative. NONE! Until a business can run single boot on one computer, they will not switch. There are hundreds of thousands of businesses our side in Canada alone. This is the market that Linux has to penetrate if it is going to break out of the niche it is settling into.
repeat after me: Payroll, A/R, A/P. These are what a small business needs.
Pardon my incoherence, but this is the week before Christmas, and I've been working twelve hours a day, seven days a week, and It's about to get worse. The people who could really answer the questions for this topic are too busy right now. That's why most of the people responding are large business types.
~ a low user id is no indication I have a clue what I'm talking about.
I have seen more ERP projects go titsup than anything else in my 17year carreer. Because of the blunders, and huge disk farms needed, these white elephants get discretly burried, - secrets. Modifying Eliza, so when the boss types in how do I increase profits, would be better bang for buck - dont ask. Asking, what happened to the previous ERP is not a smart way to start things. SAP costs, and had very large report generation troubles. Oracle works, but again, a team of report writers hover in the background. MS sql is nearly there, but hampered from reading in or exporting 'foreign tables' like oracle and db2.
CRM: Not to service customers, but to milk more cash from them, or to target junk mailings.
On a par with fools who believe call centres can be made to turn a profit.
apart from forex and wagering systems, exceptions are few.
So I say , stick to accounting modules.
must say - would like to know of an open 'trouble ticket' system - their per seat costs are too high.
Brains beat ERP, because puters do not have initiative.
www.hansaworld.com has a complete business package for Linux now. Both server and client. You can even have a mixture of pc,mac and linux clients.
All trafic is encrypted so you can run it over the internet and bandwidth demand is 9600+.
Its available i severala languages and i 20 countries.
Hansa Financials (3.9) is probably the biggest and best accounting package available for linux at this moment.
It isnt for free but its worth every cent.
kenneth@bytewize.com
It has been designed by people who really do know what they are doing and quite a lot of effort has gone into it recently.
------------------------ Optimists learn English; pessimists learn Chinese; realists learn Kalashnikov
Good coward, I said journaling, you bring up the straw-man of ext2 which is not journaling.
Silly Rabbi, kicks are for Treads.
Bob-
The Ludwig von Mises Institute. The reasoning individuals economics
Hmm, I haven't seen anyone mention Oracle.
Oracle Financials runs on Linux. Oracle's financials products is also only one part of what they offer on Linux - they also include a full ERP solution.
I've also read some of the other peoples 'informed' comments saying that Linux is not up to running big-time accounting systems. Well, that's just rubbish. I've been installing and setting up Oracle Financial and ERP systems for over 10 years. The latest relaese of Oracle's financial software runs just as well on Linux as it does on Sun Sparc - which both are better than they run on RS/6000 AIX or Win 2000/NT.
Oracle is number 2 in the world for Financials and ERP software, so you can't get much bigger that that. Ok, it's not open source, and it's not cheap (too expensive for small companies), but it's huge and has tens of thousands of users.
No-one can complain that there's nothing good out there for Linux.
"The best part? I became an ordained minister while not wearing pants." -- CleverNickName
It is used quite widely in the NL.
Gerb
There's no place like 127.0.0.1
Where can I find the requirements list for this kind of package?
Hey if we want quickbooks, it's my understanding that it runs under wine anyways. Yes a small business is much more like an enterprise than most imagine.
Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
congatulations, you can now use Linux® better than most people can use windows®!
When is the last time you saw a windows user logining off or screen locking their computer when leaving it idle?
Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
I think Linux for HR/Accounting will be one of the best packages for small-mid size business in order to keep lower costs and also it is very reliable and scalable. Our current company spent high costs for MS office and Oracle software. This may not be a reasonable cost for the small-mid size business.
My web browser of choice is Opera, and despite having used the 6.0 release since it came out, Intuit's web site won't let me get to anything but entry pages saying that I need a "newer" browser - Opera 6 is the most recent release of any of the core browsers!
We use AccPac's Pro 5.0 here, in a small company with about 30 people. AccPac Pro(formerly SBT Pro) is the primary piece of software on EVERYONE's desktop. It is based on FoxPro 5.0, and almost all our subordinate applications are also in FoxPro. We currently accept EDI Sales Orders (850's), and send 810, 856, 870's. These are "hacked" apps (hacked because I wrote some of them, and I don't really consider FoxPro a programming language - I think if I know it, it can't be complicated enough to be a real language, but I digress..) for exchanging data with AccPac Pro and are also in FoxPro. Next to those custom apps, we also run Skyline, also Fox 5.
:), but if the old working windowing code was combined with the current CVS, I believe FoxPro 5.0 apps would run perfectly.
./wine/windows stuff.
:)
Wine runs Foxpro 5.0 _almost_ perfectly. In June there was a major restructuring of the windowing code, which totally broke (from my POV) MDI. Now, I don't want to get into how I feel about this broken code in a release (whether or not it's 'future-based' - primarily because it broke what *I* wanted
Unfortunately, I don't have that kind of time or knowledge to backrev the
For me, that minor fix could lead to an LTSP-based network
"I can't give you a brain, so I'll give you a diploma" - The Great Oz (blatently stolen sig)
The main thing that makes an accounting/manufacturing system useful is the ability to *get at* the data you've put into it and to modify that system to meet your business needs. What use is open-source if the system design isn't open to modification? I've installed and used several high-end and not-so-high end accounting/ERP packages over the years, and NONE of them provided all of the features those businesses needed. Those businesses spent a fortune doing mods that should have been relatively simple. After a *long* time looking at the open-source alternatives, it looks to me like the gnue group (http://www.gnuenterprise.org) are putting together the best approach that will work for real business situations. They're not finished yet, but their careful approach to laying down an open and *modifiable* structure makes the most sense for medium sized businesses.
what are the markets and competition:
large business: SAP, PeopleSoft (barf!), Lawson, Siebel, etc.
small-large: Great Plains (I wonder how MS Passport will "enhance" this?), PeachTree, QuickBooks Pro, Quicken...
small: Excel, Access, Great Plains, PeachTree, QuickBokos Pro, et al.
Sure, the template and Design Pattern for doing accounting is pretty well known and has been for some time.
Any Open Source (I'm assuming that's what people mean in the context of this) will be able to either be easily expanded by VARs and developers, have as good as or better percieved fit-and-finish (eye candy), and offer some easy exchanges between existing apps and OSAccounting.
on the cities that manufactured the arms being used against the US: San Francisco, Austin, etc. I mean we know Osama bin Laden uses Macintosh :-)
BTW could you please wait until I move back into the southern hemisphere; that should give me a few months before nuclear winter sets in.
After all, Linux wasn't written from scratch; all the design had already been done by AT&T (and half the implementation by the GNU project).
I use a program called Moneydance for my personal finanace. Moneydance is made by a company called Appgen. Appgen also makes makes software for small to midsized businesses and best of all, it works with Linux. Check it out... http://www.appgen.com/
I have always changed accounting systems at a year-end. All you have to do is to get the ending balances from the previous year input them as starting balances and start posting. The problem comes in posting prior year adjusting entries. A couple of ways to do this are - Post adjusting entries to both systems or correct the opening entries after the year-end adjustments are made. Some accounting systems won't allow changing entries once they are made so play with the new system to see what can be done. Simply leave the old system installed for historical records.
In order to have certain functionality they have to focus on IE. Most people who use their web interface use IE. People who will use the web interface don't run Linux. I hardly think that takes them "out of the running".
Thier idea is using the pervasive SQL engine for the backend on LINUX, but you still have to use the windows client software
At least that was their "state-of-the-art" as of about six months ago when we went looking
Old age and treachery almost always overcome youth and skill.
Sorry. For clarification, the development branch UI is changing nightly. The stable branch UI is (descriptively enough) stable.
I very much agree with you that accounting users should not be presented with a changing interface each time they use the software. The newer UI fits very nicely into the NOLA modular architecture, and will easily allow future installations to customize the look and feel to how their employees work, and to keep their existing UI across major functionality changes.
I read all the posts carefully, because accounting software is an important subject for me.
No one seems to have discussed a MAJOR reason to go to Open Source software: Commercial companies often become self-destructive. Maybe because they want to preserve reasons for future upgrades, they become unwilling to fix problems in their products.
When commercial companies are successful, they will often begin to try to squeeze the user. Look at the quote below about "unrelenting advertisement".
When commercial companies are successful, they often seem to spin out of control. Novell was one. Corel was another.
When commercial companies are successful, they often become arrogant and self-serving. Microsoft is an on-going story of being adversarial toward its customers.
Commercial software is often VERY influenced by the markeplace. From a quote below: Microsoft is "giving away Microsoft Money
I've been hearing about file corruption in Quicken and QuickBooks for years. The quotes below from this Slashdot story show that the problems have not been cured. Have the good people left Intuit, the manufacturer of QuickBooks? My experience of Open Source software it that major problems are fixed quickly.
QuickBooks is counter-intuitive, lacks backward file compatibility, and fixing some types of transactions is virtually impossible: 2718237
QuickBooks has a poor interface, there is often data corruption, and it is "slooooooooow": 2720211
QuickBooks has "frequently lost entire days worth of data": 2718998
"I hate the QuickBooks UI and its inconsistencies", GNU Cash is better: 2717131
QuickBook's "Web Based" accounting package only works on Windows: 2717244
"QuickBooks 2001 Pro is cranky - it misnumbers printed checks, sometimes. It will let you delete a reconciled check without warning on some systems, but not others. The invoicing sometimes deletes descriptions but keeps amounts.
"Plus, [QuickBooks 2001 Pro is] an unrelenting advertisement for online plus-charged checking, charge cards, investment accounts, you name it. QB is just a loss leader for the online services.
"... [Microsoft] is giving away Microsoft Money. The
The above three paragraphs are quoted from: 2717209
"I use Vmware [under Linux] to run QuickBooks for my business and Quicken for my personal stuff. They are in two different VMs and it runs great. When Quicken/QuickBooks decides to crash the OS, I just restart the Virtual Machine": 2716999"
Someone from Intuit posted a comment: KaiserSoze, a "member of the QuickBooks team" -- 2717731
This is counter-intuitive, but commercial software is often or unwilling to serve the needs of its users. Open Source software has no other purpose.
--
The U.S. government causes problems, then pretends to solve them by creating more: What should be the Response to Violence?
Bush's education improvements were
There's no need for a GPL'd accounting software, because there's already one, that's at least "disclosed source".
;-)
All those pure of heart are going to hate me, but: one of the major advantages of Open Source is learning by example, reusing code of others, beeing able to peek into the workings of an application. All this is possible to some extent with the business applications part of SAP software. Someone please tell me about Oracle applications, I'm note really aware any longer how they eveolved over the past 3 years.
ERP package (or whatever you like to call them today) quality comes with thousands of qualified people that make the application reflect the way a sane majority of a given industry is doing business.
These prefabricated "workflows" can help a company set up doing their business like most other companies in that industry in less time than it would take to ananlyze the needs, and then make a program from it.
If the technology used to program these "workflows" makes it possible for a customer to peek in and adapt parts of the system to fit his needs, that's the killer app of ERP, and that's what SAP is thriving on for quite some years now.
All these posts concerning frontend software, or what platform to run on, they miss the point that the business part is what counts most, not the technology down there. Technology is nice, but it changes over the years. Look at the SAP frontend: not really easy to learn, in some points a real nuisance. Doesn't really scare people away from it. Look at the technology: it's up to the customer to decide what hardware to use, from AS/400, over Linux/Intel and all major Unices to S/390, and Linux on it
I don't think the world needs a GPL'd business app, at least not a package as powerful as SAP. But to use the technological concepts for a GPL'd application server would sure be a nice idea.
-- Go ahead! make my day... fl@well.com
I haven't tried it - but according to
http://www.gldialtone.com/AcctgTableObjects.htm
The db schema are fairly good. It is a Java based accounting system.
I agree completely, BSD does hold the top spots.
I have a Linux box which, had I not chosen to upgrade the kernel to 2.2.18 last September and thus reboot it, would also be on that list.
I guess I did the Linux geeks a disservice!
Please don't get me wrong, I am not knocking BSD, AIX or anything (except Win). I'm just crowing about Linux because it has been my experience and I prefer not to hype what I don't know.
Bob-
The Ludwig von Mises Institute. The reasoning individuals economics
>On top of it, MS is giving away Money. The .NET services will require you to use Money, just you watch. I think Intuit/Quicken/QuickBooks will go the way of Netscape within 18 months.
I totally agree with this. I have worked with turbo-tax division. It is the only real part of Intuit that makes money and Intuit knows it. The upper management assumes that the tax software can never be beaten by M$, but they are sadly mistaken. M$ is in the trueest sense of the phrase, "the terminator". Now that ashcroft and bush are up to their antics and trying to allow M$ to do what they want, I give Inuit 18-24 months to show major problems.
Most companies today still use win95 on the desktop than any OS. Likewise, there is more MS-dos in use than XP (at this moment). Linux is far more useable than win95 and most certainly more than dos. It is cheaper to run than any M$, when you consider the costs of computers, admins, and software. Yet you suggest that training should be the reason to stay with M$????
Anybody who moves to XP and new packages have a very very long training curve ahead of them. Yet, you still suggest to stay the M$ route? doesn't sound like you are really that much of a business man.
BTW, Everybody talks about the non-obvious solutions as to how to save money. the obvious way that you suggest is exactly the approach that many companies use, just prior to going under. The non-obvious solutions is to use Linux and save money.
Good suggestions -- both from pitcrew and hughk. Many thanks.