Slashdot Mirror
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?"
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.
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.
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.
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......
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
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
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"
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.
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.
"Dont forget that accounting rules are different in different countries."
:(
I stumbed across this article, thought yeah these linux based solutions are great! (im a part time accountant in a small accounting practise and my boss wants to move to computer based software that will cost in the region of £2,000 - £4,000 per year)
Then I started to check it out, it just wouldnt work for the UK. The legal systems are so different, I doubt that there is a UK based linux suite out there
/the search continues
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!
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.
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
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
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."
My wife uses Quickbooks for her hot gourmet web store Sam McGees. I find the following issues with Quickbooks:
1. Frequent database corruption and no way to repair the database. Since whole shebang is one db file this is scary. We backup twice daily.
2. Scalability. If you have a small customer database then it maybe fast enough, but we have several thousand customers it bogs down and becomes sloooooow. Current single file db is around 50 Mbytes.
3. And foremost the database is inaccessible with no published API. I tried a while back with Quickbooks 2000 to import orders (transactions) from a flat file. Forget it. After hours of work I was able to get customers to import, but the documentation was incomplete and I had to find trick from the usenet to make it work.
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.
It is used quite widely in the NL.
Gerb
There's no place like 127.0.0.1
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.
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/