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?"

Comments

Accounting is not the driving software package!

[MantridDronemaker]

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!

Re:Accounting is not the driving software package!

[peterdaly]

I have to agree wholeheartedly with that comment. Having worked at a good sized manufacturing opperation (in the IT Group), I know enough to agree, also enough to know such a system is terribly complicated to implement, unless you have a good background in an existing application. We ran our system on an AS/400 using MAPICS. Do you have any idea what companies what pay for this stuff? It is insane! It is easy to get huge amounts of money allocated to an upgrade, because the software RUNS the business.

Seems to me like a webservices core may be able to be developed, which serves extermal user iterface modules. Maybe J2EE core (running in JBOSS), webservices exposed through Apache SOAP. You can then write interfaces in many different languages in different user interface, FAT GUI, thin jsp/php/perl. Ahh, I have real stuff to work on. Don't have time to keep thinking and rambling on about this.

-Pete

KBooks

[Dan D.]

I'm building an application to work like quickbooks (for kde, as if you couldn't guess). I probably shouldn't post this because its completely unusable and I don't want to give anyone the wrong impression. :) But its on topic, and I figure its a good place to beg for helpers. If you'd like to help me, I'll hook you up with the GPL'd source when you drop me an email. Especially anyone that has the gumption to maintain the sourceforge front-end.

Nathan.

Ease-of-use!

[apilosov]

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.

The problem open-source accounting apps.

[bald_spot]

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!

Appgen for Linux

[Darth RadaR]

DISCLAIMER: I'm not trying to sell this program, just sharing info on a product I am currently working with.

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 ,"Linux".

btw, It's not nearly as expensive as some beancounter programs I've seen out there.

SAP-DB as DBMS

[Christopher B. Brown]

I've pointed it out several times, and apparently those that decide what stories are "interesting" consisidered it not to be of any interest.

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...

Finally, a Slashdot topic I know too much about

[PMCausey]

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?