Conservative Choice for Linux Accounting Software?

mikosullivan asks: "I'm a programmer for the Roanoke Rescue Mission in Roanoke, VA. The mission provides meals, shelter, and other help to the homeless. We're looking at upgrading the mission's information systems to a Linux-based network, from server to desktop. One of the major wrinkles in our plans is finding a good accounting system for Linux. My manager strongly feels (and I sympathize) that they should stick to accounting software that is already used by established accounting firms. There are certainly a plethora of Linux and open source accounting packages out there, but she wants to stay away from the bleeding edge, at least for accounting. She wants a tried-and-true, established, conservative choice for accounting software. What accounting software for Linux is most accepted and established in the marble and wood-paneled world of conservative bean counters? It doesn't have to be open source, but cost is a major issue, and open source is, of course, preferred."

Comments

Not applicable to /.

[ColGraff]

"What finance software are you using now?"

Doesn't this question assume that we have money? Considering the huge numbers of high school and college students on slashdot, that seems like an unfounded assumption.

That said, I currently use a free-as-in-beer napkin, which I scrawl down my balance on periodically.

Re:Not applicable to /.

[bwatt]

Er, I might point out that it is when you don't have buckets of cash, that you should be most concerned with tracking how much you have and what you spend it on...

[Gak! That sounds highly responsible, no?]

I want

[finkployd]

I want the ability to link up to my bank, credit card companies, morgage companies, retirement fund, etc. and download the latest data like I can with Quicken. This is the only reason I keep windows (and quicken) around, and it is hard to live without once you get used to it. Gnucash is quite nice, but until it can do that, it is ultimatly not much more than a spreadsheet all set up for financial data.

Unfortunatly, there isn't a simple programming solution for this, it requires partnerships with all of these financial institutions. That is something I imagine would be difficult for an open source project.

Finkployd

Re:I want

[g4dget]

The protocol is open and standardized now: OFX (link down right now). It's based on XML. In theory, it should not require relations between the software vendor and the bank; the end user should be able to get all the necessary information. Reality may be different, however.

Check out MoneyDance

[jockm]

I use MoneyDance. It's Java based, so it runs on Linux, Win32, MacOS X, etc...

Try Kapital

[motorsabbath]

Try kapital:

http://www.thekompany.com/products/kapital

My girfriend loves it, I prefer a good spreadsheet (Applix)...

JB

*Grumble*

[jsse]

Do you really care to do a little research, before Ask:Slashdot?!

The main page of Christopher Browne's "Finances, Linux, and Stuff" is here!

Click to that little "2. Linux-based Financial Software" you can find what you need.

*grumble*

Well, personally...

[vkg]

I recon you can't beat MySQL and Perl for all of your financial needs :-)

Kapital

[Michael Wardle]

I asked myself the same question only a few weeks ago. I came to the conclusion that Kapital from theKompany was the best option. You'll probably need KDE and Linux or FreeBSD to run it.

Somewhat ironically, I'm using GnuCash until I can afford to buy it. :-/

Both Kapital and GnuCash claim to be able to import Quicken data files, which is a very handy feature.

Kapital is reviewed here.

Freshmeat also has a brief review that compares many Linux/Unix financial products.

If none of these seems sufficient, maybe Quicken runs under WINE. Has anybody tried doing so?

Re:Kapital

[Dr. Cam]

Quicken is reported to run _very well_ under Wine. I cannot verify this myself, as I switched to Gnucash. It lacks a little bit of the functionality of Quicken, but it offers a good deal more.

Because my wife and I have some real estate investments, and she runs a sole proprietorship, we need to make use of a "real" financial package. Quicken's use of single-entry bookkeeping used to drive me nuts at times, because some things were very complicated to set up. Gnucash is a true double-entry system.

As for getting your bank statements, unless the bank is using the newer Quicken format, downloading is trivially easy. Quicken developed the QIF format, and this is used still by a large number of financial institutions. Gnucash will sort out the duplications for you, and allow you to classify entries it cannot identify.

I won't go back.

Quicken

[JDeFontes]

Quicken 2002 on OS X. *wink*

But seriously...

I used to work for Intuit, and at one time there was an initiative to do an online version of Quicken. Some of that work seems to have shown up in their My Finances offering:

"Track checking, savings and cash accounts here. You can download balances from your financial institution..."

my 'must have' feature

[slide-rule]

I have actually poked at each release of GnuCash, but consistently it lacks one feature that I am rather addicted to: scheduling income and expenses, and combining this into a budget forecast for the next N months. With something like this, correctly setup, I not only know how much money I have an any account *right now*, but I will have a reasonable ball-park figure for how much money I will have in three months, six months, etc. A nifty line-plot is handy to see where, when, and how bad the next "low point" is going to be, and as necessary I can adjust funds to deal with it gracefully before it has a chance to bite my sorry a$$. Very useful planning tool that, now, I cannot do without. This is the one single feature keeping a '98 partition hanging around my house.

Now, I'm not too bad writing bits of code and what-not (it's a tangential part of my day job), and I appreciate that, to some extent, linux money applications can be scripted and stuff; maybe I could roll my own forecaster this way, but I really don't want to feel like I need to kludge together such a relatively 'big' feature when I don't have the time and interest after getting home. (Maybe it's just me, and, yes, I'm a bit lazy once I'm off the clock. ;)

I probably haven't looked into all possible alternatives for a linux-based financial program, but so far I haven't noticed one that really handles this.

Why I don't like Quicken

[vegetablespork]

Even if Intuit released a version of Quicken for Linux today, I wouldn't use it.

Strike 1: Intuit charges me for the software--then has the audacity to attempt to force me to give up personal information to use it (astalavista.box.sk to the rescue again).

Strike 2: Intuit spams me with sales pitches based on information entered into the program. I already paid once, thank you.

Strike 3: Using the online services requires me to go through Intuit as an intermediary, rather than keeping the relationship only between me and my financial institution. Given their proven propensity to bother me with ads, I don't exactly trust them with my financial details.

Yer out!

Pro's & Con's of Grumbling

[bihoy]

On the one hand I too feel that sometimes folks do not always do their homework. On the other hand I actually learned something from some of the replies to this post.

This is an area that I am interested in, but not so much that I would have spent my own time researching them. I too would like a open source offering that is like quicken and that runs on Linux.

It would be nice if there was a topic here on slashdot for folks to share information on specific topics that they have researched. Not with the intent or pretext of asking a question but with the intent of generating further discussion on the topic. Or perhaps all that is needed is a new name or subtitle for "Ask Slashdot".

Hopefully this would allow everyone involved to expand their horizons in a collaborative fashion.

One hitch

[rakeswell]

Exactly right.OFX is slated for inclusion into Gnucash.

There is one hitch, however: download method. Some financial institutions require your application (MS Money/Quicken) to download the information from your bank, while others provide a browser-based hyperlink download of the qif/ofx file for you to import into your application. As long as your app supports the file formats provided, no vendor/financial institution is needed.You can curently import qif files into Gnucash.

The setup in which you download the files with your fincance application requires your app to first connect to the vendor's "branding" server, which then redirects you to your financial institution to begin the download -- this is where vendor involvement with the financial institution gets involved.

I suppose that if someone knew the address to their FI's download servlet, their application could be written to go directly there and bypass the branding servers. However, I don't think that FI's usually publish the URI for their download servlets so getting this info could be a challenge (though tech support should be able to tell you).

I've found that this interactive download method is more error-prone and resource-intensive (for the FI) than the browser-based options.

Here's a comment on building an OFX parser found on the Gnucash project goals pags:

There are two ways to build an OFX parser. One way is to build a compile-time DTD parser that treats the DTD as if it were an IDL, and generates C language stubs for a parser. This approach was attempted and abandoned because it leads to fragile C code and a very large binary.

• The parser is fragile because minor DTD non-compliances are hard to parse, handle and recover from.
• The parser is huge because the DTD results in hundreds of (C++) objects being generated.

The other method would be to perform run-time DTD parsing. This is attractive particularly because it is a more commonly-used approach; there are a variety of XML tools available that provide this function.

Quicken = Personal Finances

[alexhmit01]

Quickbooks does corporate/business accounting. If you want double-entry accounting, buy Quickbooks. You don't need the Pro version for real estate and most small businesses.

Complaining about Quicken's single-entry bookkeeping is the most retarded complaint, no offense. You're complaining that the personal finance stuff doesn't do business style accounting? That would be a valid complaint except the SAME company offers a business version cheaply (it's less than $200) that does what you want.

I use Quicken Deluxe for my personal finances where I don't want double-entry and other garbage. I use Quickbooks for my corporate accounting where I need to do invoicing, credit memos, various accounts, etc.

My personal accounting consists of a checking account, investment account, and some credit cards. My corporate accounting is more complicated and needs to be more complicated.

Alex

Taupe Beanie

[TheSHAD0W]

Yup, the bluest of the blue-nose Linux distributions is Red Hat. They have the largest support structure out there.

GnuCash

[charlie763]

Try GNUCash. It comes with most distros, its open source, and it is probably the best accounting software I have used. GNUCash is arguably as good as Quicken.

Take a look at some screen shots.

quicken

[Apreche]

quicken works in wine.

Quicken using the codeweaver's crossover plugin

[Outland Traveller]

Yeah yeah, I wish there were a native alternative, but it works now.

Here are some links:

[Futurepower(R)]

I'm very interested in this subject, also. Here are some links:

SQL Ledger Accounting

Hansa Business Solutions

Compiere

Cheap & easy business accounting with Linux

Nola

STFB

Open source Java projects for business and accounting. But... Is Java slow and with non-standard GUIs? A prisoner of Sun politics?

Open Systems Accounting Software

GNU Cash. Impressive.

Slashdot discussed personal finance packages. Thoughts: Where does "personal finance" end and business finance begin? Wouldn't it be better just to have one package for all accounting, so that you didn't have to learn more than one? But business accounting software has been difficult to use. Accounting software requires much more learning than word processing software. Learning more than one may reduce the quality of your life, not raise it.

Re:Here are some links:

[Anonymous Coward]

OSAS is a good package, especially since they include source code (which they did even before it became fashionable) and you can customize to your heart's desire.

Re:Here are some links:

[SEWilco]

Many business accounting packages have had source available for decades. Customization is often needed, laws change so payroll and tax code has to be changed, and it might even need to be auditable.

Quicken and clones thereof are for home use.

[Old.UNIX.Nut]

Small business and organizations with a need for accounting will not get by with the "designed for home use" accounting packages. If this were not the case then the Quicken people would not have also created Quickbooks for business people.
Based on my experience with small business people this individual needs a package for Linux that approximates the functionality of PeachTree Accounting (or a competing product with similar functionality).
Since all of my customers with accounting needs are married to Windows I cannot recommend a package for Linux, but a Quicken replacement will NOT do the trick.
The only package for Linux I've seen that looks like it might have the right stuff is SQL-Ledger http://www.sql-ledger.com/features.html, but I cannot recommend something I've never tried.
More details from the person asking about this might help get a recommendation based on required functionality.

Re:Quicken and clones thereof are for home use.

[GigsVT]

You are absolutely correct. The people suggesting Quicken level programs obviously aren't aware that there is more to accounting than that. No business with more than 30 or 40 employees is going to use Quicken/Quickbooks level software for accounting.

Now, At work, we are going through an accounting software upgrade, I was involved in the meetings to some limited extent. We decided to stick with the product from "Ultimate" software for Windows. We had been using the DOS Ultipro for several years (based on foxpro). It wasn't cheap to upgrade, and the support isn't cheap either. Lets just say the cost is more than I make in a year.

I don't think there is any effort currently to bring anything close to this to Linux. Considering the critical nature of the app, and also the amount you would be paying for support (not just tech support, but things like tax table updates, etc), Wine is not an option.

My suggestion to the asker of the question, suck it up and get one single Windows/whatever box for the accounting if you are looking for any serious accounting apps. Maybe in a few years there will be something for Linux, but I doubt it, considering the constant need to revise for tax/employment laws and the potential liability if you screw up a tax table.

Re:Quicken and clones thereof are for home use.

[Anonymous Coward]

Lets just say the cost is more than I make in a year.

I'll take two.

Re:Quicken and clones thereof are for home use.

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you want a coke with that?

I know I'm going to get flamed for this....

[HotNeedleOfInquiry]

But what you're asking for is a nearly perfect application for Win98se/Win2000 and Peachtree. Peachtree is robust, Win98 works and nobody other than the slashdot and Apple crowds would find fault with your decision. We've used Peachtree for years and it works just fine. *ANY* accountant or auditor would have no problem reading it's reports or dealing with it's methods. It's nicely extensible, moving from a single-user setup to a peer-to-peer network with zero complications. If you need to use open source for political reasons, I can't help you. If you want the best return on investment for your group, I would seriously consider the above system.

Re:I know I'm going to get flamed for this....

[metacosm]

I agree with the above post. PeachTree is an awesome package and unless you plan on doing hundreds of thousands of line-items, you will not hit the limits of the PeachTree System, it is also easy to use.

Now, the interesting bit is peachtree has a "pure online" version of its software (http://www.peachtree.com/epeachtree/) but it says you need to use "IE" to work on it. I don't know if this is a true limit, or just a limit on what they are willing to support, but it may be worth looking into.

Re:I know I'm going to get flamed for this....

[metacosm]

Another note about PeachTree. You might be able to get peachtree working properly in "Wine". Not sure, but again, it might be worth looking into, I can't recommend this account package enough.

Re:I know I'm going to get flamed for this....

[Twirlip of the Mists]

Peachtree is robust, Win98 works and nobody other than the slashdot and Apple crowds would find fault with your decision.

Actually, speaking as a charter member of the Apple crowd, I'd like to say that I support this recommendation completely. Accounting software is the closest most businesses come to something truly mission-critical. If the accounting software fails, nobody will die, but nobody will get paid or billed either, and that's about as bad as it gets for a business.

Pardon the coarse language, but don't fuck around with your accounting software. Use the best product for your particular needs, regardless of platform or-- within reason-- cost.

Accpac

[Kent_Franken]

Accpac has a great accounting package and has been around in commercial distribution for a long time (I knew someone who used the Windows version back in the late 1980s). It was recently released for Linux.

Close, But No Cigar

[waldoj]

GNUCash is arguably as good as Quicken.

This is more or less accurate. However, Quicken (like GNUCash) is worthless to most businesses, as it's a personal finance tool, not a corporate one.

-Waldo Jaquith

Armor Advantage

[waldoj]

This topic came up on Kuro5hin in October of 2001. Though no doubt the options have changed since then, it might be worth reading through the comments posted there. Also, as I wrote at the time:

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.

Unfortunately, I know nothing more about Advantage on Linux now than I did at the time.

-Waldo Jaquith

No flame here

[mikosullivan]

There'll be no flame from me. I've heard lots of great things about PeachTree. The reasons for wanting to stick to Linux aren't political, however. Virtually every else at the mission will benefit from a changeover to Linux. If accounting can't go with Linux, it's going to be a big pain, so we're definitely very interested in bringing accounting over as well.

Re:No flame here

[HotNeedleOfInquiry]

Understood. If you decide to run Peach with Wine or some other win emulator, or for that matter, in Win be aware of a dirty little Peachtree secret. Peach uses the Btrieve database engine and it wants it all to itself. We've been totally unsuccessful at getting Peach and Xilinx design tools (which also need Btrieve with a whole different set of registry entries) to work together. Since the engineers need Peach for bills of materials and part descriptions and Xilinx to design chips, they each need 2 machines.

Re:No flame here

[Twirlip of the Mists]

If accounting can't go with Linux, it's going to be a big pain...

Pardon my ignorance, but why? Linux and Windows can run on the same hardware, so you won't need to buy any special computers. The admin overhead on one or a few Windows machines should be easy to absorb, especially if you're prepared to absorb the admin overhead of Linux. Why will it be a big pain to run accounting on Windows? And, of course, the next question is, "Will it be a bigger or a smaller pain to run accounting with less well known software?"

A Linux network doesn't mean "No Windows"

[iankerickson]

Just because you switch your network to Linux doesn't mean you can't run Windows software. Even assuming all client PCs run Linux, you still have options:

Run ONE NT/2000 server just to serve up the accounting and connect to it via:
- ICA/RDP clients (buy appropriate CALs!)
- A browser (for web-enabled accounting apps)
- VNC (just kidding)

Or run a Win32 or DOS program right on Linux for i386:
- WINE or DOSemu
- VMWare or Bochs

Or buy a UNIX accounting turnkey system and connect to it from linux using X, telnet, ssh, browser, or whatever. Take a look at the offerings for Solaris, AIX, Tru64 and HPUX. Accounting vendors for these commercial UNIXes may already have a Linux version for sale. Then your manager's fears will be appeased since it's a "real" accounting app you're recommending.

ThinSoft Accounting

[himynameisbrak]

Unique Systems, Inc. has a product called ThinSoft Accounting. It's a native UNIX/Linux modular accounting package written in Informix-4GL. According to their website, "ThinSoft is now free and in the process of being converted to OpenSource. It will be the first Enterprise Accounting System in the world that is OpenSource."

It currently relies on some commercial products, but that fact that the accounting package itself will be Open Source is a big thing.

The people at USI will customize the product for you. You will wind up spending less than half what you'd spend buying a comparable commercial solution, though.

To address your primary concern, ThinSoft has a long history and is extremely stable and reliable.

Professional Accounting Package.

[chris_sawtell]

It all depends on how complex you want to allow the exercise to become, and how many transactions you will be processing. You don't say, so I can't advise properly, but I'd probably go with Appgen Professional. I looked over some products from them a few years ago and was really impressed. Not cheap, but a fair price for a quality product. Runs on several platforms including Linux.

Freshmeat has an article.

[GiMP]

Your best list will be at:
http://freshmeat.net/articles/view/269/

It is a little dated (2001), but I don't think that the offerings have changed substantially... perhaps just a few more features, also anything regarded as slow may now be faster due to moore's law

Appgen

[LWATCDR]

Runs on linux. I looked at it but just was not right for our comapany. What I did not like about it is I have enough to do without learning it's funky programing language. From what I have read it is very good.

SouthWare is a good choice

[theGoodWitch]

SouthWare (http://www.groupe-allez.com/southware.php) is an excellent choice -- full-featured, mature, stable, runs perfectly well on Linux and other *nices. We use it ourselves and many of our clients do as well, on Linux servers and Linux workstations.

Karma

[Anonymous Coward]

WHORE.

Slashdot disfunctional culture

[Futurepower(R)]

Somehow it became Slashdot disfunctional culture that helping the discussion was a negative thing to do. Will the negative people rule? I think not.