[ubuntu-nz] Accounting / book-keeping software

[Dave Lane]

We've been using LedgerSMB (http://ledgersmb.org) which is a fork of SQL 
Ledger.  We started with SQL-Ledger in 2002, and transferred to 
LedgerSMB (more secure, better development team, attractive development 
roadmap) which is functionally equivalent (or better).  It's a very good 
system.  For most businesses, it's more flexible but has less "hand 
holding" for non-accountants.  Unless you're a competent accounts 
person, you'd probably want to have assistance from a professional in 
setting it up (although I'd recommend that in any case).  That said, the 
LedgerSMB email list is very responsive and offers some good resources.

LedgerSMB is properly open source, it's client-server (uses PostgreSQL 
as a back end), and it's moving towards a web-services interface.  We 
sent PDF invoices via email to our customers.  It doesn't do direct 
import of bank details (a la Xero) but it offers Point of Sale, Project 
management, Quotes, Purchase Orders, Sales Orders, reconciliation, 
inventory management, multiple currencies, and lots of other stuff that 
other systems don't offer.  Don't underestimate the value of proper 
client server architecture (e.g. give your accountant a log-in and they 
can watch your accounts securely without you having to send them a 
spreadsheet or MYOB database each time) - also no user license fees, and 
the ability to integrate into other applications...  we're looking at 
doing that now with Drupal.

We offer hosted LedgerSMB systems for some of the other companies in our 
Effusion Group cluster (http://effusiongroup.com) and they've found it 
very good.  We're not offering it as a full-fledged commercial service, 
but might be open for discussion.

I don't know much about Gnu-Cash, but my impression is that it's more 
for individuals and not so much for business use, particularly if you 
expect to expand to multiple locations, branches, etc. (which LedgerSMB 
does support!).

Hope that helps someone.

Dave

Paulus Herewini wrote:
> Hello, I am in the process of setting up a small business. I am hoping 
> to be using entirely opensource operating systems and software. I am 
> almost there except for one part:
> 
> Accounting Software
> 
> I did some quick researched and (hopefully) found that GNUcash was the 
> better option for me. It looks like it needs some slight customisation 
> to enter/calculate NZ GST correctly, and anything else NZ-related.
> 
> I am enquiring as to whether anyone on this list has either setup 
> GNUcash (or any other opensource accounting package) successfully for a 
> NZ business or have seen an NZ-specific tutorial or article. I am 
> reluctant to ask my accountant for help with this as they aren't very 
> technically-literate and would simply say "Just get MYOB and install it 
> on a windows machine".
> 
> Thanks in advance,
> Paulus Herewini
> 

-- 
Dave Lane = Egressive Ltd = dave at egressive.com = m: +64 21 229 8147
p: +64 3 9633733 = Linux: it just tastes better = nosoftwarepatents
http://egressive.com ==== we only use open standards: http://w3.org
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