31–40 of 208 posts
"Getting our QuickBooks data into GnuCash took a bit of scripting using the capable (if poorly documented) Python bindings." I wonder if LLMs can help with these gaps in documentation and examples?
I loved GnuCash until my database was corrupted and i had no idea how to get it back into working order. I stopped tracking my finances closely after that
My minimum price to go back to QB online would probably be $150k, maybe even more. Here is why: - constant down time - constant errors - clueless offshore support - inflexible reporting - constant UI changes for no reason
Switched to Xero, havent looked back.
QB Desktop was quite good but working offline is impossible these days for any tech startup.
However, it may not scale the way QB does, and folks you bring on won't have had experience with it's way of doing things.
That being said, with QB's changes, chances are that's true of QB folks as well (ha, ha).
I'm somewhat surprised that GNUCash was picked over Ledger or another of the plaintext systems out there: https://plaintextaccounting.org Maybe this was primarily done based on the users being comfortable with a GUI driven system?
FWIW I started prototyping a plaintext accounting 'app' that combines a popular plaintext accounting system (beancount) with the most used web frontend for it (fava) - it's called beancolage and makes use of eclipse theia (vscode-like experience): https://github.com/seltzered/beancolage
My observation is the plaintext accounting ecosystem is wonderful but a bit diffuse to so many specific usecases held by a more technical userbase. My aim for prototyping beancolage was to ask how things could look if there was a more common 'download and try' experience accessible to more people for basic workflows. Also have a talk on the motivations here: https://youtu.be/mxgoFqmSCFc
Serious question - why are people stuck on QB when there are seriouly decent alternatives put there, like xero? My minimum price to go back to QB online would probably be $150k, maybe even more. Here is why: - constant down time - constant errors - clueless offshore support - inflexible reporting - constant UI changes for no reason Switched to Xero, havent looked back. QB Desktop was quite good but working offline is…
If you’re not an accountant, and want someone to take it over for your business, they usually start you on QB.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The thing that pisses off the accounting people where I work is how often everything changes. They’re one step from just using excel because it won’t change on them.
> just using excel because it won’t change on them. Are your accounting people quite young? Excel moves and changes stuff, though not on quite such an aggressive timeline. Modern Office is not like 1990s Office where you buy it and then it doesn't change unless you decide to change it. This is fine, the universe's one constant is change, if we fight it we'll lose, but it's worth calling out that there will be change,…
> Scheme looks like Lisp but isn't really Lisp Well that’s a surprising statement, i’ve heard it touted as more lispy than common lisp.
The main issue towards adoption is the ease of fetching the transactions from various banks. Sure we can write some scripts to process the PDF files etc but it is still very manual compared to, e.g., allowing transaction query via REST api by granting users API keys.
I use the SQLite backend for the same reason Jonathan chose GnuCash: scripting. I can script in bash with the `sqlite3` command-line tool.
I also use the reports extensively.
I personally enter every transaction because I want to know where the money is going and categorize every expense into a budget, but yes, import is important.
As soon as I can, I am going to support GnuCash better than just shilling.