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The end of the accounting search

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71–80 of 208 posts

Re: The end of the accounting search

#71

GnuCash may not support concurrent users, but it does support concurrent programmers as its XML config files can be checked into git. From my programmer perspective, revision-controlled accounting makes sense. You can fix bugs and change names, merge and split accounts, all with history, comments and easy reversion. And unlike with h?ledger, you have a nice GUI for managing most day to day tasks.

Does the SQLite format support concurrent users? Or would it need better conflict resolution support in the application?

Checking the XML data into text-based version control is a really interesting idea. you could probably do something similar with the SQLite data, using a tool like Dolt.

Re: The end of the accounting search

#72

I'm a QuickBooks ProAdvisor and have been one for over 20 years and the last few years has convinced me that Intuit is determined to kill the goose that lays the golden eggs by: 1) Forcing all their customers to migrate to the online version of their program. Many of the clients I've spoken to were happy with and preferred the Desktop version. The Desktop version is faster and can do more than the online version. 2)…

Genuine question: do you find there is creativity and the satisfaction of creating something from nothing in accounting work? It has always seemed so dull from the outside looking in (cue the joes about accountants) but is this the reality? Many people don’t see software engineering as creative but it certainly can be!

My sister is an accountant and she genuinely enjoys working with the numbers. She finds it, not exactly fun, but kind of fun? She describes it like every situation is a puzzle she gets to solve, and then maintain. She also likes working with her customers and enjoys those interactions, like she gets a good feeling from helping her customers out. That's enough for her.

Not the vocation for me but it's very interesting to talk with her about her experiences, because they're so remote from mine...

Re: The end of the accounting search

#74
post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Genuine question: do you find there is creativity and the satisfaction of creating something from nothing in accounting work? It has always seemed so dull from the outside looking in (cue the joes about accountants) but is this the reality? Many people don’t see software engineering as creative but it certainly can be!

My sister is an accountant and she genuinely enjoys working with the numbers. She finds it, not exactly fun, but kind of fun? She describes it like every situation is a puzzle she gets to solve, and then maintain. She also likes working with her customers and enjoys those interactions, like she gets a good feeling from helping her customers out. That's enough for her. Not the vocation for me but it's very interesting…

FWIW I share your sister's take. A large part of my job involves accounting and audit/compliance, and few things stimulate me more than trying to figure out "what the fuck were they thinking" and fixing it.

Re: The end of the accounting search

#75
post #11

I'm a QuickBooks ProAdvisor and have been one for over 20 years and the last few years has convinced me that Intuit is determined to kill the goose that lays the golden eggs by: 1) Forcing all their customers to migrate to the online version of their program. Many of the clients I've spoken to were happy with and preferred the Desktop version. The Desktop version is faster and can do more than the online version. 2)…

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.

I’m a business owner and use Quickbooks online and a couple years ago they just flat out changed how they calculated taxes. When I reported the bug they just kept repeating how I could completely change my process to make it work, like they had released some new feature. But they really just broke shit, and refused to ever acknowledge it. There’s no way I was the only person reporting this. They obviously don’t care

Re: The end of the accounting search

#76

I'm a QuickBooks ProAdvisor and have been one for over 20 years and the last few years has convinced me that Intuit is determined to kill the goose that lays the golden eggs by: 1) Forcing all their customers to migrate to the online version of their program. Many of the clients I've spoken to were happy with and preferred the Desktop version. The Desktop version is faster and can do more than the online version. 2)…

Genuine question: do you find there is creativity and the satisfaction of creating something from nothing in accounting work? It has always seemed so dull from the outside looking in (cue the joes about accountants) but is this the reality? Many people don’t see software engineering as creative but it certainly can be!

I'm a small business owner and I get a lot of satisfaction from the feeling of confidence that everything is properly counted down to the last cent. Both for business and for IRS I have a confident answer. Kinda like designing a proper DB schema for the use case, using proper data types, optimal queries etc.

Re: The end of the accounting search

#77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are just not as good as QuickBooks and not many accountants are familiar with these other packages. The prices keep increasing but the QuickBooks online functionality is the best out there and it is the platform with which most other tools make sure to integrate.

Also, none of the open source alternatives support simultaneous multiuser access. Users can slowly adapt, but most businesses larger than a sole proprietorship need multiuser capability.

This is a big one. I switched from GnuCash to QBO for a non-profit because of that.

Re: The end of the accounting search

#78
post #34

Not open source but free with many features, https://www.waveapps.com/ can fit the bill for many small businesses. 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've used waveapps for my consulting business and it works great

Re: The end of the accounting search

#79
post #11

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,…

I use LibreOffice bacause you know what Microsoft.

Re: The end of the accounting search

#80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's crazy how slow it is to get anything done with Quickbooks Online. The site is slow to respond, it has very limited keyboard shortcuts, if you open it in multiple tabs to cross reference information, it's constantly logging you out of the other tab, and they discontinued the desktop electron wrapper that let you have more than one tab open. Historically, a huge strength of Intuit was the huge population of bookke…

From quickbooks to TurboTax, Intuit software has been some of the most god awful both to use and to develop against in my experience.

Argocd is pretty nice
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