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An open-source alternative to QuickBooks

bigcapital.ly

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Re: An open-source alternative to QuickBooks

#11

Post by neilv »

As a non-accountant, I used GnuCash for a small consultig business (including hours tracking, invoicing, and AP), and now mostly really like it for personal finance. https://gnucash.org/

One thing GnuCash doesn't currently do, but this Bigcapital apparently does, is inventory management.

Re: An open-source alternative to QuickBooks

#13

Post by stanislavb »

djbusby wrote: post #9
paddw wrote: post #7

For people who use QuickBooks, what's the main barrier to a viable open-source competitor? Does QuickBooks offer a ton of necessary integrations or something?

Your accountant knows it. When you're on other software, it's a challenge for them - and that costs you extra money.

I think this is the major reason. Accountants would usually label themselves as "Quickbooks/Xero certified partner" as a selling point.

Re: An open-source alternative to QuickBooks

#14

Post by DANmode »

Justin_K wrote: post #12
paddw wrote: post #7

For people who use QuickBooks, what's the main barrier to a viable open-source competitor? Does QuickBooks offer a ton of necessary integrations or something?

Banking integration

That's a helpful new feature, but they've held the market by the throat far longer than that was an offering.

Re: An open-source alternative to QuickBooks

#15

Post by el_snark »

I was slightly interested by this. Moved from MYOB to Gnucash about 20 years ago, and am sometimes thinking there might be a better alternative. However a look at their FAQ (page not found), their documentation, and their discord channel, which is full of people complaining that the installer doesn't work, I don't think this is it, at least not yet. And in fact, for it to be an option for me, there would have to be some sort of migration process, which doesn't seem to exist. Will put it on my "one to watch" list.

Re: An open-source alternative to QuickBooks

#16

Post by mNovak »

djbusby wrote: post #9
paddw wrote: post #7

For people who use QuickBooks, what's the main barrier to a viable open-source competitor? Does QuickBooks offer a ton of necessary integrations or something?

Your accountant knows it. When you're on other software, it's a challenge for them - and that costs you extra money.

How hard would it be to export a Quickbooks file to hand over to the accountant (assuming read-only case)? Sort of like Google docs exporting to docx.

Re: An open-source alternative to QuickBooks

#17

Post by citelao »

upon_drumhead wrote: post #5
api wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Back in the day bank feeds were horrific to develop but these days I think there are aggregate feed services. Seems like you could just implement support for one of those?

Are there any feed services that would sell an individual (person or business) license? It seems like they all strive to be a backend for a SAAS.

I haven't used it, but the team (person?) that makes Buckets (https://www.budgetwithbuckets.com) makes SimpleFIN (https://www.simplefin.org), which seems like it exposes exactly what you want: simple transaction data from arbitrary banks.

Plaid offers transactions APIs (https://plaid.com/products/transactions/), but I guess to your point these APIs are geared towards fintech companies, not personal use.

EDIT: I don't know how well it works in general, though. You'd have to test it yourself.

Re: An open-source alternative to QuickBooks

#18

Post by nulbyte »

bratao wrote: post #2

I can't help but feel compelled to pause my current tasks and contribute wholeheartedly to this. My frustration with Intuit has reached its tipping point, especially after they acquired a Brazilian financial management software called Zeropaper, which my company heavily relied upon. Intuit then proceeded to discontinue the product and withdraw from the Brazilian market without offering any viable alternatives, leavin…

> I can't help but feel compelled to pause my current tasks and contribute wholeheartedly to this.

That is interesting to me, because I had the complete opposite take after less than a minute on the website. I actively avoid QuickBooks because I despise Intuit.

But there is no way I would take a project like this seriously when the 'support' link is a link to Discord.

Competing with QuickBooks means competing for business clients, yet I can't imagine a business forgoing real documentation for Discord.

Re: An open-source alternative to QuickBooks

#19

Post by mNovak »

neilv wrote: post #11

As a non-accountant, I used GnuCash for a small consultig business (including hours tracking, invoicing, and AP), and now mostly really like it for personal finance. https://gnucash.org/ One thing GnuCash doesn't currently do, but this Bigcapital apparently does, is inventory management.

I use GnuCash for business too. My only complaint is that reports are still hard to customize. Instinctively that feels like something a web platform could do very well.
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