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An open-source alternative to QuickBooks

bigcapital.ly

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Re: An open-source alternative to QuickBooks

#61

Post by [deleted] »

user61129028 wrote: post #54
basilgohar wrote: post #50

I am really happy to see something like this. This is not a criticism of the project. Rather, I lament that more-and-more web-based projects document only a Docker-centered install process for self-hosting as opposed to the process of installing from source. This goes strongly against the spirit of self-hosting where you know what you're running and you see the steps and all the integrations that are needed, includin…

> This goes strongly against the spirit of self-hosting where you know what you're running and you see the steps and all the integrations that are needed, including any reliance on third-party services that may come back to bite you. No it doesn't. Just read the Dockerfile, it's self documenting and contains all the build steps.

[deleted]

Re: An open-source alternative to QuickBooks

#62

Post by acyou »

robomartin wrote: post #30

Good luck. Many layers of the financial system for small and medium businesses are used to working with QB. It's a means of communication. You can hire people who know it. It integrates with every bank and every, well, everything you might need. You accountant --internal or external-- knows it and has a process to work with it. Etc. While FOSS is great, it isn't always better. I think FOSS works well when you have a…

There is a tendency towards a knee-jerk response by people who have little broader industry experience, saying "I have to pay for that? It's so easy. Why can't it be open source and free?" Well, because this and this and this and also that little detail which turns out to be a massive deal. The Chinese have an old saying, you get what you pay for. Yes, why can't we have open core + accounting as a service, pay 2x, and have the rug pulled out at any time? Possibly the largest deterrent is the recent tendency of financial VC backed startups to play extremely fast and loose with house (investor) money...

Re: An open-source alternative to QuickBooks

#63

Post by suddenclarity »

coolestguy wrote: post #3

It never seems like any of these opensource accounting solutions have bank feeds? Why would anyone manually import bank info when an automatic feed exists.

My understanding is that automatic import through a third party cost a small fortune.

YNAB promoted not having it, as a feature. They claimed it would make you more responsible by taking 30 seconds after every purchase to open the app and add the purchase. Then they went from a one time fee ($30) to SaaS and began charging $100 + VAT a year, with automatic bank import being the only new feature. Either they are making bank, or it's insanely expensive.

Re: An open-source alternative to QuickBooks

#65

Post by softgrow »

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.

The other thing GnuCash doesn't do is be a multiuser web app. It's an executable, remember them? There is https://github.com/joshuabach/gnucash-web 0.1.0 but that is just an access to the register you might (or might not) set up on a server to access your database.

Re: An open-source alternative to QuickBooks

#66

Post by theK »

xvilka wrote: post #29

There's also Plain Text Accounting[1]. The biggest problem of all open source solutions, accountants' experience aside, is the lack of banking and taxes integration, especially outside of US, e.g. for Asian, South American, or African businesses. The most promising FOSS solution for SME I was able to find is Akaunting[2][3]. [1] https://plaintextaccounting.org/ [2] https://akaunting.com/ [3] https://github.com/akaunt…

Just a word of caution on akaunting, the FOSS product is very much the SaaS product, so lots of buttons will lead to nowhere and you will get CTAs to enable plugins which you later find out only work on the hosted service.

I’m my case I even need to patch their css to get invoices to render to PDF „somewhat“ correctly.

I’m still sticking around to see if this is just a momentary lapse but it’s been more than a year now…

Re: An open-source alternative to QuickBooks

#69

Post by theK »

epgui wrote: post #60
basilgohar wrote: post #50

I am really happy to see something like this. This is not a criticism of the project. Rather, I lament that more-and-more web-based projects document only a Docker-centered install process for self-hosting as opposed to the process of installing from source. This goes strongly against the spirit of self-hosting where you know what you're running and you see the steps and all the integrations that are needed, includin…

> This goes strongly against the spirit of self-hosting where you know what you're running and you see the steps and all the integrations that are needed, including any reliance on third-party services that may come back to bite you. Dockerized apps are typically just as transparent, so that's a bit of a non-argument IMO. Their main advantages are portability, reproducibility, and security.

This depends on whether the Dockerfile is available somewhere right?

Re: An open-source alternative to QuickBooks

#70

Post by justinko »

jasonriddle wrote: post #33

This is very interesting and couldn't have come at a better time for me as I am recently self-employed and I'm having to figure out bookkeeping for myself. Quickbooks blows my mind in how poorly designed and overly complex it feels. I would only use it if my CPA requires it and even then it would still feel like pulling teeth. The main thing for me is as a real estate investor, quickbooks doesn't seem designed for me…

Hmmm this smells like a biz opportunity
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