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An open-source alternative to QuickBooks

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Re: An open-source alternative to QuickBooks

#151

Post by rco8786 »

nulbyte wrote: post #18
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 bus…

> 'support' link is a link to Discord

For a FOSS project targeting people who are comfortable using FOSS this seems entirely fine...desirable even. "We don't have money for phone staff who would put you on hold and only be reading off scripted responses anyway, but you can come chat directly with the leaders and maintainers of the software by chat".

Re: An open-source alternative to QuickBooks

#152

Post by rco8786 »

icemelt8 wrote: post #139
callmeal wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Real time chat in general and discord in particular. Discord cannot be self-hosted, so any support message history will be completely reliant on the goodwill of discord. Another problem with using a chat channel for support (slack has the same problem) is searching for things you know are there but are impossible to find again.

so you want them to roll-out a discord like platform themselves?

And an ISP to host it on. As we know, if you don't self-host your ISP then you're beholden to the goodwill of a large corporation who could shut you down at any time.

Re: An open-source alternative to QuickBooks

#153

Post by funnym0nk3y »

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…

What about all the add-on apps? Are they Foss as well? Or is this a minimal open core product like Odoo?

Re: An open-source alternative to QuickBooks

#154

Post by moduspol »

balaselvam wrote: post #86
hedora wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The last time I looked for quickbooks documentation, I just found some YouTube videos. Support has been useless too. As much as I don’t use discord at all, having a 50% chance of getting someone that understands internet banking to help troubleshoot internet banking would be compelling.

If the company is serious enough about competing with Quickbooks and solving a real customer problem, Discord is not going to cut it.

Presumably this would follow the pattern other big open source projects take, where other companies (who are experts on the software) host and/or support the software for a cost.

Re: An open-source alternative to QuickBooks

#156

Post by jrm4 »

balaselvam wrote: post #86
hedora wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The last time I looked for quickbooks documentation, I just found some YouTube videos. Support has been useless too. As much as I don’t use discord at all, having a 50% chance of getting someone that understands internet banking to help troubleshoot internet banking would be compelling.

If the company is serious enough about competing with Quickbooks and solving a real customer problem, Discord is not going to cut it.

Seems like a brilliant way to choose your customers, actually. A great way to avoid Pareto rule type problems that suck away too much time. I could easily imagine that e.g. 200 "smart customers who need very little help" could be more profitable than 1000 who do, after a time v. money calculation.

Re: An open-source alternative to QuickBooks

#157

Post by capableweb »

rco8786 wrote: post #151
nulbyte wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 bus…

> 'support' link is a link to Discord For a FOSS project targeting people who are comfortable using FOSS this seems entirely fine...desirable even. "We don't have money for phone staff who would put you on hold and only be reading off scripted responses anyway, but you can come chat directly with the leaders and maintainers of the software by chat".

Discord (and other non-indexable chats like Slack) is where conversations go to die and be hidden forever. FOSS and other "open" projects should be using something like Zulip, or even anything else, that can actually be indexed by Google and other search engines.

I'm a part of a few Discords, and questions are repeated over and over again, forever. People who answer the questions, get tired of answering the same thing and eventually stops helping people. In contrast, using Stack Overflow or anything else, people can search Google for answers and actually find it.

Re: An open-source alternative to QuickBooks

#158

Post by mustardo »

coolestguy wrote: post #94
suddenclarity wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 makin…

I don't know why you need a third party. In Aus all our major software providers do it directly with a bank connection - why can't this program.

Banks don't give out access to this API easily. Unfortunately it's not some OAuth thing that a new upstart accounting software could easily hook into, therefore the banks gate keep feeds to major accounting providers and no doubt charge excessively for the privelage. We need regulation to open feeds to anyone willing to consume them, or a bank to add it as a feature but why would they when they can charge Xero and MYOB to access proprietary feeds

Re: An open-source alternative to QuickBooks

#159

Post by nulbyte »

homero wrote: post #148
nulbyte wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 bus…

You'd rather talk to a salesman than chat with the developers? Stripe at the beginning had a chatroom for support

No, I'd rather read the documentation than wait for a response to a question that should be addressed in the nonexistent documentation.

Re: An open-source alternative to QuickBooks

#160

Post by octobus2021 »

Some constructive critique for the authors.

Would definitely help to have more information about the functionality other than 9 paragraphs on the front page. GL, chart of accounts, AR, AP, inventory, invoices, purchase orders, financial reporting (income statement/balance sheet/cash flow), etc etc. Preferably with screenshots and links to some walk-troughs.

Would definitely help to add comparison to other solutions (including OSS) out there. I used frontaccouting back in 2010s and was mostly satisfied with it (it is not free or open source but does have "community edition" which is). There's gnucash, plain text accounting, ERPNext, and probably dozens of others... How are you different/better?

People already mentioned discord support. I know people hate BBs these days and consider them old-fashioned, but they do provide one central point to see the latest announcements, questions sorted by area (installation vs accounting vs upgrade etc), links to articles and any other useful resources. Discord lacks all of this, and requires de-anonymization and can restrict your access to the platform on a whim. Non-starter for a lot of people.

Just my 2c.

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