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<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px ! important;">On 09/08/2016 02:03 PM,
Glen Whitney wrote:</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px ! important;"></p>
<div class="markdown-here-exclude">
<p></p>
<blockquote
cite="mid:1473357784.4755.180.camel@post.harvard.edu"
type="cite">
<pre wrap="">So it seems to me that there are two ways to go:
(1) A core A/P module with two (or more) fairly lightweight "skins"
over it for "rank & file" submitters vs. "accounting-experienced"
staff. (If there's an existing system out there that is usually
customized with code, it's not inconceivable that a graphical interface
to customize the system's forms could be built on top of that, for
example.)
(2) As you put it, a "filing out forms app" that really has no
accounting knowledge inherent in it, but is simply an information-
gathering-with-review-by-a-gatekeeper-via-web-forms product, which then
spits a report out in a standard format, either sufficiently automated
to spit into the eventual system's programmatic API, or just for quick
handling by a bookkeeper. From this point of view, the project might be
just as suited to submitting insurance claims as reimbursement
requests, even though npoacct is surely not pursuing a system for not-
for-profit insurance companies ;-).
I really appreciate your taking the time to look at existing open
source accounting systems (cf. the second snippet I quoted), and
respect and trust your judgment that none of them are close enough at
the moment to be a basis for option (1).
In that case, option (2) seems reasonable as a path to get something
going if there isn't the time or resources or project inclination to
either make more extensive adaptations to get an existing A/P
functionality to allow for (1), or to start building what could be a
new one that would satisfy (1) -- not that I am advocating starting
from scratch!</pre>
</blockquote>
<p></p>
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<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px ! important;"></p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px ! important;">I think approach (2) has
a few benefits over (1). None of them is a slam dunk, but taken
together they make me prefer it. One is time, yes; I think we
can get (2) working more quickly. But perhaps more importantly,
(1) is likely to have deeper ties to a particular accounting
system—or if it doesn’t, it will take additional time to
extricate an A/P module from one of the existing ones. I think
approach (2) will have a little easier time adapting to
different accounting systems, meaning different organizations
can start using it sooner. That seems like a big win to me, the
opportunity to get this deployed at several organizations and
start getting feedback and building interest.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px ! important;"></p>
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<p></p>
<blockquote
cite="mid:1473357784.4755.180.camel@post.harvard.edu"
type="cite">
<pre wrap="">If it's option (2), then, the question is what might npoacct build on
to avoid wasting effort creating something de novo in that vein? There
must be existing form-building apps out there. It might be heard to
search for them because they might not nominally have much or anything
to do with accounting. If it would be helpful, I'd be happy to be
another pair of eyes poking around for such things.
On the other hand, I am quite familiar with CiviCRM because MoMath has
depended on it for years. If npoacct does not mind this stage of the
project only being usable with a CiviCRM installation, then a CiviCRM
Extension, parallel with CiviEvent or CiviMailing, seems like a
perfectly reasonable way to go, and I would be happy to contribute
effort.</pre>
</blockquote>
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<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px ! important;"></p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px ! important;">I agree this seems like
a promising approach. It’s what I’ve been spending my time on
this week, and I’ve started taking notes about <a
href="http://npoacct.sfconservancy.org/Reimbursements/OnCiviCRM/">what
I’ve found on the wiki</a>, noting possible implementation
ideas and pitfalls.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px ! important;">Right now this is just
based on reading some documentation and playing with a local
development install. I’m sure there’s more to cover. If you, or
anyone else with CiviCRM experience, has thoughts about how we
might address some of the issues that are already covered there,
or notes about issues that are likely to come up in the future,
adding your thoughts to that page would be a huge contribution
right now.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px ! important;">Thank you,</p>
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<div class="moz-signature markdown-here-signature">-- <br>
Brett Smith</div>
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