possible existing solutions that may be of help

[Bradley M. Kuhn]

teifeldassociates at netcom.com wrote at 19:15 (EDT) on Monday:
> There are many good proprietary nonprofit accounting system software
> packages that are setup to do fund accounting; one mentioned was
> FundEZ, but there is also Blackbaud and Sage 100 as well.
...
> Were these packages used by any of the individuals who were
> interviewed, and did they indicate that the functionality of these
> systems was inadequate in any way?

Actually, in that anecdote in the campaign document where I spoke to our
accountant, our accountant actually mentioned FundEZ and Blackbaud's
system by name, and mentioned that they probably wouldn't work well for
us for various reasons.  He had many other clients using them and found
various frustrations about them.  We discussed this with Fractured Atlas
as well, who ended up doing a one-off custom system because those
proprietary systems weren't adequate.

An early draft of the document mentioned the proprietary systems by
name, but we decided not to include them by name simply because it
seemed very aggressive to call them out as inadequate by name in a
fundraising campaign.

> I appreciate the importance of using an open source solution, and I
> wondered if in the considerations of those involved in the accounting
> system selection/design process whether FundEZ, Blackbaud, and/or Sage
> 100 were explored in any way- even if only as design templates.

I've considered getting a license to one of these programs so we can
analyze it (I'm not against using proprietary software if the only goal
is to figure out how to write a good Free Software replacement for it),
but I don't think it's cost effective.  I've talked with a lot of users
of these systems already, so I think we can proceed ok without it.  If
there are users of those systems who want to participate in this
discussion, I hope they will.

> One poster on lwn seems to have mentioned one of the key issues that
> seems to be at the core of what is needed- an understanding of fund
> accounting, and how to achieve it .... through existing open source
> ERP systems.

The poster in question was talking about OpenERP's multi-company
features, which I tried to use for a few weeks for Conservancy's
accounting back in 2008 and it was really inadequate.  That said,
OpenERP is on the list again as part of the Phase 0 evaluation, of
course -- maybe it's better now.

> I've noticed some of the discussion both here and at lwn.net regarding
> selecting an appropriate accounting system for SFLC.

I know that Clint from SFLC subscribed to this mailing list, but I don't
think there has been yet any discussion about SFLC and what they do for
accounting.  Most of the discussion I've seen here and LWN has been about
Conservancy's plan posted at http://sfconservancy.org/campaign/.
-- 
Bradley M. Kuhn, Executive Director, Software Freedom Conservancy