Survey of existing FLOSS accounting systems (was Re: Revitalization of npoacct project; Brett Smith will take over as project lead)

[Chris Travers]

Hi;



On Thu, Aug 25, 2016 at 8:12 PM, Bradley M. Kuhn <bkuhn at sfconservancy.org>
wrote:

> Tim,
>
> Tim Schofield wrote:
> > These are precisely the same needs as a for profit organisation.
>
> On this list and also in other venues, there's already been substantial
> discussion about the differences in needs, but we're well past the needs
> assessment phase of the project.  I know that some charities have been able
> to shoehorn existing for-profit accounting systems into their needs (FSF,
> for
> example, has used SQL-Ledger for years).  I've yet to meet anyone in a
> charity using these systems, though, who feels it really fits their needs
> fully, and that's why we started this project.  For my part, I spent months
> trying to make OpenERP and/or Tryton to work for fiscal sponsorship and
> just
> had to give up.  I did the same with SMBLedger.
>

It's worth noting it would be really helpful to work with someone who has
an actual need for funds accounting on LedgerSMB.

LedgerSMB 1.3 really could not handle funds.  You might be able to
repurpose departments or projects.

1.4 is much closer but I really don't have a gap analysis done.  The big
difference is that we went from a specific department and project structure
to a generic "dimensions" tagging structure for line items, so you can tag
lines for projects, departments, manufacturing lots, funds, etc.  In theory
this might be enough.  In practice, most of my experience is in other
sectors so I don't really know.

One thing we'd be really happy with would be a good, hard-hitting gap
analysis that we could work with folks on, so we can understand the needs,
document how to get the set up as close as possible to what you need, and
then figure out what pieces are fully missing.

>
> Generally, I don't think we want to reopen the entire debate on-list about
> why Conservancy is trying to adapt a few components from these other
> systems,
> rather than simply taking an existing system as it stands.  Nevertheless,
> if
> there is inaccurate information in the survey in our wiki,
> http://npoacct.sfconservancy.org/ExistingProjects/ , please do update the
> wiki with more information.
>

Not so much re-opening the debate (I am not here to convince people to use
LedgerSMB so much as to learn what we can do to better serve the NPO
community) but one thing I would suggest is that working with various
projects may get you further for less than trying to build your own project.

One thing the open source community seems to systematically undervalue is
the role of really good business analysts.  If there is one thing this
project could offer back that would be greatly appreciated, it would be
expertise in helping open source software projects support NPO's
generally.  What I was hoping to get out of this was a good stable API
specification we could implement in LedgerSMB.

At the end of the day, I would rather be competing with other open
source/free software projects than with Quickbooks, Sage, and the like.  I
doubt I am alone here. Financial sponsorship is great and all, but
contributions of knowhow and domain knowledge are far more valuable (even
more than code) especially in an underserved market.

>
> Meanwhile, please note that discussion here, at least for the next few
> months, is going to focus specifically on the reimbursement problem.
>
> BTW, I did my own survey (not documented in the wiki, mainly because I
> found
> virtually nothing) of existing code to do that job, so that's among the
> reasons that we're focusing on that subproject first.  But, if I missed
> something, and as we start to talk more about requirements here, if you
> know
> of a system that does the job we're discussing, please do tell us about it.
>

If you can come up with something that works, however it works, it would be
a very good reference implementation for the rest of us.  Th work around
the cli tools is good in this regard because the program is reasonably
simple, full-featured, etc and so I would expect what comes out to be
transparent and usable for many other projects as well.

>
> Meanwhile, Dave asked for URLs, many of which are already in the wiki, and
> I
> would encourage everyone to keep in the wiki, as many have come by IRC over
> the last two years and told me the links in the wiki are useful.
>
> > To answer Dave's question there are a number of libre accounting
> > systems that do this
>
> While I don't think discussion about other systems is off-topic -- indeed,
> the survey we did in this project was specifically about evaluating other
> systems -- I ask that we not derail every thread on this list into a
> discussion of what other systems exist and what they do.  We have rarely
> had
> traffic on this list over the last two years, but nearly every thread has
> so-degraded, and this seems now a trend.
>
> Perhaps we can designate one email thread about that topic and those that
> want to discuss it can follow up on that?
> --
>    -- bkuhn
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-- 
Best Wishes,
Chris Travers

Efficito:  Hosted Accounting and ERP.  Robust and Flexible.  No vendor
lock-in.
http://www.efficito.com/learn_more
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